Bombers live and learn

Overrun by the Roos, but coach Whitford sees the positives

NORTH Launceston coach Taylor Whitford stopped short of declaring Saturday’s loss to Clarence as one that his side needed, but he conceded victory may have papered over a few cracks.

The reigning TSL premier coughed up a 19-point threequarter time lead to go down to the Roos by two points in a thriller at Blundstone Arena, with Clarence ruckman Ryan Bailey booting the go-ahead goal with just 90 seconds remaining from a free kick 30m out directly in front.

The Bombers looked like putting the game to bed with some trademark slick football in the third term — kicking six goals to two — but were held goalless in the last to be overrun.

“We probably should have held on and won the game of footy, but then it would have masked some of the things we weren’t doing well,” Whitford said after the defeat.

“We look at it that it is June, we made a lot of mistakes and hopefully we can learn from it.

“Clarence were pretty good, I thought our third quarter was great and showed what we can do when we set our mind to it and play the way we want to play.

“Yet the last quarter we went back to the way they wanted to play, which was disappointing.

“I didn’t think we were clean all day, we weren’t clean at the contest, one-arm tackles letting them through. Obviously you always want to win, but it [losing] doesn’t let us mask over a few things that weren’t great and it highlights them. Coming off a loss you probably look at the negatives more than the positives.”

North heads into its second bye atop the ladder at 9-2, but Clarence can join the flag fav- ourite with a win against Glenorchy this weekend.

Whitford will give the squad the entire week off to refresh before launching into the last third of the season, aware his troops will continue to be the hunted.

“We have been there for three years now, it is not a new process for us and we don’t have to come up with anything whiz bang to combat it,” he said.

“But the reality is sides are going to get up for us, which is great, every week we have got to look to improve.”