Ross, can we start off by getting your thoughts on the match?
For both teams (it was) trying conditions, the heat rule was invoked. When I was driving up here I looked at the dial and it was 43 coming out of Perth. It dropped a little bit down to low 30s but it was very trying conditions, but I thought both teams really whacked away.
Specifically, for us I thought our contest was really strong, our ground level, we won the ball well. (Brodie) Grundy who is a dominant ruckman, I know he has been interrupted but for Rory Lobb and Scotty Jones to go there, I thought they acquitted themselves really well around there.
We tackled really well and pressured and won the ball back centre-forward strongly, we didn’t capitalise on that and in the last quarter that faded. It was certainly our first hit-out but with what we are trying to do – give our talls opportunities and entries – we certainly did that. I think it was 60 to 48, so some good figures there but there’s got to be some subtlety to that which we will fine tune and we are confident we will get to.
We just thought defensively, they scored more easily than we would’ve liked in a couple of the quarters but again, we feel there’s some individual craft within that, some young defenders that were beaten and a little bit of team defence. It’s linked to ball use. A number of times it was two-goal swings where we were out and some fundamental decision-making or ball-handling and execution so that was costly, but overall for our first hit-out... pleasing.
I thought the development of (Andrew) Brayshaw and (Adam) Cerra, (Travis) Colyer whacked away and got going late. I thought Jesse (Hogan), for him to get through and take another step forward was exciting for us - so there were some good signs.
On Hogan, he looked pretty good early in terms of movement?
Yes, he’s unlimited physically, except we are building his game time up and he could’ve kept going but our high-performance managers map out the plan and get them to the line. It was the same for (Michael) Walters.
There’s some really good signs. They had a number of players out, they have a very strong squad – I would like to think we had some good players out too but some players put their hand up for round one selection strongly and a couple would probably walk away thinking I wish I had have made more of the opportunity.
At what point did you take Hogan out in the third quarter?
It was relatively early, I think he was 70-80minutes. It was a very serious (foot) injury and he’s managed it really well, he’s trained incredibly hard, he’s fitted in and he really wants to be a part of a hard-working forward line. So he is playing his part.
He didn’t get a lot of touches today but the wind was tricky in that first half?
Joondalup, and Perth itself, can be really windy. He brought it to ground and brought our small forwards into it but again, some of the entries were a bit dirtier than we would’ve liked when we had time and space. So we’ve just got to fine tune that. We had Brad Hill, the class – he just lowered his eyes and finds an uncontested mark, we had more opportunities for that but we just bombed a bit more than we would like.
Watching the intra-club last week it looked like Hogan, Lobb, (Matthew) Taberner would have been your first-choice for tall forwards - but is Brennan Cox still firmly in that mix after the way he played today?
I thought he played his part. He’s a very smart forward, a very good young player and that’s our challenge – to pick the guys who are in form and playing well. That will be a match committee decision, we have a short turn-around, 6-days which is challenging after your first hit-out but we’re professionals and we need to get up. So we spoke about being really sharp in the review – as in concise – and physically recovering and we play the Eagles off an eight-day break, the reigning Premiers, so it’s a really big challenge for us in Mandurah.
Any injury concerns?
We have assessed and determined (Sam) Switkowski has a hamstring injury, to what extent we don’t know, but he has a history of them – which is disappointing. The rest were just knocked thumbs and knocked knees nut nothing (major).
So Griffin Logue was ok?
Yes, my understanding is that his was cramp.
Sean Darcy, you thought he might get up today?
I thought he’d play this week and we named him, he certainly hasn’t got a soft tissue injury but there was just some tightness. Hopefully he can work his way through because he needs to play, but I thought Lobb stood up today. I know everyone sees him as a key forward but his ability to play ruck and get his hand to it was really impressive today so that’s exciting for us.
You have genuine competition for spots, that must be pleasing?
Competition for spots is pleasing. We would’ve liked Reece Conca to get up today, Nathan Fyfe is a very good chance to play next week as well as Sean Darcy. The longer-term ones are Connor Blakely, Stephen Hill and Aaron Sandilands, but we’d like to think Stephen isn’t as pessimistic as maybe we first thought, maybe 3-4 weeks which is exciting because he’s a class act. Again, Brayshaw and Cerra, some of our youth were really good today as well as (Ed) Langdon and Hill.
Do you see Brayshaw mainly as a mid and Cerra mainly as a half back at this stage?
No, we want to develop Adam. Really, he’s been in our handful of best players when he’s played forward, he’s had a rising star at half back and he’s building in the midfield, so we want him to be a complete player. What we want to do with Andrew, since he played wing and half forward last year, is not pigeon hole him because it’s a very tough existence if you only play one position.
It was good for Andy to get through his first game back since the broken jaw incident.
Yeah it was very good, he did get knocked in the intraclub match, but I think we’ve acknowledged that we are playing the Eagles this week. He’s stepped back into senior footy with his head over the ball, he was confident, and his dad was confident. A bit might be made of it during the week I feel, and hopefully Andrew (Brayshaw) feels like he can deal with it and it doesn’t have to be spoken about again.
What did you make of Darcy Tucker’s game?
Well we put him in a tagging role. We’ve been struggling to fill that breach since Ryan Crowley. If you look at the grand final teams, Hutchings did a wonderful job on Sidebottom and If he gets his 42 possessions then Collingwood probably win, so he was important. It’s a tool we want in our toolbox, but we need to train it up and there will be more intense games and bigger challenges, but I thought he took a step forward.
What’s the timeline on Sandilands?
I have no timeline at the moment except that he’s stagnated and there’s all that noise swirling around but he is moving forward at a more rapid pace.
