North Ballarat Roosters coach Marc Greig is imploring his group to take the game on from the very first bounce as it hosts Werribee on Saturday afternoon.
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The Roosters have struggled for consistent form throughout the season and have fallen victim to significant lapses within matches.
However, last week’s 91-point loss to Williamstown saw the good Roosters and the bad Roosters appear across the four quarters. Unfortunately the bad outweighed the good, but its final quarter showed signs of what it was capable of as it matched it with the Seagulls and created seven of its 12 scoring shots.
After addressing the issue with the players during the week, some players felt the group played without fear given the lop-sided scoreboard. Greig said the challenge now was to not worry about the scoreboard and gave the group a “licence” to take risks.
“Someone made mention of ‘you’ve got nothing to lose when you’re 10 goals down at three quarter-time’ – well you’ve got nothing to lose in the first quarter, it’s not as though we’re looking to sneak into finals or anything - lets take the game on,” Greig said.
“We’ve told you to go for it from the start, you’ve got the licence to do that.
“Be brave and take it on from the start.
“We just want to move it quicker like we did in the last quarter because that gave us an opportunity to kick six or seven goals.”
While North Ballarat may not be blessed with the same talent as some of its VFL rivals, Greig said bringing the right mindset was the main focus.
He felt executing the desired game plan and backing in the group’s skill level to play an attacking brand on gameday started above the shoulders.
However, replicating matchday pressure is difficult to do, but decision making had been high on the agenda during the week.
“The understanding of what we want to do is there, I think at training we do it reasonably well...but you turn up on game day, you try and train that pressure, but you just can’t.
“We’re under pressure, but game-like pressure is another thing.
“It’s ongoing.
“The best players in the game are the best decision makers under pressure, whether it’s Pendlebury, Dangerfield, Mitchell.
“I’ve never dragged anyone because they’ve made a mistake, that’s always going to happen – it’s what you do next. We want blokes to have the courage to take the game on.”