After a 19-point loss to ladder leaders, St Kilda, assistant coach Ashley Prescott has said that the Bombers wasted several opportunities and failed to capitalise on a game that they could have won.
Speaking on Weekend Rewind, Prescott said the Bombers had more disposals than St Kilda but were unable to use it to their advantage.
“We are not interested at all in honourable losses,” he said.
“It was extremely difficult because we were in the game for most of the time and just couldn’t capitalise on some forward entries. At the end of the day St Kilda was really able to rebound and make us pay when they went forward.
“Next week, we need to make sure we turn up with an increased intensity, we need to make sure we learn from the weekend and make the most of every time we have the ball in our hands.”
Despite the loss, Prescott was impressed with young defenders Cale Hooker and Tayte Pears gathering 44-possessions between them and showing some promising signs.
“They were brilliant. Playing with the dare they played with was fantastic, some of the change of direction that Cale Hooker had and the bursts he showed out of defence were absolutely brilliant, this is something we haven’t really seen as a coaching group yet,” he said.
“Cale continues to get better and better- he physically stood up to Reiwoldt a couple of times too which showed enormous courage.
“Tayte Pears with his ability to position himself, read the play and use the ball with a lot of poise was tremendous.”
Prescott payed tribute to midfielder Andrew Lovett, who took the game on with his speed and dare which in turn, gave the side plenty of run all day.
“Lovett is in absolute blue chip form, he's an excitement machine. His ability to just dance around opponents and to have that awareness and time with the football has been fantastic,” he said.
“He is virtually impossible to tackle and he is working a lot better defensively too– his ability to push down and help the defenders out has been great.”
