Josh Kennedy: West Coast Eagles win over Carlton “far from the perfect game”

IT might not have been a great spectacle at times, but it was certainly satisfying to win against Carlton at the MCG.

It was a tough, gruelling game and it felt like we were in control for most of the day before Carlton came back hard at us late and we eventually won by seven points.

It was far from the perfect game but it was the result we were looking for.

We have now won four games in succession and are looking to build momentum.

We know we’ll have to improve to get to where we would ideally like to be, but it was a pretty important win at the MCG.

We kicked out to lead by a bit more than five goals and we could have been even further ahead, but almost paid a price for failing to put the opposition away when we had our chances.

We did not capitalise to the full extent when we controlled the play and that allowed Carlton to kick three goals in a row and they started to build belief.

From our perspective, though, we were able to stave off the challenge and will look to continue our winning streak this week.

We face Melbourne on Saturday and that won’t be easy either.

While some of the teams we are playing are probably out of the finals race, they are looking to build hope for their fans and are aiming to get as many wins out of the season as possible.

There is no doubt that Melbourne, just like Carlton, have made strong progress this season and they will see this week’s game as an opportunity to continue the development of their young team.

Over the past few years under Paul Roos the Demons have developed a team that are capable of seriously challenging anyone in the competition.

They have a quality midfield built around their skipper Nathan Jones and young Jack Viney, are disciplined and committed in defence and have a few avenues to goal.

It won’t be easy and it should not be either.

At AFL level, because of the evenness of the competition, most teams are capable of beating anyone on any day, so we will need to be at our best.

As I mentioned, the Melbourne midfield has some grunt and we will have to match that with Matt Priddis, Luke Shuey and Andrew Gaff.

If they can create the opportunities, it will be up to myself and the other forwards to kick a winning score.