COACH Dean Bailey says riding the highs and lows have been the team’s biggest hurdle this season.
The Demons entered Friday night’s clash against Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium with a 6-1-6 win-draw-loss record and were inside the top eight.
But a 64-point loss continued a frustrating season, highlighted by some significant wins and losses.
“That’s always going to be the challenge, particularly for this year,” he said.
“Where we’ve found ourselves is not where we want to be. It’s certainly an area we must get better at - and get better at quickly.
“We’re not talking about a competitive opportunity - we’re talking about a 10-goal loss.
“Six in the last quarter was a very disappointing way to finish, considering in the third quarter, we started to win the fundamental stats that we’ve been good at in the last two weeks.”
Bailey said his team didn’t apply enough pressure in its forward zone, which proved costly.
“We didn’t have enough tackles in the forward line and we were unable to keep it in our forward line at times,” he said.
“To the Bulldogs’ credit, they were able to get the ball out of their back 50 pretty easily at times, which we’ve been very good at pressing up on.
“Our press tonight was nowhere near what it was in the last couple of weeks and where it’s been previously.”
The Demons entered Friday night’s clash against Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium with a 6-1-6 win-draw-loss record and were inside the top eight.
But a 64-point loss continued a frustrating season, highlighted by some significant wins and losses.
“That’s always going to be the challenge, particularly for this year,” he said.
“Where we’ve found ourselves is not where we want to be. It’s certainly an area we must get better at - and get better at quickly.
“We’re not talking about a competitive opportunity - we’re talking about a 10-goal loss.
“Six in the last quarter was a very disappointing way to finish, considering in the third quarter, we started to win the fundamental stats that we’ve been good at in the last two weeks.”
Bailey said his team didn’t apply enough pressure in its forward zone, which proved costly.
“We didn’t have enough tackles in the forward line and we were unable to keep it in our forward line at times,” he said.
“To the Bulldogs’ credit, they were able to get the ball out of their back 50 pretty easily at times, which we’ve been very good at pressing up on.
“Our press tonight was nowhere near what it was in the last couple of weeks and where it’s been previously.”
