Northern Blues senior coach Josh Fraser says while the last fortnight’s results have been disappointing, he's pleased by his side’s progress in 2016.
Saturday’s loss to Richmond at Ikon Park all but ended Northern’s chances of making finals for the first time since 2011.
For the second consecutive week, the Blues came out of the blocks in a fast-paced game but ultimately succumbed late to go down to the Tigers.
“Whenever you lose it’s disappointing. We cost ourselves a lot of opportunities with some ball use and decision making and early we were caught on the back foot defensively,” Fraser said.
“It probably wasn’t one thing, it was a lot of little things which added up to what was ultimately a really disappointing loss.”
Fraser said the recent trend of kicking big scores in shoot-outs hadn’t been a conscious decision and was one that needed to be changed.
The Blues have had the second leakiest defence in the VFL competition this year, with the weekend seeing them concede their eighth score over 100 points.
“[The game] was a bit similar to last week and it’s not the way we want to play our footy: defensively we need to review our system and how our personnel is operating in that system,” Fraser said.
“We’re definitely conceding too many goals off the back of turnover: they’re almost 12-point plays where we have the opportunity to go inside our 50 and hit the scoreboard but it goes the other way.”
Despite going down for their 10th loss of the season, Fraser said he was heartened by the Blues’ improvement over the course of the campaign.
The first-year coach mentioned his young side was constantly striving for consistency in performance by the week and over four quarters.
“It’s a work in progress which we continue to say, it’s a completely new system which we’ve seen some really good growth in but there are times where we haven’t got it right,” Fraser said.
“It’s another step in where we’re heading… consistency is the thing we’re after and we’ll keep working to bring that to the table.”
With two matches remaining in Northern’s season with a bye to come this week, Fraser said it was important the Blues don’t get complacent and continue to adapt and learn at all levels.
“We’re looking at all aspects of the game, whether it’s in terms of executing, carrying out the system for longer or being compliant to instructions,” Fraser said.
“We’re continually reviewing the way we communicate our messaging as coaches, how we review players and how the players review themselves.”
The Northern Blues’ next match comes on Saturday, August 20, with their match against Williamstown at Ikon Park also their final home game of the season.
