North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson expects robust veteran midfielder Ben Cunnington to reply strongly after he was a shock substitution of their loss to Carlton.
Cunnington was substituted out of the Good Friday conflict for Hugh Greenwood halfway by means of the third quarter of the 16.11 (107) to 11.18 (84) defeat, with 10 disposals, seven contested possessions and nil clearances.
It was the primary time he had gone with no clearance since spherical three, 2012, whereas he had averaged 21 disposals and 4.7 clearances throughout the primary three rounds.
“The rationale behind it: Cunners has been a great player for our footy club and hopefully will continue to be, but he’s a clearance beast and we need him to be getting clearances for our side and he’d had none halfway through the third quarter,” Clarkson advised reporters.
“He’d be disappointed in that, but we just needed to try something different.
“So Hughy Greenwood got here on and he was in a position to give us a bit spark in that space and Cunners simply did not have an excellent day.
“We just can’t keep blokes on the field. If they’re not playing their role to their capability then we need to make a change and that’s the way (it played out).
“He took it in the correct method, such as you’d anticipate him to, and hopefully he’ll be higher for it subsequent week.”
Greenwood had four clearances and 11 disposals in his limited time on the ground.
The Kangaroos were attempting to respond to Carlton getting on top around stoppages and Clarkson said he’d spoken to Cunnington about the decision.
“I spoke to him on the time,” he mentioned.
“Sometimes it is simply, at that time within the recreation we had been beginning to lose management of the sport and it is similar to, ‘We’ve received a recent participant there, who hasn’t been performing their function to their capabilities?’
“And it was the middle of the ground, we felt like we’d just fallen down a little bit at that point in time with the supply they were getting.
“So we simply made the change. Sometimes you make it on a whim and simply hope for the most effective.
“It’s hard when they’re strong, experienced players like that who are so proud and they can turn it around themselves quite often, but we just thought we’d try something different and Hughy helped us a little bit.”
Kangaroos stalwart Cunnington, 31, has performed 233 video games since his debut in 2010.
He missed most of final season resulting from therapy for testicular most cancers however returned for the ultimate two video games of final season.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
