Do you feel like the margin was an accurate reflection of the game?
No it didn’t. They obviously had one after the siren and they scored pretty heavily in the last quarter. Especially the second and third quarter, I thought we should have made more of our opportunities and the scoreboard probably shouldn’t have looked like it did at three quarter time. That’s been an issue for us all year and I think, especially the last six weeks, even though we’ve had some good wins in that period, I still think we haven’t capitalised on our dominance and we didn’t do that again tonight, and against good teams, you need to. They got their game going in the last quarter, they went to another level and we couldn’t match them.

Why weren’t you able to make the most of the clearance domination you had – was it the skills going into the forward 50?
The second quarter we missed shots and kicked it out on the full. We missed shots we should have kicked. Just our connection going inside 50, sometimes we should be lowering our eyes and looking for the lead and we kick it long and sometimes we should be going slow and we’re going fast. Just haven’t quite got that craft forward of centre yet to be able to capitalise on the hard work, because you’re right, we were dominant in the clearance. Sometimes when you move the ball in the wrong fashion going inside 50 against a team like Richmond, you can’t defend it going the other way and it comes back at you with interest. That was the main message to the players after the game.

I think five of Richmond’s goals came from turnovers – they just punish you when you make a mistake don’t they?
Yes they do. That was the difference probably in the game, they scored off turnover, especially turnovers in their front half. We knew going into the game we had to limit their turnovers and they didn’t’ score a massive score in the end so I think we did that pretty effectively especially up until three-quarter time, we just weren’t able to sustain it.

In the final quarter your boys looked a bit fatigued – was it the short turnaround and a flight?
I’m not going to give our players that out. I think Richmond went to another level and we stayed at a similar level and once we got on the back foot we couldn’t match it. We hung in there, but they just got on top in the contest and took their contest to another level that created a lot of opportunities for them forward of centre and they took them. 

You’ve put a lot of faith in your skills this year – have you still got a fair bit to go in that area?
We’ve got a lot of work to go. Some of our younger players tonight came up against a really high-pressure team and they will learn a lot from that. They will understand that there is a level that you need to train at to be able to compete with the top teams. We’ve got a lot of work to do. I thought our offence was okay, we were able to hit uncontested marks to take ground and I thought especially in that third quarter we started using our hands a bit more and driving our legs like we want to do. It's just that last piece of the puzzle is letting us down, but we will continue to work on it and get better at it and one day it will start clicking week in and week out. We will work on that connection and get that chemistry working and we'll be able to make the most of our good work.

What did you make of the three tall forwards with Jesse Hogan in there now?
I think it worked well, but again we just didn't capitalise on it. Jesse did some good work, Rory Lobb had some good moments and Matt Taberner was playing on a good player but created some opportunities for himself. It felt like we had Sean Darcy pushing down there and had four talls flying at once at times and then at times we couldn’t get a contest on the ball. It’s something we probably need to stick with and build that chemistry and try and find ways we can create some isolation for those guys to go to work one-on-one a bit more.

Thoughts on Blake Acres' return tonight?
He played a really important role for us. I thought his contest work was good. I thought he used the ball well. It was a good return from him.

Dustin Martin’s lowest disposal count in seven years, Conca obviously had a significant influence?
Yes, outstanding. I thought he did it by the book, played the role we asked of him and Reece has been doing that for a fair period of time now for us, he’s a leader of our club and he stood up tonight.

Walters is playing more up forward than midfield, what is the reasoning behind that?
It simply comes down to us needing to be more dangerous forward of the ball. He’s a forty-goal-a-year small forward. Our midfield tonight was dominant, especially from clearance, and we need to make more of that dominance and as you said it’s been a bit of a theme for us for six weeks (him playing more up forward). When he came back from injury, we decided to play him forward a little bit more, we need to work with him to try and get him into the game and try and create opportunities for him to go to work a bit more because I think our forward line looks really congested at times and that’s not what he needs, he needs a bit of space. So we’ll keep trying to create and find the right role for him because we need him having more of an impact on games, so we’ll keep working with Sonny. I thought he was real close at times today, and he gets paid a lot of attention by opposition teams but we will keep working with him and get him into the game more.

Did you get through unscathed?
Yes. There’s a few bumps and bruises, but overall pretty good.

Do you fly tomorrow?
We fly tomorrow to Cairns, five-day break, everybody will be raring to go and we will put it out there again against Melbourne.

What lessons do you take from this short break into that short break?
Well, we’ve got an extra day and the travel’s not as long. I think it’s just finding the balance between reviewing the previous game and being able to move on to the next. I’ve always been a big believer that preparation is key to performance so, making sure we shift our players mindset early in the week, getting them focussed on the opponent rather than focussing too heavily on the previous opponent. So we continue to tinker with that and try and find the perfect balance.