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Peel focusing on much more than late-arriving playersThursday, July 3, 2014 - 12:41 AM - by Chris Pike

PEEL Thunder coach Cam Shepherd has turned his focus to improving his team's tackling pressure and kicking in front of goal following yet another competitive but losing effort against Subiaco on Saturday.

The focus on Peel since that loss on Saturday has been centred on the fact that Fremantle pair Kepler Bradley and Tom Sheridan didn’t appear until the 20-minute of the second quarter, but that had no influence on the final result.

Peel had done well in the opening 50 minutes without the Dockers pair only trailing by a goal when Bradley took up his position at full-back and Sheridan joined the midfield.

The Thunder again hit the front early in the last quarter, but then conceded the last four goals of the game to lose by 26 points and remain on the bottom of the WAFL ladder – when a win would have seen them leap above both Perth and South Fremantle.

What disappointed Shepherd the most was the fact that his team failed to apply enough tackling pressure on Subiaco throughout the afternoon.

"We are disappointed that we didn’t get the win because that's what we want to do, and we are disappointed with the fact that our tackle count was really low," Shepherd said.

"That's something that we focus hard on. We want to be a blue collar team and only 28 tackles isn’t what a blue collar team finishes with. That's unacceptable and they are the things that we want to address and get right going forward."

Another major factor in the final result was Sam Menegola coming off with concussion during the third quarter.

Up until that point he had done an outstanding stopping job on dangerous Subiaco half-forward George Hampson, but then Hampson broke loose in the final quarter kicking the last four goals of the match.

"It was a good, solid strong effort and when Sam Menegola, who had been playing on Hampson, went down with a concussion after an outstanding effort the person who then went on to play on Hampson didn’t stand up," he said.

"Sam Menegola is really important to us and he had done a really solid job on a good player in George Hampson. When we were challenged in the last quarter, our back six needed to stand up with the support of the mids but Hampson got away."

On top of the poor tackling pressure and then losing Menegola, Peel also couldn’t take its chance in front of goal.

While Subiaco didn’t kick well either, Peel missed a host of gettable opportunities with Scott Gumbleton and Laine Wilkins the worst offenders combining for no goals and eight behinds.

"There was a fair bit of pressure out there, but I also believe that our skill errors and Jarrad Schofield can probably say the same about Subiaco's, but there were some skill errors in front of goal that were costly," he said.

"We are only looking at our side of things and between three or four players there were some missed shots that should have been taken."

As for the controversy that the late arrival of Bradley and Sheridan has caused, they were required as emergencies in the warm-up for Fremantle at Patersons Stadium for the western derby and Peel expected them to arrive at Medibank Stadium by quarter-time.

It's hard to argue against the decision made by Peel to wait for the pair given having a key veteran defender and star midfielder for three quarters was likely to benefit the team more than calling up two players from the reserves.

It turned out that way as well with Bradley outstanding in defence and Sheridan racking up 17 possessions in the midfield.

"We thought that the two of them would arrive here if not at quarter-time, soon after and we made that decision that it was in the best interests of Peel Thunder and Fremantle," Shepherd said.

"Both of them are quality players and we would have preferred they arrived 10 minutes earlier, but it is what it is. We push forward with what happened.

"That’s life that they were a little later and we roll with the punches. At that stage, the players that had been on the field had fought really strongly and we missed quite a few chances to be well ahead at that stage."

One forward who did play well on Saturday was Fremantle's Michael Apeness with 18 touches, seven marks and two goals, but Shepherd still sees room for improvement in his partnership with Gumbleton.

"I think he is building as a footballer. He was very good last week and he has continued to develop as a player," he said.

"I thought he could have probably worked stronger with Scotty Gumbleton, but I think between them they managed seven or eight shots on goal.

"Quite obviously we want them both to develop as footballers and they are doing that. Gumby is only in his third or game back and Apeness is only really in his first full season so there are positive signs for both of them."

Peel now returns to Medibank Stadium this Saturday to take on the league-leading East Perth and Shepherd hopes his team is up for the challenge.

"It doesn’t matter where we play. We don’t worry about what ground we play on," Shepherd said.

"We have been in every game we've played this year and the disappointing factor is that when it's got tough, we haven't toughed it out. That is a big focus on us now this week heading into the East Perth game."