North runaway with win in the wet
Match highlights: Round 10 v North
Sandilands hurt in clash

What were your thoughts on the game?
I thought our effort was pretty consistent. I thought probably our hardness around the ball improved after half time. I just thought we could have been a little bit harder earlier, just a bit more intensity. But I thought we delivered on that. Our kick-ins early were terrible, and they just went back in and had those entries, and we were ignoring the free players. But once we composed ourselves a bit there we got moving, and scored okay. I think it was 10-20 entries, but we were in front. Our connection we worked on was a lot better, to our forwards, and I thought when the game was tight, there was a couple of things. Obviously our discipline was disappointing and not at the level required. I observed Chris Scott talking about his side and discipline, and how costly it can be. So the discipline piece and a little bit of hardness. And I thought as the game got really tight, their key forwards took a couple of good clunks and kicked a goal. We broke the tag in the last quarter, put our big mids in there, Mundy, freed it up and made them accountable. I thought we were right in it. You will never know, but Aaron (Sandilands) going down changed the mix around the stoppages a little bit, and they got some territory. I thought they just had a bit of an edge on us in different parts of the game, with speed, a bit of polish, and consistency in things we were trying to do. They just separated on us a little bit I thought.

How is Aaron?
I didn't see him. Typically I try to get to them. He's in good care. They tapped him out, so obviously it was a concussion. Look, he's a brave player for us, and he's been super.

What irked you about the discipline?
The 50s. They're just unnecessary. They don't get you anywhere. There's discipline to roles, discipline to pressure roles a little bit. Sometimes it can be discipline to low tackles versus high tackles, those sort of things.

What did you make of Shaun Atley's goal in the final term. It seemed like Joel Hamling was tackled without the ball?
There's lots of moments in the game. You get plenty of moments to get it right. So that's just one moment. You want to be in positions where one or two of those moments doesn't affect you. I think that's flip of the coin stuff. I never focus on it and I don't want to focus on it now. There's always bits and pieces like that. But as I said, the connection was better, we have to keep working on the discipline. That was a bigger issue than an umpiring decision I thought. 

What did you think about Hamling's job on Ben Brown?
It was solid. Brown had kicked one there for a fair period of the game. Conditions probably helped Joel. But I thought it was okay. Waite's third quarter was good. I coached him in 2000 at Carlton, he was a young 17-year-old who came through. I went to his father Vinnie's funeral, and he said hello before the game. He's a wonderful young man, and having great longevity. On Alex Pearce, a quality defender, he just did a couple of things that separated it a little bit.

Jarrad Waite had two majors in the third and Ben Brown had one in the third, were they game changing moments?
That happens, but again we would have liked to have scored a bit better. At times we did it really well and at times that polish and decision making was lacking and that’s the reason we’re four and six. I think we’ve been in a lot of the games, there’s a couple of games where we got smacked, like against Port. But I think against GWS we were in it in the last quarter and against the Eagles we were going really well. We went right until the end. We are going to double down on what we are doing. It was tough to leave (Mitch) Crowden out, but he needed a bit of freedom. We have (Taylin) Duman that needs to play and Griffin Logue played his first game back at Peel Thunder, we will bring him back (into AFL) as quick as we can, we’ll look to bring (Stefan) Giro in. At the minute there is not a lot of youth down at Peel to be honest, they are either in rehab. Sean Darcy and Hugh Dixon, Bradley Hill are in rehab. Harley Bennell played his second game in the midfield, we saw the quality in his run. We are going to double down on that and as soon as those young players are available you’ll see more of them because that’s what we need to do. I think it’s been balanced but we will probably skew it a little bit unbalanced and keep the youth in and keep them going, because regardless of anything else, that needs to happen for the future of the club. We are fully committed to that, regardless of any criticism or observations it’s the right thing to do and we feel we are doing it but we you can only play the ones you have got.

How did Harley get through?
He played midfield, which is his thing, last year he played forward. He is getting his sprints up to the level of an AFL midfielder. He did some real quality things in two quarters and five minutes. He kicked a goal and set a few up, his quality shone through. It was really windy at East Fremantle and a bit wet but if he keeps progressing like this we are going to have a really good player. He just needs a bit of luck with his body. He’ll keep playing his part and we’ll keep playing ours and in the end, hopefully, we’re all vindicated and we have a special player at the club. But there are plenty of hurdles to jump, but he is well on the way.

WAFL Watch: Giro impresses in Peel loss

Would the head knock to Sandilands influence you for next week at all in terms of giving him a spell?
It’s not my decision, it would be a medical decision. But clearly it’s a mitigating factor and a contributing variable and a concern. Michael Apeness played at Peel, he’s been up and down with injury. There’s also (Scott) Jones and (Luke) Strnadica. Sean Darcy is coming off his PCL injury still, he wont play for another two to four weeks. We won’t risk Aaron, he’s done everything he’s had to do for this club. We would err on the side of being conservative, which we would do with all our players.

Who do you see next in line?
I went and watched Peel, it would be Apeness, Jones or Strnadica

How did you view the Nat Fyfe-Ben Jacobs match-up?
I was more tuned into Fyfe, I thought he was electric early and in the last quarter he was ruing us across the line. He can’t be everywhere, we just need more depth of quality. Ben Jacobs is a good player, North is a good team.