QUEANBEYAN Tigers North East Australian Football League co-coach Josh Bryce has conceded the club is already looking towards 2015 after suffering their sixth straight loss last Saturday.
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The side only managed two goals in their 12.24.96 to 3.9.27 round 13 loss to the Sydney Hills Eagles in Sydney, continuing their stretch of midfield and defensive woes.
It has been a tough season for Bryce along with fellow co-coach Kade Klemke, who have spent the year rising youth into their squad.
With seven rounds to go and sitting five wins outside the top six, a finals birth is virtually unreachable, and Bryce said planning for next season had already begun.
"We can mathematically still make the finals, but realistically that's not an option for us at the moment," said Bryce.
"For the rest of the season we really need to find improvement. At the moment we're not talking about this year, but next year."
"We've got a pretty new group with a lot of Tuggeranong boys coming over, and we need to start gelling better. If we wait till the off-season to work on that, we're too far behind."
While Bryce also conceded a lot of young players were not getting a run in his NEAFL side due to form slumps, it is not all doom and gloom, with the club's AFL Canberra side leading that competition.
But with experience fading away at the club, Bryce said recruiting from other clubs was also a must to fix his squad's issues in marking up in defence, winning the ruck and centre clearances, and nullifying frequent possession turn-overs.
"You've always got to look to recruit. If you're not looking to improve, you're going backwards," said Bryce.
"We're looking at players that we can talk to about next year that could help fix our on-field issues, but we've got some pretty big raps on some of our players coming through the ranks as well."
Bryce said recruting was in its infancy and no players had been directly targeted yet.
