The Soaring

Recap
After consecutive defeats the Eagles traveled to Adelaide and through a solid hard working effort, we came away with the points.

Adelaide 4.3 6.6 8.10 10.14 74
West Coast Eagles 3.3 7.7 11.10 14.11 95

After not winning at AAMI stadium for years, we’ve now won our last four there (against the Crows) and it now is challenging the Gabba as our home away from home.

Top Five

1. Daniel Kerr reads The Soaring
How do I know? Well because he set about using this game to prove me wrong - he very well can be numero uno in this side and when it was needed on Sunday Kerr stepped up and delivered (gee, that sounded a bit too much little John Casey).

Kerr absolutely destroyed the Crows with his work rate, his hunger for the contest and a couple of acts of inspiration. He won the ball, but it more how he went about it. The Crows put their number tag Robert Shirley on him and it had zero impact. Kerr’s running was sensational and proved to be valuable in tandem with the likes of Priddis, Fletcher and the other Eagle’s ball winners. Great to see the little champ back to his best.

2. This win would have Robert Walls moderately happy
The reason is of course “forward structure”. The introduction of Chad Jones was the master stroke all of us fanboy would-be coaches have been calling for since Jones got on a roll with Claremont in the WAFL, and he proved his worth and looked dangerous all game. He finished with 3 goals two and teamed beautifully with Lynch further up the ground, Seaby in the goal square along with the agile Embley and LeCras.

In fact for some reason Lynch rarely kicks goals at AAMI (due to Ben Rutten maybe?) but consistently other players bob up. Embley is one who’s done it in the past, as has Hansen and Hunter, Graham and Staker. In Sunday’s game, who would’ve picked Seaby, LeCras and Chones coming up with 9 of our 14 goals? (don’t say you, we won’t believe you).

3. Mark LeCras
Talking of forward structure this was Mark LeCras best game for the club. He did kick 5 goals against Richmond round 22 last season, but that game was a rout. This game was tight and LeCras stood up with three crucial and clutch goals.

It could be a combination of 5 games on end now for LeCras or the result of hard work paying off for him, whatever it was, his three second half goals were all the result of very good play. Two opportunistic snaps and one strong mark and straight kick. If only all our forwards could kick as straight as the Frenchman…

I think if LeCras could work on his torso strength or agility - he still tends to get stuck in a lot of tackles - he’d be a very very good forward for us. As it is the promising signs are there.

4. The Return of Embers
How good was he? 20 possessions and 2 goals three - great stuff even though he looked absolutely knackered. He really is a valuable player to us and is extremely difficult to replace. People talk about our Judd-less record, I reckon our Embley record would be pretty average - maybe even sub 50%.

In fact it’s players like Embley that makes us own Adelaide. Taller utilities - of the Selwood, Nicoski, Bones, Waters even Hunter ilk - are too much for the midget brigade of Adelaide it seems. That’s one theory at least…

5. The turning of the wheel
There’s no doubt a lot of the fundamentals were back for this game. Great momentum from the midfield, great work rate and pressure on the ball, rock solid defence and rebound, good ball use (after quarter time), excellent run and good forward line efficiency.

I hope this isn’t another false dawn. Adelaide were a few players down, but then again so were we. I think away wins against rated opposition are always a good benchmark for the fans and seem to mean a fair bit to the players as well, judging by their reactions on the field.

We’ve got a tough run ahead and I can’t wait to see how we fair heading into September.