Adam, what was the feeling at three quarter time, given the attrition rate? And the fact that you were right in the game?
We'll take a lot from today. Fremantle were a better side; they ran over top of us in the last, but that third quarter was really resilient. I think we are probably going to lose six or seven players from today. So, second quarter was disappointing, I think we kicked five points. But the third quarter was one of the better quarters we've played in my time here.
You mentioned six or seven, I could only count five, who were the other two?
Well, we will have to wait because they were out there, there was no choice. I think I said to them at three quarter time in juniors you don't want to come off, well that's happening this quarter. And then Liam Ryan went back on at stages and was pretty brave. And in the end, we got overwhelmed and you know, there were better side, and we tip our hat to Fremantle, but internally, with the numbers, contested possessions, groundballs clearances, I know, we went down by three or four, but the hit-outs were like 80 to 18 and we're working really hard on our method around the contest and transition. So, I thought, we'll take some real positives, but we lost so we need to get on with that and look at Melbourne next week and draw upon some of our players WAFL Eagles yesterday. But we're glass half full today.
What do you know this point Adam, about the injuries to Shuey, McGovern and Cripps?
Cripps is in hospital with a with a broken ankle. McGovern looks pretty serious. Shuey, I'm not sure on on at the moment. Witherden is a concussion protocol, I think, some question marks in that but he didn't come back on. There are a couple other boys I won't talk about, and we will probably read about it in a couple of days.
The first injury of Shuey was pretty significant, he had the team up and about.
The first quarter was pretty hot. We had opportunities and so did they. In the second quarter, they had the better of us with their transition and speed but Luke was keeping us in the game. He went out maybe pretty early in the second which we had to adapt but then we lost Witherden and McGovern in that 5 to 10 minute period. We changed a couple of things at halftime to try and adapt to what might be a lighter rotation, it worked for a while but in the end, we got overwhelmed.
Have you ever seen anything like that? Just that amount of injuries?
No, well last year, in round two we debuted five WAFL boys. Within a game we were good at coming up with firsts in the last couple of years. That’s just the game. We're not crying poor, we're not complaining. It's just collision and soft tissue combination but the resilience piece is important for us. The last few years have been tough, and so the message at halftime was around that. I thought that we held our own for as long as we could.
With Ryan I guess we were worried about his neck and head but it ended up being something else?
I don't know what it was. He went back on didn't do any more damage but we don't know what. There could be five things wrong with Liam. I said to him if you comeback on can you just play in the goal square unless Bailey needs a rest then you're going to have to play higher. So, he was pretty brave going back on.
I'm curious to know what were your thoughts on that 50m penalty where he was clearly struggling just to move and he was trying to get to the mark.
What do you do? There was two or three there I didn't quite get but I was on the on the boundary line on the last half. It's hard to see from there. You become a bit of a supporter when you say free kick, so I'll hold my judgement.
Is coaching from the boundary sort of about what was happening with all the injuries?
Every club has stages where they go through things like this and connecting with the younger guys as well. Changing some stuff up at halftime was important that we got that right. But you know, in the end, I turned around to provide a bit of support to the players, but there's no one on the bench. So in the end, I was just watching because there's no one on the bench to talk to. But yeah, we made a couple of moves here and there and that worked well and then we got worked out with Fremantle's speed in the last 15 minutes in particular and their run to dare, which they've been doing all day, we couldn't keep up.
Do you address all those injuries with the players after the game and sort of jump on the front foot about what you're going to be coming up against?
A little bit, we've got Melbourne this week and then we've got Geelong without looking too far ahead. So, you know, we had a good game yesterday at WAFL Eagles. We had 14 players play, had a good win and we'll be able to use some of those kids coming through and get on with it.
What would Elliot Yeo’s chances be at this point?
I hope they're good, he is a chance of playing so we'll assess that during the week.
In that first quarter, your handball to kick was almost one-to-one, was that by design or was that just how it played out?
We're different for me personally, and I've been here 10 years. We needed to evolve with the competition. So, 12 months ago, we recognised some things that need to change in our game. And we just didn't get a good look at last year. So, try to be competitive last year. And then this off-season and pre-season we worked really hard on some things that we think suit the modern game. We saw a really good glimpse of it last week, not much in round one but today I thought we saw some more of it at stages. So, we're not going to get it right, we're going to be up and down but we think we're headed in the right direction. So, it's set up for the short and long term, hopefully. But you know, what happened today, will be interesting to see how we handle it but we're on a different path than we were three years ago.
How disappointing was it to see the score blowout to 41 when you were close within two?
We played to win the whole game. We didn't try and conserve, we played to win. In the end, Fremantle's a good side and they made us pay for some mistakes and the way we ended inside 50 in the second quarter in the last 20 minutes their opportunity to rebound, we couldn't stop it. They've got some really good, sharp, quick players, especially in the front half and they came into the game throughout the whole day really, they slightly tweaked the way they've been using the ball and it worked really well for them.
Just in terms of the heart they showed, especially in that third quarter. How proud are you of that and what can you do to bottle that up?
Well, we didn't win. So, we're not high fiving each other, but there's something a bit deeper about today than winning. So, we'll use that as best we can. Doesn't guarantee anything for next week so the message at the end was we've got Melbourne next week so let's get on with it. We'll lick our wounds, we know some of our boys are out for a long period of time and that's unfortunate and sad, but it's round three so we've got to keep moving forward.
Is Oscar Allen one of those concerns? He was clutching his knee for a while?
No, not at the moment, guys pull up tomorrow and we'll go through it, so I think he's okay.
Hewett, I know he came on earlier than maybe anticipated but could he go from back-to-back subs to playing next week?
Maybe, the reason why he's been a sub is because he probably doesn't have the capacity to play a full game. He's 18, we drafted him in November and Ginbey is a little bit different, naturally a very fit with speed and endurance. Hewett is a power athlete that can really explode so maybe he can. We topped him up last week when he played two and a half quarters today and didn't come off, so I thought he showed some glimpses, he had two shots. Chesser had a shot a goal as well and so did Long so those guys we will keep investing some time and games into, not to say they will play every week.