WHILE a loss to the emerging Greater Western Sydney may not have been the ideal lead-in to the 2013 home and away season, coach Scott Watters seemed satisfied at his team’s overall preparation.
Saturday’s loss to the Giants came after impressive wins over Adelaide, the Sydney Swans and Melbourne and Watters said he was generally pleased with how his side was shaping ahead of the round one clash with Gold Coast in two weeks.
“I’ve been pretty happy with a lot of things we’ve done over four or five weeks. Some of the things that need tidying up will be tidied up on the back of the work rate you look at today,” Watters said after the loss to the Giants.
“It was an inability today to work hard between the arcs. We were generally outnumbered at the contest and whether the ball went forward or went into our defensive half. A little bit of tapering over the next couple of weeks and we look forward to round one after a pretty testing three or four weeks.”
The humid, 33 degree weather at Blacktown in Sydney’s west continued the pattern of sweltering weather the Saints have faced in every game of the NAB Cup. But Watters said he was not using the heat as an excuse for going down to the AFL’s newest team.
“We have had four weeks where the best temperature has been 30 degrees and up to 39 but I don’t want to take anything away from what the Giants did today,” he said.
“I thought they ran harder, their contested ball was good and we were down in a few key areas so I certainly don’t want to use the conditions as an excuse but it has been a bit of an accumulation of load for us over four weeks.”
Watters reiterated that preparation for the campaign ahead was the team’s focus rather than hoping to rack up the wins.
“You need to look at your pre-season in its entirety or the NAB Cup series in its entirety. We got really good minutes into our players and we now have an opportunity to freshen up,” he said.
“If you look at the GWS side after nine or 10 players freshened up in a week and came back you see how they’re bouncing over the top of the ground. I’d much rather be preparing for round one than preparing for NAB 4.”
