You couldn’t practice that could you?
No, we probably went into it a little bit early. After we kicked a goal, the players went into it quickly. We’d usually wait another couple of minutes, but I was impressed with our structures late to be able to hold on, but I was more impressed with our determination and our fight, our ability to half contest. Especially the second half of that last quarter we got on top in the contest and re-asserted ourselves there after a pretty ordinary 40 minutes of footy. Fight’s part of what we do and who we are, and I think we showed that today.
 
Do you wonder what happened at half time, to go from one extreme to the other?
I constantly say to our players that it doesn’t take much in modern football for the opposition to pick up and the game swings. We clearly dropped our work rate and clearly dropped our method. They did some things which were beneficial to getting a hold on the game and they just outworked us as well, out worked and out hunted us and got the game on their terms. We couldn’t control their small forwards and their spread, it was impressive. Like I said I was so proud of the way we fought and found something.

Was it a bit too messy the way you were going forward in the last quarter?
A little bit, we didn’t make the most of our opportunities in our front half all day and a little bit of that was accuracy, but we tried to bomb the ball in a little bit too much, and that was probably our method and that’s a credit to the way Adelaide defended as well. I thought they didn’t allow us to use width in the front half and made our entries long and slow and sometimes you just have to deal with that. I think as the quarter unfolded, we did take a couple of marks in our front half and we converted, Josh Treacy missed one. That’s something we’ve worked strongly on, our method, going inside forward 50 but it’s a little bit to with us not doing it right but credit where credit’s due I thought Adelaide defended their back 50 pretty well.
 
What’s the significance of that sort of win in round one for you?
I said to the players after the game, round one is about setting a foundation of your footy to build off for the rest of the year. We were lucky to get the four points but I thought we showed that our best footy is strong to be able to play like that in the first half. I know we didn’t show it on the scoreboard but to be able to play that way was really strong and our worst footy wasn’t great today, so we need to close that gap. It just showed we’ve got a lot of heart and a lot of fight in us, it’s definitely something we can build off and take forward.

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You used the word lucky – what did you think was lucky about it?
It was probably the wrong word to use in a way. But I suppose when there’s not much time on the clock and you’re close to twenty points down and the opposition has got all the momentum, it probably does take a little bit of luck.
I think that luck came because we really asserted ourselves on the contest and our players never stopped trying, and never didn’t believe. So it probably isn’t the right word to sum it up. I just feel like sometimes when that ‘s the case and the scoreboard’s against you and the momentum is against you a little bit, maybe it fell out way.
 
Have you spoken to Heath Chapman about how he felt about that last play?
It just shows a young player that had his head in the game and to be able to spoil the ball the way he did to avoid a point was great game sense. I did say it was one of the best spoils I’ve ever seen in the changerooms before, I suppose that would be taking it a bit too far, but it was really important and whether he spoiled it to our numbers or it was that slice of luck I was talking about, it was a great effort from a young player to have your head in the game  and to be able to execute.

Did he know he had to keep it in?
Absolutely. He knew that we couldn’t concede a point so to spoil it back into play and spoil it to our numbers, and then the composure that ‘Coxy’ (Brennan Cox) showed over the ground ball to find a team mate. When we hit the front, I think our players did a lot right. They executed really well, structure, contest and intercepting the ball was really impressive.
 
Can we ask about the impact of your recruits… Jordan Clark and Will Brodie?
They both contributed to the contest. I thought ‘Clarky’ in particular early has some really strong one-on-one contest, and ground level contests and you could see how damaging he can be when he gets a bit of run in his game, so he was superb. Will does a lot of his work unnoticed in a way because he’s so in and under, and tough, a few of his tackles our of centre bounce, he just never gives up. So they are two young men who have fitted really well into our footy club and they’re going to be around for a while.

What’s the outlook for the three players missing today in Fyfe, Darcy and Taberner?
‘Tabs’ is going to miss at least one more and the other guys will be touch and go. Sean completed a good session yesterday and he’ll put his hand up for selection if he gets through training and ‘Fyfey’ we’ll see later in the week, he’s got a bit of work to do and a few boxes to tick but he’s a chance.
 
And any injuries today?
No we got through well, so that’s pleasing.