East Perth is still searching for its first win of the year after letting a golden opportunity slip against Swan Districts on Saturday.
The Royals led for much of the day, but the undefeated Swans hung tough and ran over the home side in the final quarter to record a 11.7 (73) to 9.9 (63) victory.
East Perth senior coach Luke Webster said he was extremely proud of his team’s effort but admitted his young charges lacked some polish during critical stages of the contest.
“I thought the boys had a really good crack all day,” he said.
“We were in a position to win the game of footy and unfortunately a couple of things let us down late in the game and we couldn’t quite get the win.”
Webster was particularly pleased with how his defensive unit stood up against the Swans’ experienced attack.
He was full of praise for Category B rookie Francis Watson, who amassed a game-high 32 touches, reeled in seven marks and stuck seven effective tackles.
“Frankie Watson was really good against off half back,” Webster said.
“He’s obviously finding a heap of the footy but now he’s defending the ball really well and not losing many of his contests, which is really good to see.”
Webster also lauded the efforts of experienced stoppers Sam Butler (26 disposals, 10 marks, five spoils) and Will Schofield (18 possessions, nine marks), ruckman Fraser McInnes (18 disposals, 34 hit outs) and key forward Tom Lamb (15 touches, eight marks, one goal).
Liam Duggan also toiled away in the midfield after copping a big hit during the first half.
“Liam Duggan was good all day,” Webster said.
“He cracked in all day, even after he hurt himself. He continued to fight the game out and did some really good plays for us.”
Although he was disappointed with the weekend’s result, Webster believed the Royals weren’t far from registering their first win of the 2017 WAFL season.
“The thing we’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks has been not overusing the footy and we did that better on Saturday,” he said.
“Our midfield connection has been off for the first few games and we connected really well and got some really good looks against the Swans.
“Our best footy is good enough to compete with any side in the competition, but there are moments in games where we just let ourselves down. We’ve got to keep chipping away.
“We can’t have one of those years where little things are going to let us down and we lose games of footy on the back of us not getting things right. I told the boys after the match that we need to keep the faith because we are playing some good footy and it’s going to come; it will come really quickly and will all click at one stage.”
