You would be happy with that wouldn’t you?
Yes. It was a pretty solid four quarter performance. We started slowly (and) tried to force our ball movement, but once we settled into the game I thought our contest work and our pressure on the ball, and the way we started defending our front half was A grade and for large periods of the game we played the game in our front half and we were able to capitalise. We understand where West Coast are at, they’re missing a lot of their more senior players, so it was pleasing on one side of it but we understand that they’re going through a bit of a rough patch and to have a few players out crook late and miss so many of their senior players, we are pretty balanced about it.

To kick 17 unanswered goals, was that the best you’ve played this year?
Of course it’s up there but it was probably more the way we were doing it as well. We went into the game wanting to really test them out by defending our front half really well and I think we ended up with 36 forward-half turnovers. Even the third quarter, where you’ve gone in at half time with a decent lead, a young team can sometimes start valuing the wrong things, but I thought our contest work, and our front half defence, the way we set up in that third quarter allowed us to own territory. I thought that showed a fair bit of maturity so obviously I was really pleased with the way we played.

Is that the sort of brand you are searching for?
Yes. I think when we play our best footy we get our contest right, we get our stoppage work right, and we get the ball in, and we defend really well behind it. We haven’t been consistent enough with that by any stretch this year, but that’s the brand we want to play.

Lachie Schultz always shows so much heart, was it good to see him get the medal tonight?
Yes, it’s reward for effort. I know he got it on his performance tonight but it’s good to see him get that reward for effort. Because you’re right, he is a heart and soul player. He commits and values the right thing in the game. I think he’s leading the comp for forward 50 tackles. I know he’s leading it with desperation and desperate acts. It was good to see him get on the end of it, even though he did leave a couple out there, he played a really good game.

What does it tell you about the group, their motivation and the path you are on if you can produce that type of footy this late in the year?
Like I’ve been saying all along, it’s a really motivated group. I know everyone talks about finals being out of the question and does that drop off motivation. But I haven’t seen any of that. I have seen real ownership of performances and I’ve seen a real commitment to getting better as individuals and as a team. Tonight was probably a by-product of that.

You mentioned having a balanced approach, given the challenges West Coast are going through, what was the message to the group after the game?
Probably just reflecting on the focusses we went into the game with. As I said, we wanted to make sure we played a forward half game, put them under the sort of pressure that they haven’t been under. They’ve been able to buffer pressure well when they’ve been in their back half and not allow teams to have forward half turnovers, especially the last three or four weeks. Their work off possession gain has been really strong. They’ve won possession gain score differential the last four weeks, so we wanted to make sure we defended our front half really well. So it was mainly just going through the focusses and making sure the players understood that largely we got the processes right.

What was your approach with handballing tonight?
Something we’ve been working on all year is being able to trust ourselves with ball in hand. Under pressure at times this year we’ve been a bit panicky with ball in hand and either quick kicked it or handballed it before we’ve dealt with the pressure which has led to turnovers in our back half in particular. Sometimes when you push that message, it can come out in over-handball which we did a few times. We don’t necessarily want chains of eight handballs in a row which we got sometimes tonight, but at least the players are trusting themselves to take the game on and bring their team mates into the game, which like I said hasn’t been consistent enough this year.

Can you talk to us about Luke Jackson?
It’s hard to single anyone out because I thought we had a lot of good performers. He plays the game in a different way to most rucks. I’ve been saying it all year, he’s a good ruckman and he will continue to get better at his ruck craft. His ruck craft was pretty strong tonight but the work he does around the ground to get involved in those handball chains or to start those handball chains or pressure the opposition to turnover was A grade. When he stops double grabbing a couple of those marks and he starts clucking in one grab, he’s going to add another real threat to his game, and another real aspect to his game.

Luke Jackson drew on medal votes with Lachie Schultz but lost on countback, would you like to have seen both players get the medal?
I didn’t even know that. I would have liked to see ‘Jacko’ get up there and make a speech. I think all of his team mates would have got a bit of a rise out of that. I back the process in, I don’t really have a thought on it to be honest.

Yesterday you said that Hayden Young would return to defence, but he started in the middle, were you just trying to throw West Coast off?
I was trying to throw you guys off. I don’t think ‘Simmo’ (Adam Simpson) bought it one bit. He knew we brought (Karl) Warner into the side. It’s just awkward, you’re sitting next to the opposition coach (at the press conference) and journos are asking you about match ups but I’m not going to give too much away. So it was a bit of a throw away joke in some sense. I thought ‘Youngy’ did a reasonable job. I thought (Tim) Kelly was pretty strong early in the game though and I thought Karl came in and really played his role. He got matched up against Jack Darling a couple of times and held up in the contest so I thought his form stacked up.

Were you across the Matilda’s game beforehand?
I was. I was watching it because I don’t necessarily watch the warm up, I get too nervous and read too much into it, even though I tell myself you can’t read anything into it. So I watched it, and saw the blown chances to win it, and was sort of hoping it would finish before we got out there. But the crowd was really involved and it was really loud at ground level whenever someone missed or scored a penalty. So it was great to see. Women’s sport has come along way and it’s great to see that people have rocked up to watch a game of AFL but got so invested a game of soccer. Hopefully they can keep it rolling.

Did you prepare the players to know it was being shown on the screen when they ran out?
No I didn’t. Because one miss, or one goal, it would be finished so it sort of felt like if you had have addressed it, by the time they ran out there it might have been done. So it was a tough one, but in the end both teams had to deal with it.

Was there an injury with Josh Corbett tonight?
No, he has been dealing with a few things body-wise so it was just an opportunity off a six-day break. We wanted to get Neil (Erasmus) into the game as well. It’s a tough one to come up with someone to sub out but we just tried to look after him.

Jye Amiss has been bandied about for the Rising Star award, what’s your thoughts on his chances based on what he has produced?
I think he should be a really good chance. I’m surprised he’s not mentioned up there as being one of the favourites. I think he’s kicked 38 goals for the year, carrying the load in the key forward stakes as a second-year player. To kick that many goals is a really good effort so I’m surprised he’s not mentioned as one of the favourites.