I have been reflecting on the season that was over the last couple of days, contemplating again what may have been and what could have been.
We managed to win seven games this season, two more wins than we had managed for the previous two seasons. This was a couple of more than what I had thought we would win at the start of the year and is probably helped by the two wins over the Tigers and the three wins over Swans who had a miserable year. (Not having a dig there as I know you boys will bounce back next season, you always do

)
One thing that killed us again this season was our disposal efficiency by hand and foot. It was terrible at times and saw numerous kicks to leading players in our forward line butchered because we couldn’t hit a target or took too long to make the right decision which didn’t help us on the scoreboard. These mistakes also lead to turnovers which gave the opposition shots at goal and more often than not they converted them.
On conversion, ours in front of goal this year wasn’t that great either. We kicked 186 goals and 199 behinds for a conversion rate of just 48%.
We only managed to kick over 90-points four times this season. 95-points against Claremont in round two, 95-points against Swans in round eight, 104-points against East Fremantle in round 14 and 100-points against Swans in round 22.
Disappointingly we scored less than 50-points seven times this season. We averaged 65.75 points a game this season which is a very slight improvement on last year but still three to four goals off where it needs to be.
The defensive side of our game makes for interesting reading. 11 times this season we had 90 plus points kicked against us. Seven of those 11 were over 100 points. All of those games were against the top six teams. Interestingly though we only conceded on average 86.45 points a game. This was down from 106.9 points in 2015 and 109.35 points in 2014.
Frustratingly we still have that ability to be within striking distance of an opposition at three quarter time and even at stages in the fourth quarter to fall apart completely. A couple of matches that best reflect this are:
Round Two vs West Perth
Kick the first two goals of the last quarter to be within a goal and you would think that we had a little bit of momentum but we drop our bundle and the Falcons kick the last five goals of the game to win by 41 points.
Round Four vs Subiaco
Not saying we should have won but we matched it in every facet with the Lions instead of goal kicking efficiency and lost by 50 points.
Round 11 vs West Perth
Three-points down at three quarter time to be outrun by the Falcons who have had the wood on us over the years and loose by 26 points.
Round 13 vs East Perth
10-points down at three quarter time and get dominated in the last term and loose by six goals.
Round 18 vs Peel Thunder
Coming off the bye and having won four of our previous five matches we travelled down to Cunderdin but didn’t rock up till the second quarter. Peel kicked the first five goals of the game and we ended up going down by 11-points.
While the season has been disappointing as the aim should always be to play finals I feel that we are in a slightly better position than what we were 12 months ago. The overall commitment that was shown by the players for majority of games was better than it has been for a while and we also saw some promising kids continue to develop.
Here's how I reckon the best and fairest awards will go for all three grades.
League
Clint Jones will probably win over a fast finishing Michael Sinclair. Jared Bell's good form before injury I reckon will have him finish in the top four with Julian Jacobs, Liam McKenna, Aidan Tropiano, Brent Latch and Brent Edmonds all around the top eight.
Reserves
Kurtis Chester is a good chance to win this with Rowan Brookes and Fraser Millar possibly taking it home but might be undone by playing less games in the reserves than Chester.
Colts
Chris Leonard and Brad Pattison have been very good in the games I've watched and should poll well. Watch out for Blake Johnson and Cody Kickett as well.