What did you make of today’s game?
We probably played two and half really good quarters, and it was probably a bit similar to last week. When you don’t play four quarters, it can come down to a bit of luck, one kick either way. Last week it fell our way, this week it didn’t. We have to play four quarters if we’re going to consistently beat the good sides so that’s our major lesson for today.
Are your slow starts in the first quarter starting to worry you?
Yes. It’s not so much not kicking a goal, we’ve gone into the breeze every single first quarter this year. It’s our intensity and the way we play. We didn’t score in the first quarter against Adelaide, we didn’t even score a point, but our first quarter was fantastic, the intensity was right up and we were happy to go with that. The last two weeks our intensity hasn’t been there and the opposition’s kicked three goals. Sides have got to bring their best against us in the first quarter, we probably were the benchmark last year, maybe not so much this year so they’re going to come out knowing they have to play at their best and they have been doing that, we probably haven’t weathered that well enough so far this year.
Your tackling pressure was there but it was more focused on trying to stop the opposition rather than hunting, was that worrying as well?
Absolutely it was, our tackling numbers were up but we were second to the footy a lot and we weren’t forcing turnovers that gave us an opportunity to be clean and get going our way. It was really tackling to hang on, rather than tackling to pressure to get the ball moving our way, that was accurate in that sense.
They had more uncontested marks than you had for the day, was that just that lacklustre start again?
That’s their style, they’re very much an uncontested mark team and they’re very good at it. It was one area that we addressed that we needed to keep them below a certain number, and we got nowhere near that number, so they were too good in controlling the ball in that sense. That’s where we needed to force some turnovers to get the ball going our way and we didn’t do that. We did that later on in the game but in the first half in particular, quarter time might have been 14-0 uncontested marks so that showed where the game was at at that point.
Do you feel like you’ve cost yourselves that opportunity at a home prelim?
Yes I’d say so, we’d need a lot to go right next week, I think we’d need three results and percentage for it to go right so I think we’re really just battling to get a win next week to earn the right for a home qualifying final. That’ll be our aim next week, hopefully we can do that so we can at least get back here to play whoever finishes fifth or sixth.
Do you still feel like you can win a flag from fourth, fifth or sixth?
I think there is very little between the top seven teams in the competition, so it obviously makes it harder coming from there but there’s no reason on their day, anyone in the top seven can beat each other. I think we just have to make sure that we’re on every single time. There’s no room from now to be off a little bit, once you’re off that’ll be the end of your season so at least that keeps it sharp in the mind that that’s what the situation is so we look forward to that challenge.
Did you say anything to Roxy Roux at 3qtr time about her celebration because she was quieter in the last?
Roxy is a very introverted person a lot of the time and then she can be really extroverted at moments so that’s just normal for her, that’s not out of character for her to celebrate like that and then go back into her shell so to speak. We were still happy with her effort in the fourth quarter, she competed really strongly in the ruck and I think she kicked one of our goals in the last quarter as well so no, I didn’t say anything to her at all about that. That’s Roxy, we love her and she can do what she likes in that sense.
Just on those first quarter slow starts, what can you specifically change to address that?
We spoke about that just then as well, we will actually dig deep into that. We scratched the surface last week looking at different ways, we did one or two things differently but we’ll actually have a good chat with the men’s program and talk about different things they do that may work for us. We’ve also challenged individuals to think about what individuals need to do to be switched on and ready to go because it’s not good enough. So that’s something we’ll look into this week to make sure we can start well against the Kangaroos.
Set shots, you missed a few today?
Sometimes I’m not too worried about the scoreboard when you’re 0-7 because sometimes you get forced wide and numbers back and you’re shooting from a long way out. There’s probably a couple there today that we missed that we would’ve liked to have kicked for sure. We did some work on goal kicking during the week that didn’t necessarily pay off but it’s something that, it can be a big part of the game but I think the stat shows, if you score a point in AFLW you’re 80 per cent more likely to score next than the opposition. So it’s not where you miss and it goes down the other end and they score and we did have the ball down there a lot, particularly in that second quarter. It just would’ve been nice to get one goal to break the duck at that stage.
Any injury issues at this stage?
No I think we’re ok. We ended up with full rotations at the end so hopefully that’s a sign we will be up and going next week. I haven’t spoken to the doc yet but I think that’s ok.
What about Evie Gooch being pulled from the East Fremantle WAFLW game?
Yes, she just had a back spasm when she was doing her strength program at the club last Tuesday and she’d been playing ok. It was Tuesday and they had a Friday night game so nowhere near enough time to recover from that. Hopefully she’s back this week and putting her hand up as well.
Any other news from WAFLW?
I’m not sure how Mikayla Morrison went today, she’s kicked four goals and three goals in her first two games back and Mikayla Hyde played today as well. So we will have a look at the vision of all those games and see if any of them can put their hand up to break into our side.
