COLTS REPORT WITH COACH BRAD DODD - OCEAN HILLL ESTATE

The long road towards the start of the season was rubber stamped last weekend as the Peel Thunder Colts finished off their trial campaign with a hit out against East Perth at Bendigo Bank Stadium. 

 

7 players came into the side for their first match of the pre-season while we also got to look at 7 of our South West kids who had missed the previous week. All our squad managed to play at least one game in the pre-season, with 35 playing 2 games. 

 

The first quarter of the East Perth trial was a scrappy affair with both sides creating opportunities but both teams unable to convert up forward. Peel opened their account with a goal line scramble that resulted in a goal to Jackson Knight before an impressive Jaxon Egan converted one of his chances to round off the scoring. A wasteful Peel lead at quarter time, 2.6 to 0.1. Andrew Butler was finding plenty of the ball through the middle while Cam Gavin was working his way into the game after a 3 week lay off with injury. 

 

Peel came out with more intent in the 2nd quarter, and started to convert their chances. Brendan Cooke was providing a strong target up forward, kicking 2 goals for the quarter, while Cam Gavin, Lachlan Riley and Zach Rankin were busy through the middle. Down back, Jason Carter was providing plenty of dash. At half time, the Thunder held a substantial lead. 

 

It was more of the same after half time, with Kilian Rawson, Andrew Butler and Zach Rankin once again finding plenty of ball. At times the young Thunder team were guilty of overusing it but for the most part played the style of football thats been evident through the whole pre-season campaign.

 

The last quarter saw a strong response from East Perth, with the Royals outscoring the Thunder 4.3 to 2.1. Overall, it was a solid performance by the Thunder as they ran out winners by 61 points. Better players on the day included Andrew Butler, Kilian Rawson, Jaxon Egan, Lachlan Riley, Zach Rankin and Brendan Cooke. 

 

The squad now heads into a short week, kicking off the 2018 campaign against the reigning premiers, East Fremantle, at 11.30am on Good Friday. 

 

Brad Dodd