You must be really thrilled with that win?
Absolutely, it was a great win. We knew we’d have to go the distance, they’re a really strong contested ball unit and I thought we didn’t get the game our way the whole day, but we stuck to the task and we found a way.

To go Melbourne and Brisbane, back to back top-two sides, what does that do for this group?
I don’t know, it’s always a hard one to answer. They should start believing, they should start understanding that we’ve made some really strong progression with our footy. We’ve come up against two of the best contested teams the past two weeks and I think we’ve stood up in that part of the game in particular. We’ve put a lot of work into that over the pre season and early parts of the season to become a really consistent contested ball team. We didn’t dominate contested ball by any stretch but if you go back to Brisbane here against us last year they dominated us in that part of the game and I thought we really stood up to them today in the part of the game. There’s plenty to walk on but I thought it was a good result.

Do you believe you’re a contender now having done that the past two weeks?
I’m not here to give you headlines. I know you want one, but I just think that they need to start believing in our footy and our footy stacks up. They’ve got some good evidence of that, to be able to beat the two top teams they should really believe that our footy is good enough and the processes we have in place are good enough and the fact that they’re getting to work every day and putting in the reps at training and in the meeting rooms. They should believe in the process.

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Missing some key players tonight, how much faith do you have in your depth?
I’ve had a fair bit of faith all year to be honest because we’ve had to call on it. Sometimes as a coach you do get a little bit worried with the rotating door. Especially in our front half, there’s been a bit of disruption over the last four or five weeks in our front half with different players coming in and out. As a footy club, and playing group and coaching group, we’ve always stressed that all we need of any person is to execute their role and when we get 18 guys executing roles we get good results. So I thought players came in and executed really strong roles today, whether it was Banners (Bailey Banfield) or Meeky (Lloyd Meek). Ethan Hughes has been in great form at Peel and just keeps improving his footy and he came in and did a role. It’s all we’ve pushed all year and our players should believe in that aspect of it as well.

How important was Bailey Banfield’s game in the context of this match?
We need someone to stand up and hit the scoreboard and he made the most of some opportunities so he was really important. Like I said to the players after the game and even during the week, the rub of the green doesn’t always go his way with selection but he always puts the team first and I don’t think any of his team mates would realise how disappointed he is sometimes when he misses out. But he keeps rocking up, working on his game and gets reward for effort today which is great.

Are you concerned by your starts?
I’m concerned with the scoreboard but I don’t think the process is wrong. Last week we kicked 1.6. Against Gold Coast 3 weeks ago we had 17 inside 50s and didn’t hit the scoreboard. So I think the process is here but we’re not getting reward for effort. One thing we improved today was our second quarter, they’ve been pretty ordinary the last few weeks. I think last week we got a bit of belief in the fact that if we just keep executing our footy a window in the game will open up for us and we need to make the most of those windows of momentum and I think in that third quarter we did today and put a bit of a gap on them and it proved to be pretty handy. So I’m not overly concerned about our first quarters because I think the process is right.

How did Fyfe pull up?
Good. It was good to see him back, he was a little bit rusty but he got better as the game went on. It was exactly how he thought he’d perform, and as coaches it’s how we thought he’d perform and he bridged a gap.

Do you have to take extra precaution with him and the potential covid exposure from the crowd post game?
Yes we do. He was around the group today and was really diligent with his mask wearing but it was. Bit of a fiasco I suppose. We would have loved to take him off with a few moments to go so we could have ushered him down to the changerooms so he didn’t have to deal with that but the game was on the line and the competitive beast he is he wanted to be out there and he wanted to help Peel win so it is what it is. It was great for WA footy I thought.

So what extra precautions will you have to take?
We have tomorrow out, if we can get to Tuesday, like i said he is good with his mask wearing and we will separate him from the group for a little bit but we've got a six day break so it can't be for too long. We'll just work around a few different things.

And he looks good for the Hawks?
I’ll just worry about Brisbane, before I worry about selection next week.

Griffin Logue, the experiment of him up forward looks really good, he’s lively, from a coaches perspective what have you made of it?
I think it’s going to really add to his game in the long run. He’s given us some really strong contests, he joins in at ground level and if it wasn’t for his selfless attitude he probably should have ended up with three goals. He’s doing a great job for us, he’s playing higher game time and works his backside off and has really embraced the role. It’s a tick so far!

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We were having a debate of whether he should have marked in the goal square instead of letting that go through, what did you think of that?
What do you reckon? (laughs) Yeah he should have marked it, and made a certainty of it, but it just shows what sort of a team player he is that he didn’t want to take the credit for someone else's work. 99 out of 100 times it probably bounces and finishes in a goal. Oh well, when you look back if we had have lost by a small margin, but I understand what he tried to do.

It was a really big home crowd for you. What sort of energy do your players draw from that do you think?
They understand our supporters are really passionate and bring that energy and they thrive on it. It was a healthy crowd today, on a big day for the club. It’s a bit of the chicken and the egg, the footy brings the crowd along and gets them going and then once the crowd get into it, it sort of snowballs. Our crowd are a great crowd, they get behind us and I’m glad we could put on a show for them tonight.

With that finals type game and atmosphere, is there value in that for your players?
I think so, it comes back to the belief I suppose you get from going up against the best in contested games and close games and coming out on the right side of it. I think it builds beliefs in the processes and system. I don’t see any negatives out of it.

We talk a lot after each game about Brayshaw's performance, half-way through the season can you put a comment on the sort of season he’s putting together?
A very good one, in short. He’s continually trying to grow, and I talk about processes and doing the reps and his ability to lead by example in that sense. He and a number of our young leaders are getting to the club early, dragging others along to do extras and they’re starting to get benefit out of doing the reps. He does extras more than anyone at the club, him and Caleb, and Sean Darcy, Meeky, these type of players and it’s really shining out in their games. Their ability in the contest and to use their hands is because of the work they’re doing with their coaches during the week. He’s leading by example is on and off the field, so I rate him really highly and am really confident as a coach that I know what I’m going to get from him.