DRYSDALE OUT FOR REDEMPTION
DRYSDALE co-coach Daniel Jull believes a five-day break will be a blessing for his side in the wake of Saturday's 77-point loss to Anglesea.
The undermanned Hawks were left to lick their wounds following an underwhelming performance against the ’Seas at Alcoa Oval, their first loss of the season.
But Jull said the shorter break would benefit his charges, who could be boosted by the return of star players for the Anzac Day blockbuster against Portarlington.
“We’ll take a lot from this game,” he said of the loss to Anglesea.
“We’ll look at the tape and see what Anglesea did well and what we did well and what we need to improve on.
“It’s lucky for us that we’ve got a short turnaround and we can make amends on Thursday afternoon against Portarlington.
“We’ll learn from this because they (Anglesea) are a quality outfit, and it just shows that we’re not there yet, and we need to get to that standard.”
After a fruitful recruiting campaign and two wins to start 2019, the Hawks were humbled against Anglesea.
But Jull was adamant his side knew what it would confront against the hardened Roos.
“Looking at the video, they had a good win first up and they were pretty good against Modewarre for three quarters but they just got run over,” he said.
“They’re a quality outfit; they played in the prelim last year and played finals the year before that, so they’ve been around the mark for a few years now.
“The way they move the ball and their consistency around the stoppages for the whole day was really good and that’s something we need to strive to get to.”
Regarded as an early frontrunner for the premiership, Jull called for calm as his newlook side continued to jell.
“A lot of people have the opinion that when you get a few good players that you will just shoot back up the ladder, but we’re under no illusions that we’re coming from a position of eighth last year and we had to make up a fair bit of ground,” he said.
“Against a quality side in Anglesea, we got showed up. We’ll do a bit of work on Tuesday night, review the game but then we move on and I’ve got full confidence in the group to bounce back.
“We’ll get a couple of guys back, and that will help us a little bit, but it wouldn’t have mattered who we played today, we were outclassed from the beginning of the game all the way through.
“We’ve got a bit of work to do, but it’s only Round 3 and we’ll go to work and train the way we want to train and hopefully that comes out in our game on Thursday.”