I’d like to open by saying it’s been a difficult 24 hours for our football club and West Australian football. We really want to acknowledge the Yarran family and the passing of Shane Yarran and put that win in context tonight. It was a difficult night, particularly for our Noongyar and Aboriginal players. It has been quite sobering to come here today. It highlights how fragile things can be, we’re not machines and there were some people feeling it tonight, but particularly I think the Subiaco Football Club, WA football and we just want to respect the Yarran family’s privacy tonight as well.
How did the players react to the news?
As I said, we just want to respect the privacy, there are cultural issues at play here as well. At the end of the day you need to show the respect and self esteem. It was a brief period at our club, but it was certainly acknowledged and difficult but we also want to acknowledge for our members and fans that it was important tonight that we played well, and get on with the game which I think we did, but that acknowledgement is critical.
It was a nice moment with Michael Walters aswell, pointing to the sky?
I didn’t see it all, I am really busy. But everyone has different connections and as I said I think we acknowledge strong connections and a sad, heartbreaking story, but from here we can focus on the game.
On the game, what did you do well do you think? What enabled you to get the win?
We did a lot of things well. It was more our lessons from the week before, we thought we got beaten at the contest and the ground ball and our pressure centre-forward. We got scored against heavily coming out. So we reversed that tonight. Our centre-forward pressure was strong, our contest was strong and again our ball movement, even though we had 56 entries last week, we spoke about the connection going in. So that was priority and we took something like 19 marks tonight inside 50 on a greasy night.
I thought we played more composure and better connection. The really pleasing thing was our leaders, Fyfe, Mundy, Sandilands, Alex Pearce, Walters, Neale stood up. And our kids blossom as well, Brayshaw and Cerra’s best games, Crowden, another debutant (Duman) tonight. I think we had five players with five games or less. There are good signs for our football club, and we just want to keep growing and progressing that. We are rapt with the result but we get some feedback that we’re on the right path and there’s plenty of improvement in us.
Sandilands doesn’t look like he needs to rest just yet, he was pretty good tonight?
He’s a credit to himself isn’t he? We acknowledge Tim English is a young ruckman, he will only get better and better. Boyd is a big bona fide man and a legitimate talent. He played his part. It was difficult, we lost Matthew Taberner, looks like a fractured metatarsal so he will be out for a while. Alex Pearce stood up and my coaching team, I have got to give them credit they organised the team and rotated the team incredibly well so we could run it out. There were a few challenges tonight but we’re looking to improve and we felt we did that.
How disappointing is that for Taberner? He’s had a good start to the year.
It’s very disappointing but he’ll come back, he’ll apply himself. AFL football is full of challenges. One of the difficult things is being available and the body when you work so hard, there’s always that balance. We’ll look into it, but we’ll support him. He’s such a hard worker that he’ll come back. He was just starting to blossom in his career.
Did you like your small forward line without him tonight or is it obvious you are going to have to replace him with a tall?
I haven’t put my mind to that, I thought he was impacting really strongly so we were disappointed to lose him but obviously the greasy conditions helped us. I think if you’re running the ball in and passing it in well, it doesn’t matter what size you are. Next week it’s our home derby… and we’d love to fill the stadium out. It’s really exciting and a big challenge. West Coast coming into really good form and we’re coming into good form, so we want to test ourselves. We’re pleased for everyone tonight, it’s been a critical period for the club at the new stadium. Everyone’s enjoying it and we’re playing some good footy so we want that momentum to continue. We all love a derby, so let’s make it a big week.
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How important has it been to establish that good form at home, in front of your home fans playing good footy?
It’s critical, we’re trying to run a dual narrative which is we’re transitioning our list and that’s indisputable, and again we don’t want to use it as an excuse for not playing good football. We felt we played good football last week as a team, but we need to improve our connection and I thought if we could deliver that effort and attitude and improve the connection we’ll be right in it and we did that. The commercial realities when you’re an AFL club at a 60,000 seat stadium, it’s really challenging and we have to play our part where we can and fortunately we’ve been helping with that.
Nat Fyfe seems to be helping with that in the past few weeks, and he was very good tonight. What are your thoughts on his game?
When you roll up, everyone talks about leadership, and in the context of AFL, your leaders have to play well under pressure and Nathan’s clearly doing that. We’ve had Pavlich in the past and Mundy, but Mundy’s still doing it. Because if they don’t stand up, or most weeks stand up, it’s very difficult for the young players. So that’s his job, and that’s what we expect him to do and that’s what he expects, but he’s delivering really well and being an AFL captain is very difficult. He copped some criticism, I think unwarranted early, and the criticism went early on Nathan but he’s worked really hard. He will become a great leader for this club.
What did you make of Duman, did he replace Johnson because Johnson was managed or was Johnson left out.
I think you answered your own question, Johnson was managed. So we picked Taylin because he was in form. It was bold, but it was horses for causes, the Dogs are very short and mobile and we knew that and we didn’t really want to play three talls. Michael needed to be managed, and I think the Eagles are tall so we may have to play him. Taylin came in, he’s 193, it’s his second year, he’s worked really hard. His body of work was strong, and I said pre-game they play one game, their development coaches come and they go ‘play him, play him’, and I say give me another one and they go ‘play him, play him’ and then he does four and I say ‘ok, now we’ll play him’. So coming in with the body of work, he’s confident and we’re confident that he can stand up. So it’s really pleasing, he’s worked hard. I think a few people noted he played with good composure.
Was Taberner’s injury related to something he had coming into the game?
It’s outside of my box. He had a plantar fascia issue coming in. If anyone can link that, they are better than me. It’s out of my depth, I’ll let the cobblers do the cobbling on that one.
Are you able to give us a rough indication of time frame?
Again, I am out of my depth but I think fractures take a while. We will update you as soon as we can, we’ll put something on our website as soon as we do the investigations and give you the details.
Any thoughts on ruck support for Aaron next week?
Just enjoy the Gatorade behind closed doors. We’ll go home and have a look at it, obviously Nic Naitanui is a massive challenge and their ruck set up is really quite strong. We want the challenge, we want to get tested, we want more feedback. It’s going to be a beauty, so everyone get there.
