KOOP: ” I’m not getting too carried away.”

By Matt Fotia

Officer Senior Coach Doug Koop isn’t getting carried away about his sides fortunes despite their very impressive fortnight in the Hallam and Bayswater Truck Centres Division One.

The Kangaroos have kicked 47.35 (317) over the past two weekends in their 141 and 96 point victories over Warburton Millgrove and Belgrave respectively. The percentage boosting wins have also helped them jump into fourth spot on the ladder, leapfrogging Mount Evelyn.

Koop concedes that his side are beginning to click, but isn’t ready to dish out a plethora of praise until they put in that kind of performance against tougher opposition.

“I’d like to think so (side clicking), we’ve changed a few things up, got a bit more of a focus about how we want to play and all that,”

“You can only play what’s put in front of you and we’ve done it (won) fairly convincingly (the past two games), but the real test will come next week against Mount Evelyn.”

Despite there being four rounds left in the Division One season the make up of the final five is all but set in stone, with just minor positional changes possible. The Roos are unlikely to break into the double chance spots, something not many predicted at that start of the season.

Koop however was under no illusions about where his side sat, suggesting that his side needed to learn to win well before they can think about double chances and so on. The Roos also need to improve their record against fellow top five sides. They have just one win against them, coming at home to Mount Evelyn.

“It (the top five) looks set not only with the teams that will play finals, but also set in terms of places people will finish – for us to pinch third spot we’ve got to win our last four,”

“So it looks as though we’re going to play Mount Evelyn in the first final, so we’ll certainly mention that (record against top five), but if you go back to the start of the year all the experts had us as favourites,”

“My biggest concern was that we had to learn to win and win well, we’re still learning but we’re going okay with it.”

Whilst Koop is reserving his judgement for later, the Officer faithful are revelling in their sides recent form. You’d have to go into the record books to find the last time the Roos have had such a dominant fortnight of football, with their free wheeling ways something of a new phenomenon.

“A few guys have come up to me and said it’s the first time in awhile that Officer have kicked 100 points two weeks in a row, had two near 100 point victories in a row and had two weeks in a row where we’ve had 10 goals in one quarter, so that’s a good thing,”

“But I’m not getting too carried away.”

Officer have the bye this weekend due to the split round. They travel to fifth placed Mount Evelyn next weekend.