Talk us through where it went wrong from your end?
We got stuck in our back half. Every time the ball went in our back 50 and our ball movement would not allow us to get field position from there and we got done on the outside and in the contest. So, their contest method was way superior to ours. It was bits and pieces all over the ground, we went long out of our back 50, whether it was from a kick in or ball movement they just handled those contests, got on the outside of us and got re-entries. We spoke about our contest method needing to re-school that and we got a lesson on that tonight and our back half ball movement, we need to get field position from there.
You have been talking about stoppages before. What can you do to drag it out, because it is not like your players don’t know how to do it?
We got a lesson from a more experienced midfield tonight and sometimes in the contest the harder you try to win the contest, the more you get exposed on the outside and I thought there was a little bit of that as the game went on. We just tried to get in and win it or tried to pressure and then you end up with two on ones. Their one spare player was on the outside and once they get it on the outside it is just so hard to stop. We’ve been supporting the stoppage, especially mid-stoppage with a forward. In the last quarter we tried to pull our forwards back and make it even numbers and we wanted to give us a shot at winning the game, but they kicked four goals out of stoppages in the last quarter. So we sort of exposed ourselves by trying to win the game in some sense.
How frustrated were you that the Bulldogs were able to wrestle with the momentum you threw at them and were able to get on top?
Especially in the first half, but even in the second half, once we got the ball in our front half we looked pretty dangerous and we would pressure them. I don’t think our back half ball movement was the reason that they won the game. They just got the ball in their front half more and they scored heavily in their front half.
There was a lot of focus on the Lobb situation, do you think players got distracted by it tonight?
No. I don’t think that was the difference in the game.
You don’t think there was more bravado than focussing on the footy. You lost contested ball by 25. You don’t think that was the issue for anything?
No. I thought the reason we lost was a method thing and we might have had 18 or 19 contested possessions in the last quarter but our contest just fell apart in the last quarter and that exposed us on the outside. There might be isolated incidents, but I don’t think that was the issue.
Was there a message to go out and target Lobb?
No.
How did you manage that and keep the emotions in check?
I think they are really isolated incidents for example the one before the siren with Alex Pearce. I don’t think we took it over the top and I would be giving our players a massive out if I went in there post-game and told them that was the issue. It is much more wide spread than us having too much focus on ‘Lobby.’
Caleb Serong was outstanding again, talk us through his game.
He’s a player in his fourth year and he’s getting better and better. There’s such a competitive edge about him and he just wants to win. He wills himself in his role to impact the game and he was great. I thought Sean in particular in the first half was really good but they had a much more even contribution.
The players confidence seems shot at the moment, how do you go about fixing that?
I don’t know, last week you wouldn’t have said we lacked confidence, in the second quarter today you wouldn’t said we lacked confidence. You can look like that sometimes when the scoreboard gets out of hand and like I said we tried to set it up a bit to have a crack at winning it at three quarter time and then you leave yourself exposed a bit back the other way. The confidence is still there, they were a little bit flat after the game, but they want to win and they want to perform better than what we performed. We’ll pick ourselves up and the energy will still be strong and we’ll review it and get better.
How long do you expect Taberner to be out?
We haven’t set a time frame, it’s a really difficult one to set a time frame on but it’s reasonably long term.
Do you hope to have him at some point this season still?
Yes we’re hoping he’ll be alright in the backend of the year.
It is a big loss to your big man stocks to not have Matt Taberner isn’t it?
Yes. We miss him because he’s a mature key forward that can take the best defender. Luke Jackson is still finding his way, Jye’s still finding his way so it would be nice, but you deal with what you’ve got. We hope Tabs can get back to his best and give something at the end of the year.
You’ve moved to the boundary line now for the last couple of weeks, give us some insight into that.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do longer term, but I feel like we’re a young group, we’re constantly the third youngest or lower in terms of age and experience so I just think have the senior coach down there allows our younger players and all our players to some degree to reset, stay involved in the game rather than getting caught up in stakes and that sort of thing. I get a good sense of leadership, who comes to the bench a bit fired up and who’s communicating with their teammates and staying in the game. It’s been a good experiment and I’ll just work out week-to-week what I do.
You’re now two and four, what do you have to focus on the most to get the season back on track?
It’s been a bit different every week, but we need to make sure we don’t get stuck in our back half. You can’t play good teams and get stuck in your back half because the damn wall will break. We need to re-tool a bit of our ball movement from deep in our back 50 and contest method and contest is where it’s won, we need to keep educating that.
What do you want to see out of re-tooling your ball movement in the back half?
I’d like to see us not dumping it long to a contest all the time. There are times you need to and we need to make sure we’ve got good method at those contests. I thought today first of all they were able to get a good spoil on the ball, and then once it got out of the initial contest they just owned us. So we need to get our method right long down the line and we need to give our players a bit of variety to get field position in different ways other than kicking it long.
As it stands right now do you expect to have Nat Fyfe playing footy in some capacity next week?
I’m not 100% sure to be honest, I’d hate to spitball. We think he’s getting closer but we want to make sure it’s right as well so it doesn’t flair up again and we have this situation again. Whether it’s this week, next week or the week after we just have to update you during the week.
Is Brennan Cox and option forward, you’re missing a key target up there, is he the answer?
It could be. He’s just such a good defender for us. Defenders that are able to win the ball back like he does at his best are hard to find. We’ll keep looking at our options and I suppose that’s and option but I think him and Pearce have been getting the job done pretty well as well, so you don’t want to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Is Joel Hamling still injured?
No he’ll be playing at Peel tomorrow, we’ve got a few options down there, so I’m sure they’ll all want to put their best foot forward.
