According to the AFL’s Player Ratings, Jordan Clark is coming off back-to-back career best games, but the young defender is yet to be satisfied and wants to improve his game as the season continues.
The 21-year-old has racked up back-to-back games of 108 ranking points against Carlton and Port Adelaide, and against the Power his 29 disposals was two better than his previous career-high. His seven inside 50s, four intercept marks and 24 effective disposals were also career bests.
Despite being effective with 24 of his 29 disposals, the new recruit still wants to remove errors from his game while being ‘ruthless’ with his mindset in defence.
“As a defender, you still have to defend and that's what I've been trying to base my game off at the moment, is ruthless defence, good starting positions, and setting good layers up behind the ball,” Clark told ABC Grandstand.
“I just want to grow as a footballer and a lot of my disposals (against Port Adelaide), I felt some of them I didn't make the most of and could have made more of it.
“That's all part of it, really. It's a game, you make mistakes and I just want to minimise making those mistakes in the future and hopefully I can bring that to the table week in week out and keep bringing my best footy.”
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Clark had seven of Fremantle’s 50 inside 50s, but felt early and late in the game – where Fremantle conceded the first three goals of the match and six of the last seven – their shallow entries were leading to turnovers in dangerous positions.
“Early and late in the game we turned the ball over pretty shallow going into our forward 50,” Clark said.
“That allowed them to bounce straight back at us and kick goals. It's very hard to defend when you turn the ball over about 45 meters out, a team like that, who get a lot of numbers back will just slice you.
“That's probably the main message that came out of it and the main thing we're going to work on.”
Fremantle are now 11-4 and sit one game and percentage inside the top four ahead of Carlton and Collingwood, who have 10 wins.
But Clark isn’t thinking about finals and reiterated the players’ mindset that they only want to focus on their next game – a tricky away trip to face St Kilda at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.
“It's very cliche and and everyone hates hearing it but we've got to take it week by week,” Clark said.
“We can't look too far ahead. We got done last week (against Carlton) and (against Port Adelaide) we left the door open late as well, so we've got a bit to work on.”
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