Mission to shoot down the Eagles
IT IS five hours since Neville Jetta put Luke Breust to sleep, but the only problem is he can’t do it himself.
It is 3.30am Sunday and Jetta’s mind is moving just as fast as his feet did on the MCG in Melbourne’s dramatic semifinal win over Hawthorn.
“You’re going through in your head all the things you could have done better and the moments you want to take back and you can overthink it,” Jetta said.
“You’re sitting there, not tired, just thinking and trying to shut down. But I’ve got a lot better at that; early in my career I wasn’t able to sleep at all.”
Jetta is too modest to say it, but such is his form he should be sleeping like a baby.
The Demons’ tenacious small defender, one of seven Melbourne players this year to play every game, has been a dependable rock in coach Simon Goodwin’s back six.
One-on-one, Jetta has consistently stood up under pressure in the big moments.
And there is no bigger moment than this afternoon at a raucous Perth Stadium against an ever-dangerous Eagles small forward fleet that poses a constant threat.
“I think it’s more the concentration,” Jetta said of the challenges of playing as a small defender at the top level.
“These guys are really sniffing every opportunity.”
With Liam Ryan, Willie Rioli, Jamie Cripps and Mark LeCras capable of igniting West Coast at any moment, Jetta and co. can’t switch off for a second.
“You don’t want to give these blokes any space,” Jetta said. “I’ll probably be floating through most of them.
“Like last time we played them (Round 22), I had Willie for a bit, obviously Liam and LeCras as well,” he said.
“I probably like to keep myself a bit deeper.
“We know Oscar (McDonald) and ‘ Frosty’ (Sam Frost) have got pretty big jobs (Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling) in front of them, so we’re going to help them out as much as possible.
“We’ve got Michael Hibberd, who is a good one-onone player, Bailey Fritsch is composed, Christian Salem is as hard as anything and Jordan Lewis is really marshalling us.
“As a back six we’ve played a lot of footy together and we’ve been building this year. We will back ourselves again.”