Panthers must “simply do better”

By Justin Robertson
DANDENONG Panthers continued their horrid form in the short version of the game, losing by five wickets to Geelong at the Geelong Oval in yet another one dayer.
Since mid December, the Panthers have only managed one win against Richmond, losing six from their past seven games – all of which have been one dayers or T20s.
It seems their one-day form has all but deserted them.
On Saturday at Geelong, Panthers skipper Darren Dempsey paid homage to the opposition on their all-round performance, but admitted his team needed to “simply do better” when it came to the batting department.
“Our batting is letting us down at the moment and we are just not gett-ing enough runs from the top order,” he said.
“The wicket had a bit in it early, it certainly hardened up as the day went on – so that worked well for Geelong batting second – but really they just did everything better than we did in all aspects of the game.”
The Panthers were sent in on a green top and they could barely get out of first gear with wickets falling at regular interval.
The top four bats were all back in the shed at 4/60 with scores of 8,14,15 and 8.
James Nanopoulos did his best to resurrect the innings in the second session with a solid 33, but the loss of 3/21 in the middle order saw the Panthers slump to 7/129.
A late flurry with the bat from Brett Fairbanks (28) and Dylan Quirk (28) gave them some hope of defending a reasonable target of 190.
Geelong on the other hand, made batting conditions look easy and cruised to 2/101 by the 20-over mark.
With wickets in hand they were able to quickly chase down 190, five wickets down.
Justin Butterfield was the pick of the bowlers for the Panthers with 4/55.
At the start of the season, Dempsey said bowling stocks were plentiful, but now they were struggling to find quick bowlers.
Back injuries to Paul Boraston, Darren Pattinson and James Wilcock haven’t helped.
And, the use of Australian Test quick Peter Siddle and Victorian speedster James Pattinson has been limited.
“It’s not ideal this time of year to be down to two bowlers,” he said. “But hopefully we can get Patto and Siddle back for finals – we just have to get there now.”
The Panthers task of winning at least one from their last two games just got tougher, as they take on first-placed Carlton this week.
“We’re just going to have manufacture some wins from here on in,” he said.
“It’s going to be hard, there will be some opportunities for some bowlers in the two’s but we just need to make more runs and get more from our top order.”