“We let our fans and the footy club down on the weekend” – Cotton

With all to play for, the Redlegs need to simply be better when they face the inform Double Blues this Friday night.

After a stunning 40-point win against ladder leaders the Eagles a fortnight ago, Norwood stumbled at Elizabeth succumbing to a 14-point loss.

In what was Norwood’s third loss in four weeks, Jarrod Cotton’s frustration was rife, with the coach calling for his group to bring the defensive pressure and stand up.

“On Saturday we made it very easy for Centrals to score,” said Cotton.

“Some of our offence stuff was good, but our issue on the weekend was that we didn’t want to work hard enough with our defensive pressure and pressure acts around the ball.

“They had 35 inside 50’s and scored at 66% of the time, so the pressure on the ball carrier was not up to standard.

“When we bring our pressure acts, we are able to control games and we saw this against Woodville West Torrens.

“Our offensive stuff is taken care of if you bring your defensive pressure and unfortunately on the weekend we let Centrals move the ball too easily and to their credit, they played well, but we didn’t make it hard for them at all.”

In what has been a roller coaster of results for Norwood over the past month, Cotton believes his side needs to come prepared each time they take the field with a mindset of hunting the opposition on a consistent basis.

“It comes back to preparing yourself to play at SANFL football week in week out,” Cotton said.

“For whatever reason, this year it has been inconsistent, and we need to work hard to fix this.

“If we can come with the attitude and intent to put opposition teams under real pressure it puts you in the game and that’s when we play our best football.

“Against North Adelaide, we didn’t execute and we saw what happened, but in the games that we have this year, we have played some excellent footy and have got results.

Having been in a promising position prior to their trip to Elizabeth, their focus now shifts to a clash with Sturt on Friday.

“The boys trained really well last night. Wednesday night we will have another hit out with our game style stuff and competitive work,” Cotton said.

“If we train well and bring the intensity then I expect that to flow into Friday night’s game against Sturt.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity and so are the boys because they love playing at home in front of our fans.

“We let ourselves down on the weekend, we let our fans down and we let the football club down.

“We need to respond to that, and we won’t be giving up on our finals chances with everything still to play for.”