What did you make of that?
They were too good for us. We expected to come down and play better. They were too strong around the ball, they stripped us with the ball and then spread and we couldn’t go with them. They made us look second rate, really.
 
Was the effort there from your guys?
How do you measure (effort)? You don’t want to get out tackled to the level, you don’t want to get stripped and you don’t want to get spread off so on the surface. I think teams can make you look like that and they certainly did that but we would have liked a higher output.
 
How do you address the players after a loss like that, given how well you’ve been going this year?
I think you put it in context. We played a very good team. We felt we could come down to do some things that we didn’t do. They did a lot of things we thought they’d do, if not everything. We thought our discipline tonwhat we wanted wasn’t great. How do I address it? I said: ‘Look you’ve done a lot right’. We are 12-2 for a good reason. But I think we acknowledge the last six weeks has been a bit of a grind for us. We have used conditions and those sort of things as probably more than we should have. Maybe the reality is we are in a bit of a rut where we need to score. The one thing is we haven’t been scoring off possession game and haven’t been scoring heavily so we acknowledge that. But it’s very hard to get up your midfielders about the centre square bounce when they’ve been so good all year. To Hawthorn’s credit, they were really good in there. We had a lot of first possession but we coughed it up, probably being a bit cute. It’s pretty hard, I think they’ve earned a fair bit of respect, they deserve an opportunity. Clearly, we’ll be assessed poorly, but that’s reality. What we need to do is come and review, identify some areas and our model is identify what we need improve, bring our effort and try and improve. We sit here disappointed, we sit here with our tail between our legs. We can’t defend the indefensible or dispute what occurred. We deal with reality, we try and learn from it and we need to get better quickly.
 
There was only one goal in the first half, what are your thoughts on that?
I feel like I’ve answered that a fair bit. No, we more held our forwards to be truthful. What do you think our forwards did?

Talking points from Hawks loss
 
I thought they were a bit messy.
I think you’re right. There’s entries and there’s entries...24-27 at half time so I thought they got back on us really well. I think you’re right, we didn’t use it very well, we were a bit slow so I said after half time move it quicker, but then we couldn’t win the ball. Does that make sense? I thought they got back on us, they pressure us really well so it was hard to see options that were open. And that’s what pressure does. If you get fierce pressure, it’s hard to see. We have done it teams ourselves, we have made teams miss clear options because of pressure. I thought their pressure, (Paul) Puopolo laid 12 tackles, (Luke) Bruest laid eight. It was 84 tackles to 53 or something. Yes, we are concerned. If you think we’re happy coming in. Earlier in the year we were top four attack for about eight or nine weeks and the last six weeks we’ve really tailed off. You could argue conditions but you couldn’t argue that today, we just played quality and we got out pressured.
 
Is it saying something about your season that you can not play your best footy and work your way through a rut while still being on top of the ladder?
I think that’s a positive way to look at it. It all depends whether you want to be positive about the Dockers or negative. If you want to be positive; 'gee they’ve played some super footy, they’re in a bit of a rut, they’re 12-2' But if you want to be negative; 'gee they’re not scoring, they won’t score, they can’t beat anybody.' But you can write whatever you want, it’s what your agenda or your angle is. But I’ve experienced that for a long time, so that’s fine.
 
How badly was Nat Fyfe affected by the cork in the second quarter?
It was a good cork, but I thought he fought on. Again, he’s super, it’s pretty hard to hold him to account. I think we acknowledge they’ve been the best team for the last three years, so nothing’s really changed here. We’ve challenged them before, even grand final day we challenged them, we’ve beaten them, so we expect to go better than that.
 
What did you make of the incident where he got the cork?
I just saw a collision and he got a cork. Didn’t he just kick the ball forward? I’d like to know but I don’t know. What happened?
 
It looked like Sam Mitchell raised his knee, a bit like the Taylor Walker incident.
Well in all honesty, I didn’t see it. And if I did I wouldn’t talk about it anyway.
 
Alex Pearce, did he stand up today?
Yes, he’s a young hungry player. David Parkin used to talk about, ‘out of the wreck, take something’. If you look, I think we’d take that. He’s really growing isn’t he? It’s really pleasing. I’m with you, my intuition watching it says he was OK.
 
Does Fyfe have anything to fear from his collision with Taylor Duryea in the first quarter or was it just a bit of a late spoil?
I didn’t really see it. It was on the far side. But look, with incidents, I know you can have your opinion, I can have my opinion, but I think ultimately the MRP will review and there will be outcomes and I don’t like to pre-empt anyway. They’re doing their best. Everything is what it is and everything gets judged fairly, I think we all believe in that. But you’re entitled to write what you see.