What is Rory Lobb’s injury?
He’s hurt his knee obviously. We’re reasonably confident it’s not worst-case scenario but we’d probably need to have it scanned before we put anything to bed. But we are reasonably confident it’s not worst case.
What are your options in the ruck if it is a longer term injury?
We think Josh Treacy’s had a good pre-season, we’ve got three key defenders that got through the game so we might have to swing one of them. I’m reluctant to, but we’re just going to have to weigh up all our options and see what will give us the best balanced team. If we go in too short it’s going to put too much pressure on Taberner, clearly ‘Lobby’ was our second ruck as well so we’ve got a bit of work to do on what our best team looks like without him in it.
And what about Lloyd Meek, how is he placed for round one?
I thought he performed really well again. He competed really hard, tried his best to nullify Nic (Naitinui) in the ruck and gave our mids a good honest contest. I think he is firming for round one.
Is Michael Walters a stock standard hamstring injury?
He’s done it before he said, it’s low grade but it’s still probably going to cost him round one at this stage.
If you were to swing a defender forward, would it be Brennan Cox because he’s done it before?
It’s probably not the right place, right now straight after a game. We’ve got two weeks to work it out. So we will get all our cards on the table over the next couple of weeks and see what’s best for the team.
What did you make of the game?
I thought we got off to a really good start. I thought we shifted the ball really well, I thought it was really promising. I thought a little bit before halfway through the second they really turned it on and turned it up a notch and we couldn’t go with them. It got put on the back foot a bit through centre bounce and then we lost a bit of momentum in the game and we tried to force too much of the ball at times. We went away from playing our way and that carried on for a quarter and a half until three quarter time. I thought we fought the game out reasonably well in the last quarter, started putting some pressure on West Coast in and around the contest but we went away from our brand of footy for a quarter and a half so it wasn’t good enough. We’ve got a lot to work on. Like I said to the players after the game we will take a lot more lessons out of tonight’s game then what we would last week. I think it was just what we needed to be honest.
What are Sean Darcy’s chances of being available round one?
He’s touch and go. He’s another option if he gets up. He’s played forward before, looks good down forward, he knows the role really well, so he’s another option but he’s touch and go at this stage.
What would he need to do between now and then to prove himself?
Get through training next week. There’s a possibility he could play minutes at Peel next week so that would be a good start.
How’s Rory holding up?
It’s the worst possible time to get injured, he was pretty positive. He’s holding out hope that he’s dodged a bullet, he will obviously get it scanned and have a little bit more clarity of his path forward. He’s an important part of our team and we’re going to miss him.
His ankle also got twisted, was there anything in that?
We are more worried about the knee.
You had a couple of other minor scares with Alex Pearce and Bailey Banfield.
I’m pretty confident ‘Banners’ got through unscathed, he’s a bit sore and will be a bit sore but we’re pretty confident that he’ll be right. Alex obviously played out the game so that was good for him, he’ll grow in confidence. I thought his actual form took another step forward tonight as well so that was good that he can get through those physical contacts. He was sore at the time, but he responded really quickly. Mitch Crowden had a bit of a tight calf so that’s why he got taken out of the game.
Cerra’s got a calf strain, is he in any doubt for round one?
No, we think he’ll be alright. It’s a low-grade calf so we think he’ll be there for round one. We think Serong will come up no worries at all.
What was Serong’s issue?
Tightness from last week, he just didn’t quite recover in time, got a bit sore. He’s actually done the most minutes of anyone through the pre-season, done the most match sim. We could’ve played him, but we just wanted no risk, we had Tucker and Blakely who could come in for him so we’re pretty confident he’ll be right.
How did you rate Tucker and Blakely today?
I’d like to have another look at it a bit closer before I comment on individuals. I thought we got beaten around the ball at important times, so we’ll just have to dig a bit deeper. We need to get more consistent around the ball, when things aren’t going our way it seems to be we drop away quite a bit and centre bounce becomes an issue when momentum is against us so we need to tidy that up.
Is Luke Ryan in the same basket as Cerra and Serong?
Yes, really confident he’ll get up, he’ll be fine.
Your kids generally how did you find them?
There’s a fair few of them so I’m not going to name them all. I just feel like when West Coast got on top we went into our shell and that can happen with young sides, when the opposition get on top you go into your shell, you’re not willing to take risks, you’re not willing to do the things you do when you’re two or three goals up. Like I said before all our players will take more lessons out of tonight’s game than what they would last week or the week before, so I think it’s a good one for us going forward.
