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WAFL: Bill Monaghan prepares for big West Perth challenge against Peel

Bill MonaghanJoondalup Times

It’s always great to play games in the country and the hospitality in Kulin was fantastic.

We finished the match ahead in possessions, inside 50s and clearances, so the stats would say that we controlled the play for a long period of the game. But to Claremont’s credit, we weren’t able to pull away to a safe margin.

We kicked more than 100 points for the first time this season so it was good to see improvement in our forward line.

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The move of Andrew Strijk into attack certainly made a difference, with four goals to his name. I’d say, in the short term, we’ll keep playing him there, but given his strong presence at half back, I would expect he will return there at some stage.

The side faces a big challenge against Peel at Arena Joondalup on Saturday.

Luke Tesdesco is unlikely to return after missing last week with back soreness.

The Thunder has been able to dominate possession in games with some quality AFL-listed players so we’ll need to be really aggressive to win the ball.

We’ve had some great contests against Peel in recent seasons so it’s set up for a terrific match.

As we know from Shane Yarran’s days at Subiaco, we can expect him to be dangerous if he’s named for Peel. We used to have Jordan Jones and Marcus Adams playing on him at the Lions, but we don’t have either of them at the club anymore.

We’ll be looking at players like Ben King or Luke Meadows for that match-up, but will have plan A, B and C in place and hopefully won’t have to go any deeper than that.