East Perth struggle to match it with in form Subi

East Perth and West Coast ruckman Callum Sinclair is confident that the club’s losing run against Subiaco can be rectified come finals time.

East Perth and Subiaco have finished 1-2 only twice in WAFL history in 1926 and again in 1959, with the Royals winners against Subiaco in the Grand Final in both those years.

“Probably other than us they’re the in form team of the comp, they’ve won their last five or six. We had just as much of the ball as they did, but we just coughed it up and their pressure we couldn’t handle. They’re the team that’s got us twice in a row now so we’re not too happy about it, but by the time finals come around I think it will be a different story hopefully”, he said.

Sinclair, a former Lion, has had a solid season for East Perth, and over the past fortnight has been in the Royals best, creating a powerful rucking combination with Paul Johnson.

“I think last year I rucked a bit more than this year. We’ve got two other really good ruckman and also Fraser McInnes who can pitch in aswell. I’ve found myself playing a little more forward, just based on a rotation really, which is all going pretty well. But, I think we just need to make sure all the ruckman have an impact in the forward line and if we can do that I think we’ll be going pretty strong.

“It’s good to put some consistent performances together and put my hand up for selection, but we didn’t come away with the four points more importantly, so we probably let ourselves down on the weekend a little bit,” he said.

The big man said that coach Brian Dawson and the coaching staff were frank in their assessment of the team’s shortfalls after the weekend’s game.

“To be honest we had a pretty ruthless assessment of our skill level and our ball handling. We had our hands on it a lot more than Subi did. Things like simple handballs and simple kicks we just couldn’t execute and when that happened Subi just turned it over and capitalised on those opportunities”.

At times during the season the Royals have worked on a three-man ruckman rotation policy, something that Sinclair believes is an important part of East Perth’s game plan.

“It’s probably one of our strengths to have all three of us playing at the same time. I wouldn’t personally want to be coming up against all of us in a game”, he joked.

“It probably helps us save our legs a little bit for the later half of the year, that two blokes can take the load a little bit more and there’s a good rotation policy at the moment that will hopefully have us feeling a bit more fresh coming into September”, he said.