What do you put the loss down to?

Oh look, I thought the start was really disappointing. They say don’t get beat by what you know and I think we knew the Bulldogs’ strength around the ball. Stoppages and clearances, contest and work rate. So, we didn’t start well, they handled the conditions better, and got some field position early, and they should’ve been a lot further in front at quarter time. So, we had an opportunity to get back in the game, which I thought for some fleeting moments in the second and third quarter, that we worked our way back into it to a certain degree. Probably missed moments through either missed opportunities, or free kicks against. And then the start of the last, I still thought if we had a really good quarter we’d still be in the hunt, and we missed a couple of shots early, and then got steamrolled for 15 minutes where we just couldn’t get our hands on the ball.

Your midfield getting beaten, haven’t played a lot of footy recently, do you think that had anything to do with it?

I think a lot of credit has got to go to the Bulldogs, the way they go about it, they shift with the ball, they use each other and they work their backsides off, which, we knew that coming in, we knew the players we’ve got are going to take a few weeks to get to their best, so that was definitely obvious that we got outworked in the midfield and outhunted, and we didn’t handle it well enough. No excuses though, we picked the side we thought we could win, and we didn’t beat what we knew was coming.

Do you think there was too many of them coming back from injury at the same time?

Not really, no, it’s really difficult to come back from a long-term injury and build up a base that’s going to match it at AFL level. Luke Shuey for example has done a hell of a lot of work, he’s played a WAFL game, he’s ready to go and ‘Yeoy’ (Elliot Yeo) has been back for four or five weeks, Tim Kelly has missed three or four, and there’s no excuse, they’re ready to play. We got outworked in the first quarter, fair enough last 15 minutes, but I don’t think our boys should be putting their hands up saying, ‘we were underdone, that’s why we lost,’ we missed opportunities to be clean in the first quarter and work harder.

How did you try and shift momentum after that first quarter and get the game back on your terms?

We did a few things with mixed results. I thought we moved the ball a little bit better in the second and third quarters, made the most of our opportunities. Couldn’t get that field position through the contest, as much as we would’ve liked, and when it was wet, it felt like whoever got that centre clearance, it was quite difficult to get it out of your back half. So, we had a few opportunities there to lock it in and we didn’t. They were very good defensively, so getting it out of back half for us was hard. But I thought we worked our way into that, to the point where we were in 14-to-15 points in the third, so the game was still up for grabs, mainly due to inaccuracy. But I thought we worked back into that. And then the last quarter, we missed the first two shots at goal, they missed a couple as well, and then we just couldn’t get ahead of the ball. They went straight down the middle, score, a couple of sensational goals from then, and they got rewarded, finally, for their all their efforts, unfortunately we got punished.

The Bulldogs have had challenges of their own this week, but what impact does the decision have in terms of no crowd?

You hope none. We’ve played in front of no crowds here two or three times, Melbourne round one of last year, the Derby this year, the boys have been fine. We’d rather have crowd here both from a support point of view and atmosphere and environment and financially, I think it’s great for everyone to have a crowd. So, we miss them, but they can’t be the reason we didn’t perform the way we should’ve. So, we park all that, I think the Doggies have handled the last couple of weeks really well, they’ve been in isolation down at Joondalup, we’ve been in our own beds, so there’s definitely no excuse for us in that sense.

What was your approach to Marcus Bontempelli today?

Well I think most coaches most weeks have the same issue, we had ‘Yeoy’ going to him at the start, then we changed to Jack Redden at stages. And it didn’t fix the situation, so with the Bulldogs it’s not one person, it’s several. It’s the system, they use each other well, they share the ball and they hunt, really well. And we didn’t match in that area, and if we didn’t match in that area we knew it was going to be a difficult day, and unfortunately we struggled to breakeven.

Do you know what the plan is now in getting the team over to Melbourne?

No I don’t I’m sorry. I think we’re wearing masks for a few days, so hopefully there’s no more outbreaks and we’ll go from there. So, we’re playing I think on Sunday at Geelong against Sydney, that’s all I know at the moment.

If there are borders closed and a hub in Melbourne, how do you guys fee about hub life?

We’re fine. We’ve been really lucky, we’ve hardly been affected at all, and we understand and even today driving in and there’s no crowd, that’s fine, we’ve been here before. So that doesn’t affect us at all. The fact that we’re playing at Geelong doesn’t affect us either, it is what it is. So, for us to get anywhere this year, we’ve got to win anywhere at any time. And we’ve got to pay at our absolute best, especially against a top side like the Bulldogs, the top-tier side in the comp, really. The ladder tells you that, and we’re just not at that level. So that’s our challenge, we’ll grow and learn from this game, it hurts, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we’ve got to get back on the bike, we’ve got Sydney next week, so it’s game on.

Do you have to start mentally preparing players for a possible few weeks on the road?

It’s fine, it’s a few weeks on the road, we’ll do it. Honesty, I think all those issues and challenges about how to handle it is in the past. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. 

In terms of the ladder position from here, you’ve had two now, including the loss against Geelong that change your percentage, how damaging is that when you look at where you’re going to finish later in the year?

Our goal at the start of the year was to qualify for finals as quickly as we can, and at the moment we are nowhere near that, so we know what is in front of us, percentage is not where we need it to be, but the wins are the main ones. So, at the moment, we’re still in the eight, so we’re still in the hunt, up for the fight. So we need to learn from today, which we will. We need to get better, which I hope we will. And that starts with a review tomorrow morning. So we’ve got to be pretty pragmatic about it, accept what’s in front of us and move on.

Are Tom Barrass’ ribs okay?

The backs were under the pump for most of the day, and they held up okay in the stages where they had to succumb to the supply, and Tom I thought was pretty brave coming back on with those ribs. But we couldn’t stop the flood gates in the last quarter, when they started kicking straight we couldn’t stop, I think they had 16 marks inside 50, so it wasn’t due to lack of effort, it was probably an overwhelm of supply in the end, it was 60 inside 50s to 38, which in the end, you’re just not going to win that way.

Talk us through the shot of you with a mask over your eyes?

When you put these masks on sometimes you put them over your eyes, was it after ‘Bont’s’ (Marcus Bontempelli’s) goal? You could’ve picked 40 times where I put that over my eyes today. I’m sure that will get some laughs from some people, but maybe not here.