Castlemaine coach Derrick Filo refuses to faith in his playing group despite the Magpies horror run of defeats.
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After defeating Maryborough by 39 points in round one, Castlemaine has lost its past five games by margins of 199, 155, 85, 87 and 149 points.
The Magpies only won three games between 2010-2012 and collected two wooden spoons, but in that dark period they didn’t endure five 14-goal plus defeats in a row.
“It’s frustrating because I know we’re capable of much better,’’ Filo said.
“This playing group is much better than that.”
Last Saturday, the Pies were impressive in the first quarter and they led the highly-rated Strathfieldsaye Storm by two points at quarter-time.
Castlemaine crumbled dramatically after quarter-time, with the Storm kicking 28 goals to four.
“I thought we were on track to put together a good effort, but we fell away,’’ Filo said.
“I thought we won enough of the ball, but we just turned the ball over too much. When you give the ball back to a team like Strath, they punish you.
“The results are hard to cop, but I know we’re better than this and, if we can string it together for four quarters, we’ll be a competitive unit.
“I can’t fault the players attitude… we just have to tough it out and play like we did in the first quarter for longer.”
Filo said injuries weren’t helping the Magpies’ cause.
He said 11 players from the seniors and reserves were sidelined against Strathfieldsaye. The Magpies reserves only kicked one goal and lost by 166 points.
Key forward Mark Ramsey won’t play again this season after injuring his knee last week, while key recruit Simon Seddon is struggling with back and ankle complaints.
“Simon will be 50-50 to play this week. He’s not at full tilt at the moment, but it’s not serious and we’re hoping it comes good,’’ Filo said.
“Ideally, we’d like to give him a week off, but we don’t have that luxury at the moment.”
Castlemaine travels to Gardiner Reserve to tackle Gisborne this Saturday.
The Bulldogs have also only won one game so far this season, but they’ve been much more competitive in their defeats.
In other round seven games this weekend, Eaglehawk is at home to Kyneton, Golden Square hosts South Bendigo, Sandhurst and Maryborough meet at the QEO and Strathfieldsaye is on home turf against Kangaroo Flat.