Marrar's premiership defence ends with 22-point loss to Northern Jets

Marrar's premiership defence came to an end on Saturday when they coughed up a 10-point three-quarter-time lead to go down to Northern Jets by 22 points at Robertson Oval.

Gardner believes the Bombers shifted slightly more into defending rather than attacking and paid the price as the Jets coach Jack Harper kicked five unanswered goals to win the game.

"I think it was a mindset thing," Gardner said.

"As soon as the game started slightly getting away from us, when I say that, I say a goal or two away, we start thinking we can't concede the next one. And when you start thinking negatively like that, you're automatically going to drop five or 10 per cent, which we did.

"They rose five or 10 per cent and all of a sudden there's a big difference between the teams."

Gardner, in his first season as coach of Marrar, was gutted by the loss.

"Devastated," he said.

"You work hard all year, from the start of January, and I think we had the list to go to next week, you play good footy for a lot of that game but credit to the Jets, they come out after three-quarter-time, they were all over us from the start of that quarter."

While the last quarter was where the Jets won it, Gardner identified two late goals just before half-time that saw Marrar's lead cut from 18 points to five.

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"Two goals in red time at the end of the second quarter. We spoke about that to the boys after the game, I think that's a big moment in the game," he said.

"We probably should have had a different mindset and been a little bit more defensive and tried to hold onto that lead.

"You can look over the game and there's a 1000 different things you could do different. I think there was ebbs and flows in the game, there were ups and downs in certain areas for us and them, I think it purely came down to that last quarter and our change in mindset dropped five or 10 per cent."

Marrar assistant coach Zach Walgers, who won the Gerald Clear Medal during the week, sustained a quad injury in the third term but battled on.

Jordan Hedington was a late withdrawal, also with a quad injury.

With Gardner locked in for a second season in charge at Langtry Oval, he believes the loss on Sunday, and the finals series as a whole, pointed out exactly what they need moving forward.

"I think we need to get a key forward," he said.

"Blakey's (Walker) down an awesome job going forward for the first time in his career. I can't knock the effort that he's done but it's a very hard load for a young boy to carry down there.

"(John) Hoey stepped up today, he played a great role for us actually but obviously he's getting on in age. We obviously had Turns (Brad Turner), who filled that spot, but he went down with the knee injury (in round two)."

Whatever their list looks like for next year, Gardner hopes those that played on Saturday use the loss to drive them to bigger seasons.

"I said to the boys, let that hurt, let it sink in, digest it, use it as fire in the belly for next year," he said.

"From day one, turn up to pre-season next year and remember how terrible this feels and use it and remember if we do get back to big games that three quarters doesn't cut it."

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