How do you sum that up?

We’re really happy with the win; really happy. We knew this was going to be a bit of a fight with the Giants coming off a disappointing game. Getting the early lead was important and they didn’t stop. A lot of the stats don’t look great, but we’ll take the win and move on.

Talk about Nic Naitanui’s first quarter and how it set you up?

Nic set us up and Gov (Jeremy McGovern) probably saved us and between that we had some really good performances. We probably didn’t handle the run on as well as we liked in the last 15 minutes, but apart from that we thought we played a quality side on the rebound at almost full strength, so to get the win we’re really happy with our players. But we’ve got the Tigers this week and we’ve got to go up another level to compete with them.

It was nice to see McGovern perform like that after the injury?

I thought Gov was pretty good last week too. I’m really pleased we won without him for the four weeks he was out. We are challenging our list and we debuted another player today, which is great. With some youth coming through … Rotham is taking another step (along with) Jack Nelson, Tom Cole and (Nic) Reid. Our side is looking different, but we are still winning which is great. We do understand that we do need to go to another level though.

It was the second week in a row Adam where your tall defenders controlled the air and took a lot of marks. Is it just about those guys stepping up or is a bit to do with how you’re playing?

I think our back six have been good all year. Dealing with supply was and issue for us again; I think we had 36 inside 50s. Field position is important in this game at the moment with what’s going on. Our backs are in a reasonably good space. They’re working well together. Barrass has had a pretty good season and McGovern. Working with those guys, it’s been a step forward this year.

What does it say about McGovern that he had all that time with that thumb where he couldn’t handle the ball and his handling of the ball and the way he marked it since he came back has been pretty good?

He’s a good player; he a great player. For him to do what he did for us today was great. That’s why we really value him. And he’s a great leader. His body is in great condition, he’s worked really hard on that and he’s getting rewarded for it. Hopefully we can keep him in the side.

Simmo, how do you sum up your stint at home?

Well we’ve won a few games. I think we’ve probably established a strong identity with how we are playing. I felt like we lost our way early up in Queensland. We reviewed a few things, worked on a couple of things from a leadership point of view and then we carried it out on field. I think it’s a reasonably good brand that stands up. We weren’t at our best tonight, but overall we got it done. I think that combined with our leaders, we’re in a reasonably good space. But we’ve got a big block coming up. We’ve got the Tigers in four days and then we’ve got our little compressed season in front of us whereas a lot of clubs have already gone through that. Our test is what’s in front of us.

Are you more confident this time given that your game is in place and you’ve kind of got a good system going?

We’ll be different. That doesn’t mean we’ll win or lose any more or less, it’s just we’re a different side. We’ve evolved throughout the season like every club is different from eight weeks ago. We’ll take confidence out of what we have done, but there is more work to do and the season is really going to tighten up I think in the next couple of weeks. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, that’s for sure.

Have you been told where you are staying yet?

No, we don’t know where we are staying. We leave on Tuesday, so we need to know but we understand there’s so many sides coming over. We respect what the AFL are doing, we understand the situation they’re in and we’ll accept whatever they give us.

Do you know if families are coming?

I think we took two (sic) families last time, so I think we’ll take two extra. We don’t know what happens with charter flights and if we make finals how that all looks, so we are still working with the AFL with all of that. We’ll take a few families, but not many.

Do you think you’re better prepared for the hub section … this time around?

It’s interesting, the perception was we didn’t handle it very well last time very well at all. If you look at the wins and losses we lost to Gold Coast in the first game, Brisbane at The Gabba and Port. We didn’t play well, all those losses were around 40 points plus, so we re-adjusted some things. I feel like that could have happened here in the first four weeks as well. I don’t think the system that we had set up worked with the shorter game and we needed to change a few things from a coaching point of view. Our leaders needed to step up and our good players needed to player better. All those things we needed to work through. To connect that with being in Queensland , I’m sure that was part of it, but there were other things going on that we needed to work through. Hopefully that’s been rectified and now we’ve just got to get on with playing our way.

Did you feel like you farewelled your fans tonight?

Twenty seven thousand tonight; it looked like more than 27,000. We have appreciated every minute of being at home and playing in front of a crowd. We couldn’t thank our supporters enough and we go away with a good solid base behind us and hopefully we can come back and play finals here. You never know.

Jackson Nelson copped a big hit today and Oscar Allen had a bit of a cork as well. Are they all right?

They finished the game off. Jacko just didn’t prepare for a hit, which is surprising. He came back on, so I think he’s okay. We’ve got a couple of sore boys, but nothing out of the ordinary. The guys are in recovery mode already, so get on with the Tigers in four days.

Based on what you’ve seen from Reid and (Jarrod) Brander and (Xavier) O’Neill the last few weeks, do you think that next year your preparation of your second tier players, do you need to go back to a reserves side or an alignment or can you scrimmage them to play?

I’m not sure how that is going to look. I think with the (reduced) soft cap coming in it’s going to be difficult to have your own side, so we’re working through that. We’ve been really pleased with the development of our younger players even though we haven’t been able to play WAFL, so how that looks next year I don’t know. I don’t think the decision has been made. We’ll take what comes with that one. But our second tier players, hopefully we can keep winning and keep developing players at the same time so … that when our legends of the game who have left a great legacy at our club leave we want to be able to sustain (our) success. We want to be able to give opportunity to some of these players coming through.