11:44

Trent how satisfying was that and how do you rate today’s performance?

Yeah it was extremely satisfying, and we were really happy with the performance. It wasn’t as easy as what the scoreboard suggests, and I thought West Coast really brought a high intensity to the game. But we matched that and went over it. We had 50 tackles in the first half, I’d say we were on target for an AFLW record at that point, so we did that really well. Our forwards competed hard, which we didn’t do enough last week and in the scratch match against Adelaide. We did that really well, we brought the ball to ground and from there we got the results we deserved.

Kiara Bowers set the standard in the first quarter with 11 tackles?

I knew it was high, it’s such a great thing as a coach when your best players are doing that because it sets the example. Bianca Webb made her debut today and she knows that’s the standard that she has to aspire to, not just running around and getting 20 touches. It makes coaching a lot easier when you’ve got someone like Kiara setting the standard and then Bianca jumps onboard and I thought she was fantastic, particularly in that first quarter as well.

Did you want Kiara Bowers near Dana Hooker particularly around the stoppages?

We weren’t going to go with a tag on Hooker, she’s a hard player to tag but we thought that head to head with Hooker that we would slightly win that. We know that Kiara’s defensive efforts are so good and Dana wouldn’t get loose and it worked out that way. Kiara just missed her chance to score that goal when she pushed forward.

Your efficiency going forward was so much better than last week – what do you put that down to?

It was just a bit more space. Last week because we were winning the clearances so dominantly, all of the Geelong midfielders were folding back in, so it was nine v five a lot of the time. Today, West Coast actually won the clearances so most of our attack has come from the back half, meaning we had more space. It was pretty much as simple as that. We didn’t change anything, last week we had a lot of repeat entries because their midfielders were kicking it back to our midfielders, so the inside 50 stats were a bit skewed last week. It was pleasing today that when we got our chances we hit the scoreboard hard.

How important was the ferocity of the tackling early - just to set the tone?

We thought that West Coast had a fairly soft run in. We played them in a scratch match intensity a couple of weeks ago. Their game against Richmond wasn’t at a high intensity and against Collingwood last week they started a bit slow and didn’t bring it, so we thought that we needed to really step it up and show them the AFL standard. I think it was our best pressure game that I’ve seen us play particularly in that first half, which obviously made it difficult for West Coast to execute their skills, so I’m really proud of the girls efforts in delivering that.

Did you forecast the chemistry that you’ve got now as a group and did you see that as a big factor out there? An established team vs a new team?

What has been great is that we had 19 existing girls from last year and they actually taught the game plan to the rest for the group coming in, so it is really tight. The girls coming in know the standards as well because they set it. For any expansion side they are doing that from scratch so there is no doubt that it is a lot easier for us. I still think West Coast recruited the best of the expansion sides as far as the list goes and I’m sure that they will learn a lot from today and come out and win games this year.

Katie Jayne Grieve – that was a big game from her today?

To be honest I probably wouldn’t have had her in our best 21 about four or five weeks ago and then she just exploded. Her intraclub form was great, she was the best player on the ground in that, against West Coast she was and against Adelaide she was fantastic. She’s just rolled in. Last week she was a little bit quieter but what she did today that’s actually what she’s been doing over the last five weeks except for the Geelong game. She’s got elite speed, she’s so hard at the way she attacks the contest and she’s played very little footy because Carlton picked her up as a rookie after hardly playing any footy. She played one game for Carlton and couldn’t play in their reserves or anything so last year was her first full year of footy and this year she has gone to another level. She had about 13 touches, 2 goals and 11 tackles and that’s the way she goes about her business. For her and Jasmin Stewart to step up this year has been crucial for us because it’s allowed us to play Kara Antonio out on a wing to give us more balance around the contest. That’s been really important that those young ones coming through have done that.

It was a bit of a statement game today – how do you feel the team is going so far this season?

We knew that we wanted to start well – the few games at home are really important so last week we probably didn’t get value for effort on the scoreboard. Today we probably got slightly more value and the margin maybe shouldn’t have been so much. The teams on the eastern seaboard are going well, we haven’t been talked about too much as a chance at this stage which suits us. Hopefully we just keep ticking off a few more wins particularly against Collingwood who we know are a much improved side with a really good top high end talent – I’m interested to see how they go against Carlton tomorrow.

03:36

Do you expect people to be talking about Freo a bit more now, especially after today?

Possibly, hopefully there’s a good television audience today because it was the RAC Derby. It doesn’t really worry us, we probably prefer if they say we are no chance to be honest but we are happy with what we are doing internally. As Kiara said the group are a really happy group at the moment, so we’ll just keep ticking those things off.

Trent are you all clear injuries wise?

Hayley Miller had a bit of a hip pointer and at that stage we were up pretty well, so there was no point putting her back out there. As for the rest, I think we are pretty good so far.

Grieve was involved with a couple of incidents and in one of them Emma Swanson came off – did you just see that as an accidental incident?

I did see Swanson coming off the ground, but I didn’t see the incident at all. I hope there was nothing untoward in it. She’s a very fair player Katie-Jayne, so hopefully it was just an incident that happens in the game. Swanson is a tough cookie too.

How blessed are you to have the forward options that you’ve got now – particularly with Roxy Roux’s ability to go forward?

Most teams have got a really good drop off defender and we think that it doesn’t work against us because it’s a matter of who do they fall off. Gabby O’Sullivan, I thought she was fantastic today in our forward line and she’s probably one of our lesser known players. She ended up with 11 touches, one goal and a behind, so we think that’s great. Roxy can do amazing things, she is not a high possession player but she is so exciting to watch and her teammates love being around her. Gemma Houghton and Ebony Antonio were really dangerous today. We were really happy with Kate Flood’s last quarter and she’s going to get a hold of the game shortly because we’ve seen what she can do at training, so she will be another option for us.