What were your thoughts on the match, aside from the injuries?
I thought we were slow to start again, but then once we got into the game I thought it was pretty even. The second quarter we didn’t use the ball well forward of centre, which didn’t allow us to defend behind our ball movement. I thought there were times we could have changed angles a little bit more but we played in straight lines which didn’t allow us to score and didn’t allow us to defend behind it, but I thought we fixed that at half time. I thought our third quarter was really strong, I thought we put enormous amount of pressure on them, played the game in the right areas of the ground for us and had our chances to be closer or even hit the front at some stage and then obviously at three quarter time we thought we were in for a real show and then in the last quarter there was a bit of carnage obviously so, I thought we fought it out to the end but through that period of time when we just lost so many players, it was a bit of chaos.

First up – how bad is Nat Fyfe’s shoulder injury?
Well he’s going to have to get scanned, I think it’s a positive that it popped back in on the field. He dislocated his shoulder so we will have to get it scanned and see how bad it is.

Griffin Logue?
Concussion

Brennan Cox?
He did his hammy and it doesn’t look positive at this stage. So we will get it scanned but it looks high grade.

So that could be season-ending for him potentially?
Potentially but we don’t need to go there just yet so we will get it scanned and let you know.

Sean Darcy?
It looks like a hamstring strain so we will have to get that scanned and update you.

Mitch Crowden seemed to be holding his shoulder at the end?
Yes, it was his AC joint. He is a bit sore but we think it’s just a normal AC joint at this stage but we will have to get him scanned as well.

And how close was Taberner?
He was close, we just thought that at training yesterday he wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable so we probably went the conservative approach knowing that if we had have played him and he re-injured it, it could have been worse so we decided just to give him another week. He probably could have got to 80 per cent so it wasn’t worth the risk, he’s such an important player for us and we didn’t want to put him at any further risk.

Are you legitimately facing a challenge next week to pick 22 plus four emergencies?
No, we will be alright, we might be a little bit thin in the emergency department. It’s a big hit but Fyfey might get some good news, so I still have my fingers crossed on a few of our players. We will definitely have three or four changes. We had some good performances at Peel, we feel like ‘Meeky’ (Lloyd Meek) is in good form at Peel, we will have to change the team up a little bit but it’s not that dire.

Who else springs to mind Justin when you think about guys that are on the fringe and waiting for an opportunity, who else is ready to go?
Alex Pearce has played two and a half games back now. It’s probably a bit early to talk changes to be honest, I’m still trying to get my head around the game and the damage that was done tonight. We have enough time to worry about that sort of stuff over the coming days.

Injuries this season, does it feel to you like across the league they have been higher?
Yes it does, I think every club has been through it at some stage. Ours has been pretty consistent, we are getting a lot of collision injuries as well, there is not much we can do about concussion or Fyfe’s shoulder. We have had a bit of a mixed bag with that. We would love to get some continuity in our team, unfortunately it is not going to be this week.

Josh Treacy tonight seemed to straighten you up, he was kicking with great confidence, how did you rate his performance?
I thought the way he came at the ball was first class, I thought last week he showed some signs in the contest, he dropped a couple of marks inside 50 that he should have taken but tonight they stuck. He just attacks the ball really hard, he commits to his leads and he got the rewards for effort. He kicked really well and to kick a goal on the siren at three quarter time that is a real pressure kick, he is made of the right stuff.

A really highly rated midfield that you were up against tonight, how did you think your guys handled that challenge and what was going on with the match ups, it seemed a lot was changing throughout the evening?
We started tagging the first half, ‘Libba’ (Tom Liberatore), we saw the job that Melbourne did on him last week and he’s probably slipped under the radar because he doesn’t get as much of the ball but he does a lot of the hard work. Caleb I thought did a pretty good job on him. We switched that to Bontempelli in the third quarter but then he started forward. I thought overall we did a pretty good job, the second quarter I thought they got field position out of stoppage but in that third quarter we were able to regain ascendancy. I think centre bounce is a really important part of the game because whichever team got the centre bounce tended to play the game in their front half. I am not sure of the exact numbers but up until half-time we were breaking even in that part of the game. I thought our mids competed really well, their mids share the ball around so much their numbers are pretty inflated at times but I thought across the night out mids competed pretty well against theirs.

What do you say to your players at the end of the game after losing so many players to injury? What’s your message in those circumstances?
I didn’t really touch on that as much as I touched on a couple of things that we need to improve on to be a better side. I think they know the carnage that was going on, and the chaos. When you lose three important players within the space of 90 seconds, it does throw a fair bit of chaos at the game and at the players. We lost our way for a little bit, but I was actually pretty happy with the way we fought it out. It could have gotten really ugly at one stage through that chaos but they missed a few shots and we got a couple back, so I haven’t probably touched on the injuries as much as a couple of areas we need to tidy up.

On Brennan Cox, he was in a lot a pain and emotionally he would have been feeling it as well. What did you say to him after the match and how is he holding up?
He is disappointed. I think he is our only back to have played every game this year. He has held up really well and he is improving his game and competing against some of the best key forwards in the comp. He has had some tough lessons this year, I think he has improved so he is going to be really disappointed. We just cross our fingers and hopefully it’s not as bad as it seems at the moment.

Sean Darcy seemed really frustrated when he was given the news, he just seemed to be building nicely. How much are you feeling for him right now?
I am feeling for all our players. Hopefully Sean gets some good news and only misses a week with the bye coming up. He is in good form. He has had a few injury concerns across the way, so he has dealt with his fair share. We’ll wrap our arms around our injured players and make them feel like they are still a part of the group. We need to move on as well. We’ve got a six-day break against a Gold Coast team that is coming off the bye, so we need to move on pretty quick.

Nathan Wilson lashed out and hit an opponent in the groin. What do you say to him after that and what did you make of the incident?
To be honest there was a lot going on in the box in the last quarter and I didn’t actually see it. I have been told about it. I’ll follow up with him during the week and see what’s going through his brain and we’ll have a chat about it. I haven’t brought it up with him yet.

In the box, when all of the injuries were happening, can you stay on top of that when it’s happening, or did you find out afterwards and have to catch up?
First of all, I saw Sean come to the bench. I think it was the next kick in that Fyfey hurt his shoulder and he came to the bench, and then that piece of play led to Coxy doing his hammy. It all happened pretty quick. Then really it was just making sure we had the right players in the right positions on the ground so that there are no holes. Then the players are looking to come for their rotations, and they realise we only have one on the bench having already used our sub. It was chaos there for a period of time, we dodged a few bullets with them missing a few shots on goal but I thought overall we fought it out reasonably well given the circumstances. It is what it is in a sense. We lick our wounds and move on.