What disappointed you the most today and how did you see the match play out?
I thought our contest work really stood out. We came up against a really mature side that were hungry. They brought really good pressure, really good hunt and we just didn’t deal with it. That’s been a bit of a theme against the better sides and we’ve got a level at the moment that we play at and once a team brings more than that we can’t absorb it and can’t play our way.
The tackle count was 71-35, what goes through your mind when you hear stats like that?
It just shows our level of competitiveness. It also shows their ability and their contest method, and they were able to stand up in our tackles. They were really clean, they were able to get 30-40 metre surges to a forward playing in front and we bring pressure on ourselves by not doing the basics well enough. There were times when we were out and we missed easy handballs or missed easy kicks or didn’t tidy up our mistakes in defensive 50 and cost ourselves easy goals. The tackle number is disappointing but there’s a lot that goes into that and they showed us up in all those areas today.
From a contest point of view, they kicked 11 goals from stoppages. Why couldn’t you control that? There’s a number of factors. I don’t think we hit the ball to the right areas at times which gave them momentum. At times we’d handball back and that guy would get pressured and then we’d succumb to the pressure, and there would be a turnover. At times when we put good pressure on them at the stoppage, they were able to get a 30 metre kick forward where their forwards were just playing in front. They were really predictable to each other, we were on the back foot and they made us pay.
Did you think composure was an issue in the first quarter? Do you think the players were a little bit flustered?
I thought we felt their pressure early on. The 50m penalties were a sign of that. Nathan Wilson getting smothered led to another goal and Griffin Logue had an easy ground ball that he fumbled and all of a sudden, you’re behind on the scoreboard and chasing the game and that adds more pressure to it. It adds more scoreboard pressure and you’re up against a good side who’s bringing real physical heat and that adds perceived pressure as well. We just didn’t handle it and we haven’t handled it well enough. Like I said to the players after the game, we need to make sure that we learn these lessons, they’re hard lessons at the moment but we need to improve from games like this. We need to set our standards a lot higher, so we can start mixing it with teams that play at a top-four level and they played at a top-four level today.
How did you view the pressure and expectation on the players? It’s the fourth time you’ve been in the eight, it’s a trend that you get in there and don’t handle the next week well.
It is a good point. We have spoken a lot about that, about the process, getting the week right, and making sure we prepare really well. I think sometimes as a player you read all the good press and you get all the pats on the back and it doesn’t take much of a lowering in preparation to get whacked in this game – especially when you come up against good sides, so we got a lesson today.
When you talk about a level that you can sustain and when a team brings a level of pressure you can’t handle, is that something you should expect with a young team?
I think it definitely has something to do with the maturity of our group, it’s got something to do with the fact that what we are trying to do is not fully ingrained in them at the moment and not predictable to each other under pressure. I think our level of efficiency with the ball in hand gets questioned under real pressure from a top-four team.
How is Nathan Wilson looking?
He has a tight hammy, he can just feel it. He has never done a hammy before, so he was a bit vague in his presentation, so we have to see how he pulls up. I imagine we will get it scanned and see how he goes.
There was a lot of social media chatter about how Andy Brayshaw was treated off the ball, how did you see that?
I have no real comment on it, to be honest, I thought he handled it well. I think he is one player that relishes a challenge and got better as the game went on. That is what you get sometimes against the better sides, so we need to learn from that.
He’s obviously becoming a good player in this competition. Do you expect that he is going to have to cop that a fair bit now and work his way through this part of his career challenge?
Absolutely. As you step up the reins of being an elite AFL player, that is what you have to deal with and learn from, embrace and find avenues to improve your game and get better. As I said, I thought he was one that tried his guts out all day. He will learn from that, it’s not the first time this year that he’s had to fight through a tag or fight through that physicality and he’ll get better from it.
You’ve got a tall forward line. Early in the third quarter, you looked the most dangerous. How are you viewing the tall forward line, is the lack of pressure inside forward 50 a trade-off to that?
Absolutely. Our lack of predictability, I thought in that third quarter in particular we looked predictable to each other, predictable with our ball movement, predictable with our entries. We got the result we got but throughout the rest of the day, we were unpredictable to each other and didn’t work together to isolate the advantage. (Lloyd) Meek is one of the talls down there, he has played five or six games and he is going to improve. ‘JT’ (Josh Treacy) has played maybe 10 games, we are young and we will learn but we need to make sure that we take the lessons from today and understand how you need to play against a very good backline with pressured entries and see if we can eke out a score. If we don’t make it inside 50, we are not really scoring at the moment. We’re not able to pressure enough when the ball hits the ground. I thought that was one of the things that Brisbane did really well, as soon as the ball went over the back they were able to reposition for each other really well. They would either get it long and wide under pressure or use their numbers to find a mark and take away the pressure opportunities. Whereas at the other end of the ground we weren’t able to do that. A lot of the times we had the loose players to use but I’m just not sure we have the same intent to get back and the same composure to be able to buffer the opposition's pressure. It’s something we learn from and we need to get better at.
What are you sensing at the moment as the biggest lesson and biggest thing to address before the Derby?
Execution under pressure and being predictable to each other in those moments.
What living conditions are you under this week?
We’re out of quarantine tomorrow, that’s my understanding. I don’t think my life will change too much, I’ll be at the Club tomorrow morning. I don’t tend to get out too much, even less after a loss like that.
Will that be good for the players? Will being able to live more of a normal life enhance the ability to learn?
Absolutely. It makes life a lot easier. A lot of our players search for opportunities outside of the Club to work on their game, so they’ll be able to do that this week and live a normal life, which should only make things easier.
