Sheedy also lamented some poor kicking in front of goal, which severely hampered the Redlegs\u2019 hopes of reeling in the early deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoints in a game of footy can always be taken out of context because they can be long points, rushed or kicked from bad positions, but this game really hurt because we had the ball in good areas on five or six occasions and just couldn\u2019t finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the final result, Sheedy was pleased with the output of his midfielders, who won the clearance count against an Adelaide midfield featuring several AFL-listed stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really proud of our boys. Our mids really got to work, and we showed we could match it with some AFL talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c(Sid) Draper\u2019s a first-round draft pick and he\u2019s going to be a great player for the Crows, (Matt) Crouch has come back from injury and is going well, (Harry) Schoenberg was in there as well and then (Luke) Pedlar has played some good AFL footy, and our boys really matched it with them for long periods of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
A standout performer for Norwood on the day was dashing half-back Matthew Ling, who racked up a career-high 35 disposals and six marks as he offered plenty of run and carry from defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want to use him through the corridor and get him running, and as you can see, he is damaging between the arcs when he\u2019s got the ball,\u201d Sheedy told The Redlegs Review podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the way he runs and the way he uses the ball, the more we can get him the ball in the corridor and let him run and distribute, the better we are going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another strong contributor on the day was small defender Alastair Lord, who earned plenty of praise from Sheedy for his leadership and commitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a great kid, Lordy, and I think he\u2019s going to be a future leader of our footy club. We have changed his role a little bit this year and are trying to get him up the field a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love his speed and ability to run, much like Matthew. They are both real weapons for our footy club, and I think obviously with Cooper Murley as well, who plays a bit deeper for us now in a more lockdown role, we\u2019ve had a few different looks this year and trying to advance people\u2019s games personally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss to Adelaide continues a trend of exchanging wins and losses each week dating back to Round 6, with Norwood yet to put together consecutive wins so far this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been frustrating. If you take the first five rounds out, after that we have gone 5-5 and I think the biggest losing margin has been 20 points and an average of 14 over those five losses, so we\u2019ve been in every game, but we just haven\u2019t been good enough in crucial moments and played the game for long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is our growth area and that is what we\u2019ll focus on. We want to play a certain way, which we think is hard to play against and hard to score against.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at playing against Glenelg and the Crows on the weekend, the ability to win inside 50 counts and tackle counts are big parts of our game that we are doing well, we just need to capitalise on our opportunities as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
While finals footy remains a possibility, Sheedy is staying focused on improving in key areas and continuing to challenge the best teams in the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not sure that we need to talk about that (finals) just yet. We know our game is good enough when we get it together, and we\u2019ve proven that over the last 10 weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that we haven\u2019t won (all of those games), but we\u2019ve challenged all of those top four sides really well and been right in the game until five minutes to go, and that was no different on the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were seven points down against the Crows at the 12th minute of the last quarter and had some fundamental errors that no one means, but that\u2019s footy and those are the areas we need to keep growing in, but we know that our game stacks up and we are hard to play against, and that\u2019s what we want to be as a footy club.\u201d<\/p>\n
With only three games remaining in the home and away season, Sheedy took the opportunity to reflect on the season to date, noting the challenges and highlights of his first season in charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have enjoyed it. We have definitely had our challenges, obviously. Arriving late and having a limited pre-season wasn\u2019t ideal in trying to implement some new things,\u201d Sheedy told The Redlegs Review podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I see the game and the way Norwood have played previously are pretty similar, but having 21 list changes, which was the most in the competition, we lost a lot of players who had been around for a while and had been real warriors for the footy club and really good culturally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have brought new kids into the footy club who are younger, so the age demographic of the list became a bit younger, but that\u2019s a good thing for the footy club for the future, so we\u2019ve just got to keep building on that and keep trying to get better as a footy club through our list and our training as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to Jade Sheedy\u2019s full interview on The Redlegs Review podcast here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheedy also lamented some poor kicking in front of goal, which severely hampered the Redlegs\u2019 hopes of reeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-46859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}