What’s the underlying emotion after a game like that?

“It was a bit of a rollercoaster. I thought we got jumped early, got beaten in the contest, outpossessed, outhunted, bit fumbly, but we defended well and our backs and our system held up to a reasonable point but the floodgates we felt were pretty close to opening. We hung in there for the first half, challenged each other at half-time and I thought we played more of the football we’d like to be proud of in the second half. Worked our way back into it and then missed a few moments in time. A few opportunities here and there. It was really a 50-50 game after halfway through the third really. We had momentum, they had momentum and in the end we probably got nutted in the midfield I suppose."

The side showed some resilience to come back?

“We’ll look at the positives, of course, but we need to address some of the concerning things we had in the first half. When you get beaten in every area that’s a concern. Like I said, I thought we did defend pretty well … and they missed a couple of set shots as well. The resilience piece is good for us. Our identity this year we’re still working on what that looks like. We’re still developing some players in our side, we’re not totally full-strength with our senior players, but we thought we had a good team to win today.”

How important do you think Nic Nat was in that third quarter, he had eight hit-outs to advantage?

“He’s a barometer for us, no doubt. He’s a best and fairest winner, when he’s on the ground we walk a bit taller. There’s a lot of expectation as well. Every week they strategise against Nic and every week he works his way through it. He definitely held up his end of the bargain.”

Even after the late goals for them you still had some chances. How did you assess those last couple of (plays)?

“It’s really hard to be critical of smothers or missed opportunities to connect, or the ball bounces the wrong way, it’s hard to be critical when it was a game like that. I’m sure a lot of players will be reflecting on that, but I can’t criticise their effort and their intensity, especially after half-time. The first half, we need to look at that.”

What in particular do you need to look at?

“Pressure on the ball. I’ve really missed footy, proper footy, so I came to watch the game last night, seeing the crowd, everyone emotionally involved, it was really good to be a part of it and today would have been a great game to watch. We were just a little bit off around the pressure around the ball. The Doggies play a completely different system, rely a lot on handball and using their numbers. We’re a bit different, and it looked like their way was working better than ours in the first half.”

Is pressure the key to stopping their midfield?

“Well you’ve got to at least get close to breaking even, I suppose. To play your way you’ve got to be competitive, so as much as our guys seemed to be trying they weren’t trying hard enough. We tried harder in the third quarter. We couldn’t control ‘Bont’. We tried to tag him in the second half. He’s a very good player. We always knew if we shut one down someone else would pop up. It was a challenge for us but I didn’t think we took a backward step after half-time.”

Key forwards Oscar Allen, Jack Darling and Josh Kennedy made the most of their opportunities?

“We thought get enough supply and we’ll be in with a chance. We just couldn’t get that in the first half. Every now and then we had to use ‘Ozzie’ behind the ball a couple of times to try and stop the damage, but for the most part he played forward. As a young forward he’s going to have up-and-down days but with Josh Kennedy and Darling, while they’re around we’re going to be really dangerous. We need to get some supply.”

You mentioned it was a great game to watch, and it was, how much was that down to the new rules or was it a mentality thing?

“Maybe the kick-ins. It felt like it was harder to keep the ball in your half defending a kick-in. The stand rule, I don’t think any team exposed that. We probably kicked it into the man on the mark more than we ever do, so maybe we need to look at that.”

Any injuries out of today?

“Nic got a knock in the eye - I think it was just a scratch. Oscar fell on his shoulder but I think it was just a stinger, so he came back on. Apart from that I think we were OK.”