Did you get everything you were hoping for out of that hit out?
Absolutely, I think we ticked a lot of boxes today, like I said to the players after the game it was about taking a step forward for round one, and that’s all it was. I thought we took a step forward fitness wise on our intraclub, I thought we looked a bit sharper with the footy today so it was a good result.

As far as the skills you focused on in the pre-season, can you tell us how that went out there?
I liked our structure and offence. I thought our forward structure worked for us, I thought our defenders got in the shape that we were after and our players just backed themselves with the footy. It’s clearly just one game and we’re not going to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I like what we dished up.

What did you make of the mature-age recruits in Aish and Acres?
I thought they were solid, really solid. Acres on the wing just executed his role all day, he was unrelenting with his effort to his role and he got good rewards with his possessions. Aish, we flipped him around a little bit and I hate to do it to him but he’s going to have to be one of those guys that plays multiple roles for us because he’s added the midfield role to his game over the pre-season and I thought he’s been really safe for us when he’s had to go back. They both had a good start to their careers at Freo.

Given how young you are, it’s great to be able to throw Aish in the middle?
It Is, he’s clearly not a massive body he’s not going to throw the big boys around but he is able to pressure really well and he’s able to go after ground-ball really well. The other thing with Aishy is he’s just a calm head. Early I thought they got on top at stoppages a little bit and they came out of centre bounce and he was able to settle the guys, he’s just calm in a crisis.

Is Sean Darcy injured or was he meant to play half?
He was expected to play half, he obviously missed last week’s intraclub match with that shoulder injury, we got him through the required minutes today and we’ll look to step that up next week. 

And with Rory switching from forward to ruck?
He’s played that role for a number of years, clearly, and played it well. He got the rewards today from a great pre-season, it’s great to see players who come back early, put in the work and hit the ground running at the start of the year, he played both roles really well. 

Did you get through unscathed?
Yes we did, that was a positive result out of the game as well. The scoreboard doesn’t mean anything really, it gives us a bit of confidence but to get through and get the minutes into the players. Brennan Cox was a bit sore late with a bit of cramp and Taberner too with a bit of cramp, so we got them off in the last quarter to protect them. All good on the injury front so far.

No issue with Darcy then?
No, I expect him to have a full game next week and be primed for round one.

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How’s Logue feeling about the responsibility of filling in for the two big men down back?
I haven’t spoken to him about that, I think everything he’s done on the training track all pre-season has given me and Michael Prior, our backline coach, a lot of confidence that he can execute that role. He was fantastic today, but we need to be really aware that as a team we need to defend as 18, I thought we did that today, and that will help our backs.

Caleb Serong in the third quarter what did you make of his game?
He’s a kid who grew into the game. He was really good in our intraclub game last week but today was a step up for him and he grew as the game went on, we expect him to do that week after week wherever he’s playing so he would’ve learnt a lot out of today. 

Do you look to put your best possible team out next week against West Coast?
Absolutely, like I said today was a stepping stone, we need to take another step forward next week. The opposition today was missing a lot of players, so we need to make sure that we review and learn from this game. We’ll get Fyfe, Walters and Stephen Hill back next week and we’ll go a little bit stronger.

Just on Stephen Hill is he okay
I hope so, it was planned all pre-season that he would have this first Marsh Series game off, after having two big hit outs in our two intraclubs, he needed to rest, play a full game next week and rest into round one. That’s been the plan all along, so we’ll stick with that, so far so good. 

You have a few players missing for round one, is it hard to manage that internal expectation?
Not really, we haven’t focused once on what’s missing or what we can’t do. We’ll focus on having 18 players on the field executing their role, who those players are will be decided by the players and their actions. We haven’t spoken about the players missing, we haven’t spoken about any of our injury concerns or expectations, we’ve just been sticking to the process. The 18 players on the field at any given time today executed their role really well so we will continue with that mindset.

Is Hayden Young any chance for next week?
He’s a chance, I haven’t gotten an update on how he went today with our training session that he was involved with. If he went really well and hits his markers, he’ll play. I can’t guarantee what level, but he’ll play next week.