Bombers regain edge

LAUDERDALE coach Darren Winter has shouldered the blame for a drop in intensity from the ladder-leading outfit who crashed back to earth last weekend.

The high-flying Bombers were sitting two games clear on top of the TSL ladder before having their bubble burst with a seven-goal thrashing from Launceston on Saturday.

Winter admitted he had been “going through the motions” as his side chalked up 12 wins from its first 13 games — but has promised a sharper edge when it steps onto its home fortress tomorrow against Tigers.

“It certainly was a bit of a setback for us and something that we reviewed pretty hard,” Winter said. “I think we’ve probably glossed over a lot over the last six or seven weeks and it probably brought us back to earth a little bit.

“As the coach you take responsibility for the team performance and to be honest I’ve probably just being going through the motions a little bit as well.

“That flows down to the players and that was probably the result we had on the weekend, but you don’t take things away from Launceston, they played some bloody good footy and dominated and they probably beat us at our own game.

“I suppose you’ve got to put more into the game and because we were winning it sort of got less and less and we let the players play footy — which we’ve done over a long period of time — but I think they probably needed a little bit more structure and a little bit more information about the opposition, which certainly comes down to our planning.

“We’ve certainly planned a lot harder this week.”

Winter said his group must learn to accept the scrutiny that comes with being among the premiership fancies, with several players receiving increased attention

“It certainly showed some deficiencies in the way we were going about it, but I think we’re getting scrutinised a lot more now we’re on top and probably the players are getting matchups on them that we probably don’t get normally.”