Dragons shut out clamour

BELL Park coach Bree Walton says her team is focused on improving its performance and will not be concerned with North Shore’s form going into their clash this weekend.

The Dragons are coming off a draw with Geelong West while North Shore is looking to rebound from a 101-goal loss to Leopold.

But Walton said her players would not be distracted.

“We’re not really worried about what happened last week with North Shore, we know that they have some issues they’re dealing with, but we’re really focused on trying to build our team and bond together and making sure we’re starting to jell,” she said.

“We drew on the weekend, which is never an outcome you want, even if it’s better than a loss, but we’re just going in trying to build our confidence and work on our strategies.”

The Seagulls might not trouble many teams but their on-court woes could cause some headaches for sides if they become complacent.

Walton said there was no danger her players would fall into that trap, especially considering there were so many new faces to the region.

“We have a really new set of girls — there are only three girls from last year — so they don’t know anything about North Shore, which is a bonus for us,” she said.

“We’ll just be telling them it’s another game that we have to get a win and we’ll be taking it as though we need to get our own things done.

“Training will be the same as usual and we’ll be building our strategies and then it’s just another game as usual.”

Despite only playing one game so far for the year, Bell Park will be desperate for a win given its tough run of games in the weeks ahead.

The Dragons face reigning champion Newtown next week, followed by matches against the improved St Mary’s and Colac, and 2017 finalists St Joseph’s and South Barwon.