Werribee coach Paul Satterley says his side’s pressure was lacking on Sunday. 63832
By Michael Esposito
IF PAUL Satterley can take a positive out of Sunday’s game, it’s that his side was well below its best and still lost by only 13 points against one of the VFL’s top sides.
“We felt we had no ascendancy, no momentum at all, and we’re pretty fortunate to be as close as we were,” Satterley said. “Probably right up to halfway through the third, it was looking pretty ugly.
“I think we take out of it that we stuck to our task, got a sniff, and needed everything to go our way. You’ve got to make your own momentum and I just thought to give a side of that quality the start they did it was always going to be hard to peg them back.
“We just had to kick every goal and get every chance that came and we didn’t, that’s why the gap was 13 points.”
A slow-starting and at times sloppy Werribee was 30 points behind midway through the second quarter, and while the side battled valiantly to stay in the game, it never really looked like threatening Williamstown until the last term.
“I honestly thought we played poorly today, and we lost by 13 points. We laid 32 tackles in the game, and we’re averaging 68 a game. We can’t kid ourselves, we need to be absolutely up and about with our pressure and work rate and they had 50 more marks, which just shows that we gave them those hit-up kicks.”
Werribee confined Williamstown to 13 goals, compared with 23 when they clashed in round one.
“If we laid 60 tackles maybe we would have won, but we didn’t. But we have improved a hell of a lot since round one,” Satterley said.
Ben McKinley was Werribee’s prime target up forward, but while he presented well and took eight marks, his kicking was uncharacteristically poor.
“For such an elite user of the pill, he let himself down with some of his disposal and he’s so much better than that,” Satterley said.
Satterley praised Ben Sharp’s performance. The tough midfielder had 31 possessions and seven clearances.
“We’ve given him a hell of a lot responsibility and he’s taken it and built on his year. He’s been one of our best contributors all season,” Satterley said.
