AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss spoke to the media ahead of the Sunday afternoon game against Melbourne.
See what Voss had to say.
On Jagga Smith re-signing:
“That was a bonus of my morning being able to hear that. It’s great news for our football club, for him to be able to have the confidence in us that we provide the right environment for him to be able to get the best out of himself.
“For a guy that hasn’t played much football yet, he’s certainly attracted a lot of interest, and I guess having talked about him for about 18 months. I’m really glad that everyone gets to see what he’s been able to do and, how much he’s going to mean to us, not only in the short-term, but also the long-term at this football club.”
Read more about Jagga Smith’s re-signing here.
On the Round 2 bye:
“Its different. It’s definitely not as much stress, that’s for sure.
“I mean it’s just a bit different, isn’t it? When you play a couple of rounds, then you get to be able to watch everybody else. We’re all trying to understand the differences in the game, what are the trends and how each opposition is trying to play.
“We take that opportunity because when you’re first cab off the rank, you don’t get to look at anybody else. It was nice to be able to step back for a little bit, have a look at what we need to be able to get better at and get into the season.”
On refining the game plan during the break:
“We’re always looking to try and progress our system and find ways to get better: with an element of newness, it gives you a chance to be able to go back and train two weeks and go work on a few things. We over-corrected in a couple of areas, but we’ve been able to find our level this week.
“You’re always trying to be really conscious of how much you’re trying to give your players. If you give too much, then you can confuse, give just enough and hopefully that gives a little bit more clarity on how we can execute for longer.”
On players sticking to their roles:
“It’s learning to stay still within those roles and how we execute when the pressure does come, and as the intensity lifts throughout the game. We’ve been in fortunate positions at half time where we’ve been in front, so you can only expect that an opposition’s going to bring a response.
“We haven’t managed that as well as what we want to. Some of that’s around our execution, our roles and the way we want to play. But it’s also about being composed and knowing the right moments to be brave. We haven’t got all that right yet, and I think we need to own that, but what it has given us the opportunity to be able to hone in some of those finer details over the last couple of weeks.
“Hopefully we can obviously transfer that into this game.”
On being brave enough in second halves:
“Brave and stupidity is very, very close sometimes… I can speak to that because I’ve been both!
“There’s always just an element of the players still being able to play the same way, no matter the circumstances. We’ll continue to encourage that and, we’ve seen some amazing transfer, we really have.
“We’re really excited by some of the things we have been able to do, but it’s obvious for everyone, we haven’t done it for long enough. We’ll continue to reinforce the behaviours that we need, even when the pressure’s really on.”
On the pressure throughout the first few weeks:
“It’s been pretty hot.
“I always look at it coming from a place of gratitude: we’re very lucky to be able to do what we do. We understand that there’s an analysis that comes within that, some of it’s warranted, some of it’s completely unwarranted but we also have a body of work that we go off, and we look for evidence over time.
“We’re not reacting to just one moment or one quarter, or one particular play. We’d like to think that we have consistency over time, because we feel like that as a competitor is what you need to be and that’s what gets the best results.
“The focus becomes more on what this next training session looks like, and it doesn’t need to be more complex than that. What I’m invested in is right now, to go out there and make sure we have the best training session we possibly can, and make sure we get this game against Melbourne, and we walk away with four points.”
On Adam Cerra’s availability:
“No, he won’t [play this week].
“We’ve taken a bit of a conservative approach to that, more just giving him the extra week. He’s been training for a few sessions now, but with a five-day turnaround, we feel like that might be a little bit too tight, so we’ll give him an extra week. I think that’s a good approach to take.”
On whether Nic Newman will line up on Sunday:
“He hasn’t got a body of work under his belt yet. There’s a couple of guys like that that are returning, but they’re not necessarily available, if that makes any sense.
“They’re certainly available to play, but if you’re talking about match fitness and time out on the grass, he had an unfortunate suspension, so that took his minutes out on the grass away.
“They’re coming quick. It is certainly nice to know that you’ve got a really strong availability. With that availability, we want to get the consistency, but there’s got to be competition for spots as well, and that can really drive us hopefully to be better.”
On the Dees’ start to the season:
“Yeah, they’re hot, aren’t they?
“They’ve certainly got a style of play that they want to go with and it’s fast: how we manage it, they’ve certainly played a really exciting brand of football that they’ve all bought into, so we’re going to have some challenges in that.
“But I feel like we’re certainly more than ready for that challenge. The big fella [Max Gawn] is having his 250th, so that’ll be a factor in the game.
“He’s loved by everyone, including myself, he’s a hard guy to hate. But you also know that he’s a wonderful competitor and a really important person to Melbourne, so we’re going to have to give that some attention in some form, and we’ll certainly be talking about it because he’s been an important figure for that football club for a long period of time.”