Reserves Coach Shane Woewodin gives his appraisal of each of the listed Lions who played against the Sydney Swans on Saturday.

“Overall we were overpowered by the best team in the competition at this level. A very respected side who just hunt the footy inside and work extremely hard on the outside with the spread and we got shown up in all areas of our game.

“Particularly the first quarter was a real disappointment, they kicked 6.2 to one goal and that was the ball game. Just our inability to compete at the contest and defensively, we just got shown up a little bit, losing some contests in defensive 50 and the scoreboard just kept ticking over for the opposition and we weren’t able to score or get any inside 50 entries.

“There were some pleasing aspects though. We won clearances plus six and were pretty competitive around contested possession but we got hurt on turnover on the day because we just weren’t able to possess the ball and keep it for long enough.”

Tom Cutler

Came back from the seniors and played as an inside mid. He was OK but he’s still got some areas of his game to improve on but it was good to get another bigger bodied listed player in and around the midfield. He had it 26 times, didn’t use it all that effectively. Of those 26, 11 were contested which is important for him. He still laid 4 tackles and had 6 tackles and hit the scoreboard too so there were some good parts of his game there.

Josh Clayton

Again played as an inside mid. He’s consistently finding the footy week in, week out now. I think it was Josh’s hightest tackles for the year. He may have had 8-10 for the game, 6 clearances and also hit the scoreboard. We’re seeing  a lot better signs with Josh in and around his contested game and his ability to impact in and around the contest which is good to see.

Jackson Paine

Jackson made his return from suspension. He was one of our best players again down back. He had 22, took 12 marks and six rebound 50s so he was pretty solid in the contest for us. He had great direction and leadership from behind the ball and was sorely missed the week before so it was good to get Jackson back into the fray of things.

Trent West

Westy was probably one of the top-three players on the day for us. He had a solid hit-out for us. Got it 20 times, 12 of them contested, six clearances, it was a really good day for Westy. He battled with Derickx for the majority of the day and hit the scoreboard too. He kicked a goal which is really good for Westy as a ruckman. I thought his ability to compete for us around the ball and give our boys first use was important. He’s stringing some good games together and getting some consistency.

Michael Close

He was dropped from the seniors and came back with a terrific attitude. He led from the front. Played as a key forward and was probably our best player on the day. At times we had to whack him behind the ball just to stem the flow a bit where he took a lot of mocks. He had 10 marks out of his 19 possessions. He didn’t hit the scoreboard, probably because a bit more of it was spent behind the ball helping us out but I thought he was terrific on the day. His workrate was high, competing at the contest and really having a strong presence both aerially and on the ground.

Reuben William

He had a job more so as a defender this week to play on a really important player for the Swans named Rose. He got two kicked on him pretty early, we’ve seen some improvement with his HIT and his ability to play on small forwards. There is still some work in that area to go. He was on limited game time at about 70% coming back from injury (groins). We’re just looking for him now to build some continuity in his footy heading into the end of the season.

Hugh Beasley

Like Reuben, Hugh had limited game time at 70% but was solid for us. He is still coming back from injury. He did a couple of good things down there as a defender and is showing some strong presence with his leadership, helping out Jackson in that area. He had it 15 times and took a couple of marks. It was a big day for the defenders, the opposition had 70 inside 50s, so the ball was coming in a fair bit and in a lot of contests regularly so the backs had their jobs cut out for them for the day.

Billy Evans

A little bit quieter for Billy as an inside mid. He had it 14 times, only took the one uncontested mark on the day so the majority of his work was done in the contest – 7 of those were contested possessions. Only three clearances and one inside 50. It was a pretty quiet day for Billy we’re looking for him to bounce back in a couple of weeks’ time against the Giants.

Jarrad Jansen

He was the travelling emergency, he came down to Sydney with us and was pretty good for us in the half he played. He had it 13 times, 7 contested, 4 tackles, 5 clearances. He was pretty solid, in and around tight, distributing the footy to our runners. Hopefully that’s done enough for him to look at some senior selection in the next week or so, but Jarrad was a pretty good contributor for us on the day.