CHRIS Dawes says he was frustrated with his performance against North Melbourne last round, despite being one of Melbourne’s best players.
Dawes, who produced one of his best matches for the club last round, kicked 3.3 and proved a dangerous combination with outstanding younger Jesse Hogan. But the 27-year-old said he would’ve liked to have finished his game stronger.
“I was pretty disappointed. It’s better than I’ve been playing, but that’s not really saying much I don’t think,” he told Dee TV.
“I certainly felt dangerous throughout the game and particularly with Jesse being in such good form and him being such a good player. If we’re both playing at the right intensity, we can be a real partnership up there – and start to stretch teams.
“It was definitely one of my better games for the year, but I was disappointed, as I felt I missed a couple of crucial goals that I’d ordinarily kick, and didn’t quite have the impact that I’d like.”
Aside from the goals kicked between Dawes and Hogan, the 2010 Collingwood premiership player said it was the fact that they were able to create some headaches for the opposition that pleased him the most.
“Even if the return isn’t seven goals from us per game – just the fact that we felt so dangerous up there [was pleasing],” he said.
“That was against a pretty good North Melbourne defence. [Scott] Thompson and [Robbie] Tarrant, neither of them are slouches – they’re decent players. We back ourselves and we back the way the mids have been moving the ball.
“We’ve only played 10 games together, so the more we play together – the more we’ll understand each other’s strengths and movement patterns and hopefully we can become a partnership that will actually test a few defences.