Have you got an update on Rory Lobb and Nathan Wilson?
I haven’t got an update on Rory, I just saw what happened in-game. I haven’t spoken to the doctors, but Rory got a knock to the chest. He was a bit short of breath and we had Lloyd Meek there as a sub, so to speak, so we decided to get him into the game. Nathan Wilson got that hit to the shoulder, so he’s pretty sore and sorry for himself, so we’ll just have to get it scanned. I’m not going to guess what it is, but he was pretty sore and obviously sore enough not to come back on. We’ll just have to get it scanned and let you know when we know more.
Was Rory a concern at all or more just a bit of soreness?
More a bit of soreness. We’re pretty confident he’ll be right. He wanted to come back on and it’s just one of those things when we had a tall sitting on the bench, we wanted no risk.
Did you get what you wanted to out of the contest?
I thought it was a good hitout for us. I thought West Coast really upped their intensity around the ball, their pressure, hunt and work rate from contest to contest. I thought it was exactly what we needed going into round one. We’ve had a good prep and we need to work hard over the next two weeks to get a fair bit right, bring it on.
The fact that you won by so much last week, how do you think they handled the talk about them this week?
It’s too hard to cast a net, I thought some didn’t and some did. I thought we had some good performances, we had some players who were really strong in the contest and were up for the fight and then a few that thought it was going to be as easy as last week. We knew and we prepared really strongly for West Coast to bring what they brought today. It’s something we need to keep working at, I thought some of the talk after last week’s game… I thought people were getting ahead of themselves. Hopefully, our players didn’t get ahead of themselves, it was a pre-season game and an interesting concept coming up against the same team twice in two weeks. We knew and we prepared really strongly for West Coast to bring that effort and I thought we didn’t handle that as well as we could’ve as a team and as a collective. I said to the players after the game that we’ve got a lot of work to do and in some sense, I’d rather that sort of contest tonight than us winning easily, so it will set us up well for round one.
Be part of our future! Join us now ahead of round one
Where do you think you sit in terms of your overall pre-season performances and your improvement from last season until now?
I think we’ve improved. I think we’re fitter, I think we’re stronger, I think elements of our game have improved but I think the challenge for us is to make sure we take every game on its merits and we’re willing to do the work week in, week out. I thought we got outworked today in some areas of the game and that’s not good enough. We have to understand that some of our deficiencies are not easy fixes and some of them are going to take a little bit of time. I think the last couple of weeks has been really good for us.
He didn’t have his kicking boots on today, but Michael Frederick looks like he’s ready to take his game to the next level this year, what have you made of his pre-season?
It’s been really strong. He’s a really humble kid who just loves to come to work and get better and I think what we’ve seen the last couple of weeks is he’s not just relying on his brilliant speed, he’s mixed a bit of forward craft into his game. I think his aerial work has shone out the last couple of weeks and he’s one of a number of players that have worked really hard on their game and looked like their games are in good order leading into round one.
Your two new recruits as well in Clark and Brodie, they look set for pretty important roles?
Time will tell, one week at a time. They’ve had strong pre-seasons both of them, they’ve fitted into the group really well. I hope that they join a number of players that just need to make sure they bring the same effort and same application each week. Whether they’ve both done enough to warrant a game in round one time will tell, we’ve had some good performances at Peel over the last couple of weeks and we’ve got a bit of time to see what shape our round one team holds. They’re definitely putting their hand up not just with what they’ve done the last two weeks but with a large body of work since we started pre-season.
With the backline depth that you’ve got at the moment, where does Heath Chapman fit into that mix? He seemed to give you a lot today.
The beauty about ‘Chappy’ is that he can play tall and small. I love the way he attacked the contest and was really aggressive with his positioning and his attack on the footy. He likes to make things happen with the ball, so he’s a really flexible player and we’ll continue to use him in a number of roles.
The senior guys that you brought back into the team today, did they all get what they needed as far as minutes and performance from your point of view?
I think when you look at the names on paper you think that they will just jump in and play up to their best and I don’t think they did that tonight. They have got a bit of work to do. It’s one of our first hitouts against another team and in a high-pressure game. I thought they got what they wanted from a hitout point of view and preparation for round one, but it’s a bit like a lot of players that have a bit of work to do before they are cherry ripe. We understood that before going into the game today. I think it was a good hitout for us on a number of fronts and it shows we have work to do individually and as a team before round one.
Given there seems to be a few things you still want to be tidied up before round one, does that last intraclub for you next weekend become quite important?
There is a number of ways we can do that, we will do a number of breakdown drills at training and target those things. We haven’t worked out how much match sim we need to do next weekend, we will work that out during the week. We will have three or four good training sessions which will give our players plenty of opportunities to work on their games individually, and us collectively as a team with a few things we need to tidy up.
Don't miss out on all the action in 2022! Be part of our future.
You mentioned it was an interesting concept to play the same team twice, would you have preferred to mix up the teams that you have a look at this pre-season?
Personally, I would. However, given the current Covid-19 situation it didn’t make a lot of sense. We take what we can get, and it meant we play West Coast twice. We had a good win last week, and some of our players might have been expecting the same, as much as we told them that wouldn’t happen. We went through the same thing last year. It’s probably just the different styles of game that you get a look at when you play another team. It is what it is, and we understand the current climate and the risks involved with bringing other teams to town or going elsewhere. It was a much-improved West Coast, and they would’ve been really happy with what they brought to the table tonight. It was a hard-fought game tonight, which is what we needed.
