Yes, the third quarter more specifically. We were doing the basics well and human nature is that once you get a bit comfortable you back off so there were little signs. No spoiling from behind and not centring the ball and having a shot from 55m, that all accumulated.
To Melbourne’s credit, I thought they lifted their intensity and ran harder and threw some challenges at us.
In the last quarter we still had nine shots, bar some sloppiness, it was quite a dominant quarter again. We walk away really positive. I flew to Melbourne last week and watched them against Richmond and I thought their intensity and run was of a pretty high level. To come out and win the ball, go the quick brand of football and, when they had it, get it back off them as quick as we can - it was really positive for us and reflective of our whole year really.
I thought we played our style, our brand. There is a bit to take, bar what I said about the third quarter.
We’ve moved really quickly, it’s Sunday to Saturday. The Crows have the wood on us, albeit tight games, and they’ve found different ways of getting across the line. We need to go to school and learn our lessons. They’ve had a really good win so from here it’s about putting this game behind us really quite quickly, and training well and preparing well.
We want to go into the bye strongly, so Saturday night at AAMI against Adelaide full of confidence, everyone will be tuning in so we are pretty keen to test ourselves again.
You seemed to get through the game unscathed for one of the first times this year?
Yes, at this point. Alex Silvagni came off with a rolled ankle late, so we are still checking that out. Suban was in a bit of doubt with the flu, he was ruled out but he came good and played so we are thrilled with that. We are optimistic that Stephen Hill will get through and our Peel Thunder team had a really positive performance and Josh Mellington played well at his club.
There is a bit to like, Matthew (Pavlich) will put his hand up but we think we’ll probably keep him for another week or so.
They are the guys around the edges.
You must be happy with how Zac Clarke has stepped up into the ruck position?
Yes I commented before on our list profile for ruckman; Aaron (Sandilands), Jon Griffin, Jack Hannath’s come in, but more importantly Zac’s a credit to his preparation and his pre-season.
He’s worked really hard, had a couple of slip-ups with injury, so his ability to come back and do what he’s done for two weeks has been really positive. But again, big Jacobs has been good against us and not only does he hit it out really well, he runs really well.
Zac runs really well and he’ll throw something different at Jacobs. We are pretty keen for Zac and Jack to accept the challenge against dominant ruckman and give our mids some use of the ball.
You had 12 goal scorers, how important is that?
It’s reflective of us playing our best footy - turn it over and go.
The best teams turn it over and go and they have a wide range of goal kickers. At our best that’s what we do, you wouldn’t look at any in the front six or midfield and go he’s going to kick five or six – it’s weight of numbers, it’s performance we are after and we got that today.
You had a lot of uncontested possessions and uncontested marks. Was it due to a lack of pressure from Melbourne or Fremantle’s intensity?
I just focus on us, we scored off turnovers efficiently over the last three or four weeks. We take great pride in our work with the ball, as well as without, and it’s a work in progress.
How far has the team come in the past 12 months?
We acknowledge we improved dramatically in the second half of last year so we feel we just continued on the same vein.
In the second half of the year we were top four in attack, defence and contested ball. That’s where we want to be, but we pride ourselves on our defence and contest. We will continue to improve our attack as well.
Clearly we have had some personnel changes to come to grips with and I think we are finding a way and I think we need to continue to find a way.
What was behind the decision to sub Luke McPharlin out?
We regret we didn’t manage him better last year, so it was an opportunity.
They were going small - two talls in Dawes and Gawn.
Watts started playing on a wing so we knew we didn’t need him so, rather then push him forward, we looked after him.
