Dragons fail to fire despite win
BELL Park co-coach Luke Rayner concedes his side is not playing its best footy, despite an undefeated start to the season, which continued with a 38-point win over Newtown & Chilwell.
The 12.7 (79) to 6.5 (41) victory was set up on the back of a seven-goal second quarter to turn a six-point quartertime deficit into a 31-point buffer at the main break.
Despite this, Rayner admitted the game was “a bit of a grind” and believes the Dragons are still searching for their best, even after a 33-point victory over Geelong West in Round 1 and a 56-point win against North Shore in Round 2.
“We haven’t jumped out of the blocks in any shape or form, we’ve got quite a few new blokes into the team and we’ve still got a lot of things to improve on and that becomes our aim moving forward,” he said.
“The good part is we’re winning games, even if we’re not playing as well as you’d like to be playing, so that becomes our challenge over the next month in particular with a really solid run coming up in terms of our fixture.
“We’re going to have to raise our improvement and raise our bar for a couple of big weeks, which I’ve got no doubt we can do.”
The barnstorming second-term was at odds with the rest of the congested game, with Bell Park finding plenty of run and dominating possession.
In his first senior game since 2016 following a longinjury lay-off, small forward Charlie Farrell kicked two goals for the quarter as the Dragons took the ascendancy.
“We didn’t quite have the game on our terms in the first quarter and credit to Newtown for starting a bit better, but we were just able to adjust our mindset a bit at quarter-time and then obviously come out rolling in the second quarter,” Rayner said. “Once we did that, we were able to get the game back on our terms.”
Jackson Bright and Kyle O’Connor were prolific all day and finished with two goals each, while Harry Smith nullified Mathieson medallist Matt McMahon in a run-with role.
Josh Jokic competed well against David Fanning in the ruck, while one of the club’s nine 2018 debutants, Aiden Domic, won plenty of the ball and nearly lay down a contender for goal of the year after a five-bounce run just missed.