Despite a heavy Werribee loss, Majak Daw’s performance was a clear standout.
Playing in almost every position on the ground - spending time down forward, in the middle and as a ruck – Daw was almost undefendable.
Four goals was his reward on the scoreboard, coming in for praise from the coaching staff.
“He was clearly the best (Werribee player) on ground,” development manager Ben Dyer told NMFC.com.au.
“He actually wasn’t forward that much, but when he was there Williamstown struggled to defend him in the air, as tends to be the case at VFL level.
“Some of his stuff in the ruck was really good as well. As a four quarter performance he was head and shoulders our best player.”
RELATED: Werribee Report Card
A feature of Daw’s game was his pressure acts.
“When you don’t have the ball, it’s the easy thing to do because tackling is in your control,” he said.
“JL (Werribee coach John Lamont) addressed it at half-time, asking us to lay more pressure on.
“If you look at the senior side, we’re winning games on the back of our physical pressure and tackling pressure. I just wanted to come out and hunt the man today when appropriate.”
Overall though, the 25-year-old was keen to focus on the areas where he could improve and help his side out.
“We’re an inexperienced side that hasn’t played a lot of games together and me as one of the older players didn’t do enough in the first half,” Daw added.
“We’ve got to work on how to continuously keep pushing when things aren’t going our way.
“The easy thing to do is to go back in our own shells and retreat to play safe when you actually need to attack and take a game on.
“That’s really hard to do though when the other team is playing well but it’s something we have to work at.
“It’s hard to take too many positives out of today.”