By ROY WARD
NOBLE Park coach Mick Fogarty hopes his side’s surprise loss to Blackburn at Morton Park on Saturday will spur his players into action.
Despite being in control for much of the match, the Bulls fell behind late in the last term and were unable to regain the lead before the final siren.
The Burners won 16.10 (106) to 14.17 (101) leaving the Bulls with a 1-1 record after two matches in the Eastern Football League division 1 season.
Fogarty was critical of his players’ urgency and intensity in parts of their round 1 win over East Burwood and the problem again reared its head against the Burners, as did the Bulls’ poor kicking for goal.
“Sometimes it takes a loss like this to make the guys realise how hard it is to get up each week in this competition and how important it is to get our desire up from the start,” Fogarty said.
“I’m dumbfounded we lost. I thought the group we had was good enough to win and we virtually controlled the match right throughout but the shots on goal that we missed hurt us because we couldn’t build that scoreboard pressure.
“That being said, take nothing away from Blackburn. They have always been tough to play at home and even in our premiership years we only ever won games there by small margins.”
The Bulls will get significant help next match with recruit Beau Cosson, captain Craig Anderson and injured midfielder Stewart Kemperman all slated to return. Cosson was serving a two-game suspension from last season while Anderson and Kemperman missed the loss to the Burners as a precaution with Kemperman suffering a hamstring twinge last Thursday night.
“We have got eight senior blokes to come back into the side in the next two weeks but that being said, I still think the side we picked to play Blackburn was good enough to win the match. Clearly it wasn’t.”
Sam Monaghan, Chris Horton-Milne, Aaron Dunne, Rob Kemperman and George Angelopoulos were named best players for the Bulls while Brett Dore and Matt Dunne each kicked three goals.
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