ANTHONY MORABITO:
Anthony, how did it feel to run out there in the third quarter?
It was a dream come true really, it’s obviously been a long time and I’m just really thankful the boys embraced me which is nice and thanks to Dawesy (Chris Dawes) for ducking me into the ground and giving me a kick.
Was it a bit of a lucky free?
Yeah, my heads a little sore (laughs).
What was your role? It looked like you were running off the wing and ended up forward late.
Yeah I think I ended up wing, half back, half forward, deep forward, so thrown around a bit which was nice.
And you nearly kicked that goal in the last term.
Yeah, don’t remind me (laughs). I was just pretty cooked at the end of it but should have finished it.
ROSS LYON:
Ross, obviously a great night for the club. Your members and fans at home didn’t get to be a part of it. Can you just explain why Darwin was the week to bring Anthony in?
I think you’re complicating it. He was selected to be picked. We never took in the geography of the opposition, we don’t work like that. My responsibility is to pick a team to win games of AFL football, so respectfully, you’re making presumptions about how we went about the thought process. That’s not what happened, Anthony’s had to earn it with good form and fitness and we work to a level of opportunity and he was always going to play.
Clancee Pearce was really out and Stephen Hill, last kick of the day (injured himself). We announced Anthony on the track and I came off the track and Stephen Hill’s quad scan the next day showed he had tweaked it, so regardless, Anthony was in.
From a coaching perspective, how pleasing is it to see what Anthony’s achieved come to fruition?
Well obviously I didn’t see Anthony come through the door - watching from afar in 2010, first-year player that’s had his journey interrupted significantly. In my time, selfishly we always wanted an AFL powerful midfielder back and that’s what we still want and that’s been prised open a little bit more tonight.
So obviously from my point of view, as a representative of the club cobjectively, this club’s support for Anthony has been amazing. All our conditioners, physios and doctors have played a part, but ultimately it’s been Anthony’s willpower and desire to get back and play that’s the real story. But certainly the support from the Fremantle Dockers has been a significant part as well. As a neutral sort of person really I’d like to acknowledge that as well.
But it’s really simple for us, Anthony’s a really good person but we’re in the business of winning footy games. We think he can be significant in the journey we’re on going forward and he’s only 23, so he’s missed three years, but he’ll play next week and he does what he does and then he’ll play the next week. He’ll have to continue to fight for his spot but it’s a feel good story isn’t it?
Is he likely to get a full game next week?
It’s a good question, it’s a good question…one I probably can’t answer. Yeah I think we’d like to do that, that’s the progression. We haven’t thought about starting him really, but Darwin the only thing we did think about the geography was the humidity and that it was going to be tough. So certainly back in Perth the conditions mean we might not have to do that.
ANTHONY MORABITO:
Anthony, did it feel like the game has changed a lot in the past four years since you were last out there?
That’s probably really irrelevant, I really don’t remember four years ago. I think what’s happened is I’ve played 10-15 weeks of WAFL footy and at that level of competition you sort of get a good feel of competitive footy so it was just a progression from there. So yeah to tell you the truth I didn’t find it overly different, which was good.
Did you notice that difference relative to the WAFL?
No, I think you’ve got to take into account that our training sessions take us above and beyond what, most of the time, a game is. I’ve pushed my body to levels probably further than that, so I was really comfortable.
ROSS LYON:
Ross, do you expect Anthony to be in your best 22 come finals time? Is that the plan?
Can we just enjoy the moment for a little bit? I think it’s an unfair question. At the end of the day all our players pick themselves.
Can you touch on Pavlich and Hill?
Yeah, Hill it’s only really a minor tweak but he won’t play. Really it’s a three-week injury, he’s got a little bit of rehab to do. Matthew got off the plane, woke up crook, so we changed our emergencies, flew one up and in the team meeting today he was no good so he flew home earlier.
What did you think of Michael Apeness’ debut? Showed a bit.
Yeah, tough conditions, but probably could have been paid a few free kicks I thought. He’s a brilliant competitor, we worry about him hurting our guys. As a 200cm fierce key forward, he has a big future at our club. We’ve got him and Taberner coming through, some young talls, Alex Pearce and those guys so yeah we’re thrilled with tonight.
Ross, you’ve had a long time in the game. Can you remember a situation like Anthony’s?
Nothing that I’ve been close to.
From afar, Neale Daniher, when the surgeries weren’t that many options was a really tragic tale for a great player. Nick Malceski at the Swans, but clearly Anthony doesn’t want to be known for his reco’s, Anthony’s on his journey now to become a great player and we’re on a journey – we want to win a premiership.
ANTHONY MORABITO:
Over the last three years, emotionally you’ve had plenty of ups and downs. Is there a day at all that sticks out as the hardest day?
I think when you do your knee it’s a pretty big day. It’s hard to really focus in on the bad times, I sort of try to leave that in the past, so don’t try to dwell on any of that stuff.
How close did you come to calling it all off?
I never came close to calling it at all. When you’re full of emotion you tend to say stuff that is off the cuff. I’m thankful for my upbringing that I was able to keep going on and be the person I’ve been moulded into.
How special was it having your father here for the game?
Yeah definitely, he was a big part of the last three years and keeping me going so very special to have him here and I appreciate it.
ROSS LYON:
Ross, was tonight one of your better four-quarter performances?
Yeah, I think it’s a really good observation. We were really concerned. We want to be an ‘anywhere, anytime’ team, but Port’s been playing really competitive footy and there’s enough results going around in AFL footy.
Four of our very best are out with Johnson, Walters, Hill and Pavlich. So to do what we did tonight after the probably first 15 minutes we were slow, I thought we were uncompromising the way we went about it. We were quite ferocious around the ball, in the contest, we had 61 entries, dominated the game and took the game on so it was a really positive performance.
They had a lot of possession early, but inside 50s were 2-1 in your favour. Were you almost happy to concede possession without territory?
We’d like to get it back off them. We thought they kicked it around too much for our liking, we were chasing them a little bit. We know they control the ball really well, I think that’s their history this year. So we spoke at quarter time about shutting those outlets down and I thought early we were being a bit cute with the ball, so we just started to drive it in to one-on-ones and 50-50s.
With Hawthorn and Port going down, it’s been a great weekend for you, the ladder seems to be opening up a bit.
I see the ladder all the time and people talk about it all the time and it’s a good indicator of where you’re at, but all I know is talking about it and seeing one thing that we can control and that’s our footy. If I’ve learnt one thing that coaches can control the ladder for your own club is winning games of footy, other than that it’s meaningless. It’s good to be where we are, it’s a good indicator, we’re tracking OK, but as soon as you breathe out or you rely on teams to win or lose, you lose control of your own destiny. We feel we write our own story and that’s what we’ve done for a while and we hope to continue to write our own story.
McPharlin’s been probably forgotten a bit tonight with so much else going on. He came through well?
Yeah, he’s a terrific leader for us. I thought early when we were under a little bit of pressure he was fantastic in that first quarter, he’s a significant player for us and we looked after him at the end. Injury wise on the surface we seem to have got out unscathed which is a positive for us.
