	{"id":162329,"date":"2025-05-30T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=162329"},"modified":"2025-05-29T10:41:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T00:41:51","slug":"eagles-determined-to-defend-fortress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/sport\/eagles-determined-to-defend-fortress\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles determined to defend fortress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EAST GEELONG took a valuable lesson from its seven-point loss to Belmont Lions earlier this season in the GDFL.<\/p>\n<p>The Eagles realised the team needed to win more contested ball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was probably the turning point for us where we go &#8216;Right, we&#8217;ve got to start putting our head over the footy a little bit more and beating the opposition to the ball&#8217; because for the first half of that Belmont game, we weren&#8217;t anywhere near it,&#8221; playing coach Ned Aulsebrook said.<\/p>\n<p>It was an area the coach said the team thrived in during its 11.19 (85) to 9.6 (60) away victory against Inverleigh at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>After trailing by three points at half-time, the Eagles got on top in the second half with Austin Mulvahil, Jack Dickson and Jake Mclean receiving praise for the team&#8217;s run and carry off half-back.<\/p>\n<p>The next assignment is hosting Corio in round 8 at 2pm tomorrow (Saturday, May 31).<\/p>\n<p>Aulsebrook said the Eagles hadn&#8217;t lost a home game since round 1 of 2024 and he wants to further solidify the fortress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want teams to hate coming to Richmond Crescent because it&#8217;s going to be a tough day at the office.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Young centre half-forward Caleb Ezard has missed about a month of footy with an ankle injury, and Aulsebrook said he wasn&#8217;t sure how far off he was from returning.<\/p>\n<p>East Geelong is third on the ladder with five wins and two losses while Corio is 12th with one win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EAST GEELONG took a valuable lesson from its seven-point loss to Belmont Lions earlier this season in the GDFL. The Eagles realised the team needed to win more contested ball. &#8220;That was probably the turning point for us where we go &#8216;Right, we&#8217;ve got to start putting our head over the footy a little bit [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/sport\/eagles-determined-to-defend-fortress\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":162542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-162329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Eagles determined to defend fortress - 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