How do you feel given the circumstances you faced coming into the match, are you proud but also a disappointed Gold Coast got you in the end?

A little bit of both, I will take a lot from tonight, the adversity that we hit, showed some real resilience, tried really hard to execute our roles and we hung in there. I thought out backs, it reminded me of our backs at our best, just holding up and unfortunately we couldn’t get it out of our back half as the game went on and we got overwhelmed with the contest. And that wasn’t to say we didn’t have a crack, because I thought we did, for the most part our method that we’ve been working on, some of the things we’ve been trying, I saw some really good improvement. So, I’ll take the good signs, but we’re here to win. So, the players are disappointed, we’re disappointed, but I think we’ll take a bit from it.

Where do you think you came unstuck in the final term?

Well there was seven minutes to go, and we were four points down, weight of numbers with the contest. Six goals against from centre bounce, free kick goals, the chain where there was a free kick part of the goal, that hurt us. Those things you hope with some more growth and some personnel coming back that we can work on that. But we got stuck deep in our defensive 50, so any club that does that for a long period of time, the wall will break. But they didn’t stop trying, and I know it blew away in the last five minutes, and credit to Gold Coast, I thought they stuck at it and their good players overwhelmed us in the end, but like I said I think we’ll take some positives from it.

What’s the craft behind consistently winning those centre clearances?

They’ve got some really good players, onballers that are really good at their craft, that’s pretty obvious. But we didn’t have (Luke) Shuey, (Elliot) Yeo, (Tim) Kelly, (Dom) Sheed, there’s a few good players there. But that’s not to say that’s an excuse, I think there’s some positivity with some of our players who went through that they’ll grow and learn from it. But in the end, we got outmatched in that area, and it cost us.

Is there anything you particularly liked or unearthed from some of those younger players?

Everyone will grow from tonight, so debuting four players, one first gamer, getting to see Patrick (Naish), he’s been here for two weeks, two-and-a-half weeks, thought he started really well. (Hugh) Dixon, he was raw, he’s got a lot to learn, but he wasn’t with us four weeks ago. So I think the belonging piece from the club is something we work really hard on, and they feel like they belong, they feel like they deserved to be there tonight, and that’s a real step forward. Our identity, what we want to be and what kind of brand we want to play, that’s something that’s new and something we want to work on as well, so they’re part of it, and it feels like that’s grown, that group through the last two or three weeks because we’ve exposed everyone. Brady Hough played his first game tonight, perhaps will take a year or two, so he wasn’t miles off, obviously he’s pretty raw and he was under the pump a little bit, all those little things I think will pay us back one day.

Good to have Willie Rioli back tonight, just touch on the use of him in the middle?

We used Willie, (Samo) Petrevski-Seton and (Jamaine) Jones to the midfield a little bit through necessity, but to be honest we’ve been doing that all pre-season, and Willie was doing it two years ago, so that’s not new. But we haven’t seen him for two years, so there’s a few things that reminded us tonight of how good he might be, or how good he is. So that was a positive, Jamaine Jones has probably been our best trainer and the most well-performed player over pre-season so he got rewarded tonight. So, those guys getting exposure is great, but to rely on them to go all day, along with some of the other young mids we had through there, that was a challenge.

Is there an option for an extended stay in Melbourne next week?

That’s an interesting question, I haven’t thought too much about it, I wouldn’t have thought that’s part of our planning. We lost a couple of players tonight, unfortunately. As far as I can tell, I don’t look at the numbers every day, but there’s a fair few numbers in Victoria as well and with the freedom they have at the moment, that’ll be a challenge as well. So, we don’t want to go to Victoria and stay in a bubble all week, so we’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to do the right thing, we have been doing the right thing, I think we’ve managed it really well, but there might be some cases, so we’ve got to deal with that, do what’s right for us and our players and the club, but at this stage I don’t think we’ll be doing that.

Jamaine Jones limped off late in the play, how did he pull up?

I think we may have had no injuries tonight, I think it was a cramp, so though wood, we’ll just get through the next 24 hours, I think we might be okay on the injury front. And you couldn’t say that we didn’t have a crack so I’m glad some of the efforts we displayed, and we got through. So, fingers crossed he’s fine.

How good was it to see Willie Rioli get through his comeback game and show some good signs?

He’s been through a lot, I mean, few people wrote him off and said that he shouldn’t come back, it’s been two years, obviously dealing with the return of the play has been probably been – with what’s been going on with us at the moment – our injuries and with (Jack) Darling, all those type of things. But he would’ve dealt with a lot in the build up to today, so just to get a game under his belt, he performed well, players love him, his sense of belonging is very strong, he feels like he’s home. So, that’s all positive.

Apart from Alex Witherden, who do you get back next week?

Well hopefully Tim Kelly, Liam Ryan, Jack Darling, Luke Shuey, apart from Witherden. Which we’ll be good too, we’re hoping that we can get through training really well and some of these players that we did hold off tonight because they needed to be, see how they go with training and see what happens this week.

Darling is next week?

We’ll work through, he’s super fit, he only missed a few sessions, so it’s how he feels, we had a bit of a match sim with the WAFL Eagles on the weekend, he kicked about 10 goals, so he looked okay, but it was three 12 minute sort of quarters, so we’ll see how he goes, see how he pulls up. But we won’t rush him, if he’s right he’s right, if he’s not, we won’t play him.

To be out there with Josh Kennedy, how good would that be for you?

It’s a pretty good combo, Oscar Allen would be great too, so we think if we can try and get a couple of wins, keep growing and seeing some belief in our system and the way we want to play, keep playing with spirit and hopefully get some players back. And get some more wins on the board, we grew tonight but we didn’t get the four points, so we’re still pretty disappointed.