THE NORTHERN Bullants, Carlton’s VFL affiliate, have suffered their second loss for the season after going down to Collingwood by 50 points at Visy Park on Saturday.

The Bullants now have five wins and two losses from their season, and are fifth on the ladder but equal on points with the third-placed Coburg Tigers and fourth-placed Port Melbourne. 

Coach David Teague shares his thoughts on the match and how some of the Carlton-listed players performed in the close win. 

Saturday’s loss was disappointing because we didn't play anywhere near our best, which is frustrating.

If you play your best and lose, you can accept it, but we were a long way off the pace.

We dominated play in the second quarter but we wasted some opportunities in front of goal. We had nine scoring shots to four, and they kicked four goals and we kicked something like 3.6, so we definitely had our chances early and didn't capitalise.

They didn't have a really flash side in but it was really even. They had some players back from the AFL in Anthony Corrie and Dayne Beams and Jaxson Barham, but it was probably the evenness that troubled us the most as their VFL players really stood up.

We had some positives in Jordan Bannister, who played a really good game after missing last week with suspension. He came back and played really well, as did Luke Morgan out on the wing.

Adam Hartlett was good down back. Collingwood had most of the play so the ball was coming into our back half, and Hartlett and Bannister kept us in the game early on. Joey Anderson was solid across half back again, but mainly, the whole team was down a bit.

Jordan is getting better, but because he missed last week and had an injury-interrupted pre-season as well as the bye two weeks ago, I don't think he'll be in the minds of the senior coaches at the moment. 

We moved Hartlett forward late in the game to try and steal the victory and he kicked a goal, but we just didn't get it down there enough.

Shaun Grigg won plenty of the ball but probably didn't hurt the opposition as much as we would have liked him too. His work rate was right up there and he played four quarters of solid football.

Chris Johnson played his first game of football after a thigh injury and he really went at the game early, which was good because he was the only one who was doing it for us. We gave him a rest each quarter but his efforts and his intensity were pretty good for his first game back.

He pulled up well although he was a little bit sore, having not played for awhile.

Cam Cloke managed to play after hurting his ankle last week, although he didn't have much influence at all as a forward. When he went into the ruck he got his hands on the ball a bit and gave our midfielders first use.

Next week, Heath Scotland, Andrew Carrazzo, Lachie Hill and Adam Bentick are all in the maybe range, so we'll probably get a couple of those back, along with Chris Yarran, who went home for a funeral.

We should get two or three or those back into the VFL system somewhere; whether Scotland and Carrazzo go straight back into the seniors and someone comes back down, or they just play for us, we should get a few players back either way.

Scotland hurt his neck in a contest against Collingwood in round eight but I'm not sure if that's what he missed last week with, or if it was his hamstring.

We're playing the top of the table Williamstown now, and they had a loss on the weekend, which was a bit of a bugger for us because we would have liked them to have a win.

It's going to be a great challenge and hopefully our guys can rebound. After the Box Hill game, we responded really well against Port Melbourne so hopefully we can do the same this week. 

Collingwood                2.3 6.3 10.5 16.8 (104)   
Northern Bullants      1.1 4.7 4.10 7.12 (54)

Collingwood
Goal kickers: Hunt 3, Dawes 3, Bryan 2, Beams 2, Frost 2, McCarthy, Sheahan, MacAffer, Blair
Best players: Hunt, Blair, Colbert, Beams, Dyas, Barham

Northern Bullants
Goal kickers: Tiller 2, Morgan, Bentley, Meese, Hartlett, Ellard
Best players: Bannister, Morgan, Hartlett, Iacobucci, Bransgrove, Grigg