Ross did you go too tall?
I think that’s the simplification. If we had’ve won the ball and been able to spread the ball I’m not sure we would be talking about it. I think there’s an element of that but that wasn’t the crux of it. We just thought that in the contest, gound ball we were minus 30 at half time, minus 15 at quarter time and on the spread I think they outnumbered and they spread the ball.
We’re really disappointed, we came here expecting a better performance. We know they’re a good running, spreading team. The focus was we wanted to put some time into (Jack) Macrae and (Marcus) Bontempelli, (Jason) Johannisen and (Caleb) Daniel early and we didn’t do that. After quarter time we did it, but 50 points (already down).
I think that’s an incredible simplification really, I think it was around the contest - we couldn’t win the ball to build the ball up. They spread out in the middle, Bontempelli runs past a couple and kicks a goal. They’re the fundamentals and that’s where it started – at the source.
You mentioned ground ball – what else went wrong do you think either side of quarter time?
Contest, ground ball. I thought they ran off. Our ability just to spread the ball – they had 140 kicks at half time – it’s world record pace. There will be a little bit about - they did counter punch out of the front half – but we wanted deeper entries and first opportunity we went short to ‘Sonny’ (Walters) rather than deep and it just gets taken out. I thought their midfield and their running backs put us through. I thought their half forwards – they passed it in really well and we made too many errors.
All facets really. We’re really quite embarrassed by the performance. I thought the second half probably flattered us a little bit, at least we gathered ourselves a little bit. I thought Andy Brayshaw after we spoke about ground ball tackles, he’s come up 15 ground balls and 3.1 (goals). I thought (Adam) Cerra went in there looked better. I thought Aaron (Sandilands) competed and tackled. At half time we had 30 tackles and Sandilands, (David) Mundy and Walters had 15 of them so too much left to too few really.
Nathan Fyfe spent a lot of time deep forward, what was your thinking there?
I could be facetious and say everyone’s been screaming for it all year, but I won’t be facetious because it’s not the time for that but he was a really sick boy. He was keen, but the specialist said it would be a real concern. We try and share the load, the others had stood up in there and I think we all agree with that. Sandilands, Mundy, Walters and (Reece) Conca are very experienced and with (Ed) Langdon and (Bradley) Hill we expect them to be able to get supply. At times he looked dangerous up there, we wanted some double threats up there and share the load and rotate through there. That's why.
Were you concerned there were still some after effects from the infection last week?
I can only go off the advice given, he was cleared to play but it was an incredibly serious infection so the toughness and the mental toughness and his ability to recover (was there). The specialist said regardless of that there will be an aerobic effect and it’s brutal AFL football, but we wanted some aerial threat in the front half so it’s king or dunce isn’t it? If we clear it out of the middle and we kick it, he kicks three and people are saying it’s a brilliant move so you have got to give opportunity. That’s not why we won or lost the game.
What do you think was the difference in that area, you spoke about the ground balls, you were so strong in that area last week against Sydney, was it just the quality?
Their spread, their quality, their cleanness. There was a lot going on, they bounced out of the centre square bounce, they spread out, the spread off turnovers, off a switch. There were a lot of fingers to be put on a lot of dykes to be truthful. We’ve been a lot better than that all year, thought we had a really competitive team. I’m really disappointed, finals up for grabs, you win that game and you’re equal eighth bar percentage so both teams were in the same position. They got it done, I thought they were impressive, we knew what they were capable of but you are right.. were we a little bit tall? Maybe, but we needed some height in our front half. I thought (Rory) Lobb looked dangerous but the two ruckmen was probably a little bit too much but if you can control the ball you’ve got to win the ball and I don’t think we did that very well at all.
How big a dent does it put in your finals hopes?
It was very difficult, obviously earlier on in the year we were playing very good football and in a very good position. But you only get that by getting your process and your performance right, so I think there is a lot of mediocrity around and we sit in that, and all the other teams with that opportunity didn’t take it. I think there will be a number of coaches as disappointed as I am, and you have got to continue to invest. Those with the most we’ve invested in were the last to surrender so we are a young group. It’s about focusing on whether you can invest more in your football and focus more and it’s a long year and a hard year but you’ve got to get through the grind and good teams do that but unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that.
You mentioned Cerra going into the midfield after half-time, did he look like he could give you something around clearances?
He’s going to become a very good player for us, he’s building his run and his size, Andy (Brayshaw) knows how to play half back. We haven’t got that many 188cm plus players on our list, there’s a few of them we can’t move around down back so he’s one that we can. We’ve been thrilled with his development and he’s really comfortable with it to be frank, but we’d like to get him some more midfield time. Fyfe, Mundy and Walters have been pretty good, they’ve carried a big load all year as a lot of us acknowledge, but they’re a capable premiership midfield with Bontempelli, Macrae, Dunkley and Hunter. They’re handy and they got it done today so they’ll feel good about themselves and we’ll think 'geez we didn’t quite handle them', but it was more than that, it was everywhere really.
Obviously you want to win every game for the rest of the season, but, how important is it to even get a couple of wins before the end of the season to maintain the positivity you established at the beginning of the year?
I think that’s really important, I mean it’s a winning business and we like to win, last week felt good I thought we fought on really strongly but our inability to come up here where we’ve typically been reasonable. We’d love to win, for our members more than anything and ourselves. But talking about it doesn’t get it done, you’ve got to pay the price to win, every week it’s the same, incredible effort and system, working together and being hard and mentally tough and physically hard from start to finish, today we weren’t that.
You say there’s a lot of mediocrity around, what to you attribute that to?
I’m not sure, it’s a bigger picture than myself. I think there’s more clubs than there’s ever been, talent systems... are they producing it coming through? I think there’s been expansion teams that took a lot of talent over a few years, I think injuries on all lists take its toll. It’s an interesting exercise at the minute.
Luke Ryan, what’s the update there?
Hamstring, I don’t know how bad. He had a cork, he was limping out and then it was a hamstring so if it is, hopefully it’s a standard three week.
Do you get any injuries back next week?
Not that I’m aware of.
