McNamara: We wont shy away from Perth loss

The East Fremantle Sharks were stunned by the Perth Demons on Saturday afternoon, as the Demons held on for a thrilling 11 point victory at Lathlain Park.

Perth not only clawed back East Fremantle’s early advantage, they pushed on to lead throughout the majority of the second half, spurred by a seven goal performance from Cody Leggett.

The Sharks are left licking their wounds after back-to-back losses have sent them down to fourth in the standings, 12 points behind leaders South Fremantle and Subiaco.

The Demons enjoyed multiple purple patches throughout the afternoon, with almost every Perth breakthrough goal leading to a streak of two or more. Sharks captian Jamie McNamara said the Sharks did themselves no favours in these periods.

“It was a frustrating day for us,” said McNamara.

“For probably the last two week’s we’ve gone away from what got us into a good position for the year so we’ll have to address some things and have a look at what really went wrong today.

“Today our skills were a bit off and we made life a bit tricky for ourselves. Our pressure around the ball, and our energy and intensity probably faded away as the game went on which was disappointing.”

Alongside Jayden Schofield, McNamara led the side with 25 disposals while Brock O’Brien (4), Peake (3), Fraser Perry and Lewis Krakouer (2) were the day’s multiple goal-kickers.

Even debutant Jake Solomon got on the scoresheet, goaling with his first kick in league footy in the opening term.

O’Brien spearheaded the Sharks’ ultimately unsuccessful comeback, kicking a goal after the three quarter time siren and a further two in the final term as East Fremantle went from 20 points down to within a kick into time on in the final term.

Perth’s win was secured by a Brennan Stack screamer on the goalline with minutes to play, sending the home fans into raptures as they celebrated their upset victory.

East Fremantle will have to turn their focus to face West Perth who saw their seven game winning streak come to an end this afternoon at the hands of South Fremantle.

McNamara said the team has already addressed their preparation for next Saturday’s trip to Arena Joondalup, and credited the maturity of the group to ask tough questions of themselves post game.

“It’s going to be a good challenge for us, the boys are even more hungury to go out and turn things around,” said McNamara.

“We had a good chat amongst the group and we got it out of our system a little bit, and that’s what good about these guys, because we’re not shying away from what went wrong and glossing over things.”

“We’ll address them directly and will work hard on the track to make sure we’re in a good position next week.”

Losses to the Development League and Colts capped off a disappointing day for the Sharks.

A final term fade away saw a 15 point advantage turn into a 13 point loss for the Development League, falling 14.8.92 to 11.13.79.

A goalless opening half and some inaccuracy up front was the undoing for the Colts side, falling 8.6.54 to 2.7.19.