The Greater Western Victoria Rebels have lost their fourth consecutive game of the season, falling by 32 points to the Tasmania Devils in round nine of the NAB League boys competition.
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The Rebels squandered some early scoring opportunities gave up some easy goals on the other end, leading to a 35-20 half time deficit.
Stepping in for coach Mark Grieg who missed the game due to commitments with the Vic Country team, assistant coach Ashley Baker said it was the simple things which let the Rebels down.
"We had some issues moving the ball," he said.
"Our efficiency by hand and by foot wasn't great which led to a lot of easy ball for them and allowed them to get the ball inside their forward 50 to easily."
Baker weighed in on how the Rebels' poor goal kicking left them playing from behind for the vast majority of the game.
"We started with some good intent and applied plenty of good pressure but our kicking just let us down. We had opportunities... we really needed to nail some of our early chances to stay in the game."
Midfielder Riley Polkinghorne echoed his coaches sentiments.
"We were pretty competitive but I thought we didn't take our chances and were a bit ineffective."
Polkinghorne believes the Rebels simply need to get back to basics to turn their recent poor form around.
"We've just got to get more focused on training and our skill execution, we were a bit sloppy today and just need to execute the basic skills better."
The GWV Rebels next game will be at home against the Eastern Rangers on June 8.