Talk us through the most worrying aspects about today?
There was a few. We got beaten up around the contest and that was probably mainly our mids. We lost that battle and then we just couldn’t win contests ahead of the play. When it’s a pressure game and there’s no real ball movement in the game, especially early, you just need to be able to win contests or halve contests to get some field position. We just had field position against us all day, probably in the second quarter we broke even and in the last quarter, it was already done by then. In the third quarter and the first quarter we just couldn’t buffer field position, I think they had over 30 forward-half turnovers and we just couldn’t win contests ahead of the ball, we didn’t shift the ball to try and make them defend, we just got stuck in our back half.

Talk us through the midfield battle.
They were able to shift a lot better than us. They were able to pressure us and turnover when we got first possession. Really, no matter what we did, we just couldn’t get any ascendancy. There were some moments in the third quarter where we started going forward a bit more and we actually won some clearances, kicked it forward and they intercept marked, and back they went. They just had ascendancy in all aspects at stoppages whether we won them, or they won them.

It didn’t feel like there was a response when the game was on the line, why do you think that was?
Definitely in that third quarter we internalised and got stuck in our own heads. The scoreboard got out of control, players would’ve been worrying about that, worrying about their own form and we just went away from any resemblance of a connected brand. We spoke about that at three quarter time, it was better in the last quarter. We spoke about it after the game, you’ve got to fight through momentum as a team, you can’t fight through it individually, we all tried to fight individual battles rather than connecting as a team.

It was a game where everything was on the line, how much of a concern is that?
It’s interesting the way you frame it. We would’ve loved to shine more in those moments. It’s not necessarily that the players give up, no one gives up, it’s just you internalise in those moments and it looks like you just become disconnected and that’s what happens. No team gives up. We went about it the wrong way and we needed players to be the glue in those moments and we just didn’t have enough. We’ll keep educating our players and talking through those situations during the week.

It's happened a few times this season where the players have internalised, why do you think that is?
There are a lot of factors that come into it and it wouldn’t be the same for everyone, you can’t put a blanket over every player and say ‘this is why they do it’. Expectations, scoreboard, a poor start again, their pressure was good, perceived pressure crept into it and we showed a lack of composure with ball in hand. There are different reasons for every player so we’ll keep working our way through those.

We’ve seen young teams take a big step forward and the next season regress, do you feel this might be the case?
There’s no doubt. Last year we had a really good season, with who we lost we got younger and for whatever reason we haven’t handled the pressure as well as we would’ve liked. That feeds into those moments in games where a lot more is expected of everyone and we’re not living up to it. You tend to try and fight your own battles a little bit and we gotta be better than that.

Would say now finals are unlikely for you?
I understand why you’d ask the question, but we need to be playing better footy full stop. Whether the finals are in the picture or out of the picture, we need to get back to consistently playing our best footy, which we haven’t done for long enough.

What do you need to find in the next 7 games to change what’s happening at the moment?
We’ll keep rewarding the guys at Peel that play well, there were some good performances yesterday. We’ll keep selecting the team on its merits every week, but I don’t see it as a point to keep playing the kids because we’re already 17th youngest on average so we’ll just keep picking the team on its merits. Keep trying to pick the team that’s in best form and keep trying to prepare them, educate them and improve them each week.

Do you know what’s gone wrong with the starts?
We’re playing first quarters like the sting’s gone out of the game and we’re not embracing the opposition's best pressure and best efforts. I would say that’s across the season, not necessarily talking about today, that’s what happens. We overuse the ball, unpredictable with our long kicks and then that allows the opposition to play the game in their front half and puts us on the back foot from the start. We’ll keep working on certain areas of our game that’ll help us in first quarters during the week and hopefully we can get on top of it.

Do you need to change something pregame to provide that spark?
We’ve done a lot of that behind the scenes. We’ll keep looking at other areas.

How disappointing is it to go into three-quarter time with only two goals in front of home fans?
Yeah of course. We didn’t play the brand of footy we wanted to.

The moment with Matt Johnson in the second quarter, when he got tackled and there was no 50-metre penalty, what were your thoughts?
The game never changes based off one instance. There was more than one instance, there was a trend in the game where we got stuck in our back half all day and we didn’t get it right around stoppages. So not just one moment.

What’s your message to the team to try and get their heads out of this?
Don’t wallow in your own self-pity. We’re all disappointed but we’ve got a six-day lead up to a great challenge, so we need to get around each other, we need to help each other get better and we need to bounce back.