Summary
* Coaching - Exciting, incredibly hard. New season feels like has come around quicker.
* As a side we've now gained 4-5 years experience since he's been there so finals are now expected. We just got to make sure we go about our process and do things right. Extremely tight season. 13-14 sides aiming for those top 8 spots.
* Not best conditions to play footy up in Cairns. Slog footy. Gold Coast feels more like Melbourne. Looking forward to getting the game on our terms.
* Thomas - needed someone to replace Tucky. Gives us the physicality we've lacked (Jacko is the other one who plays that role). Matt can win the ball and make opposition players know he's around. Allows Cotchin and co. to do their job.
* Hampson - Dimma likes rucks to be physical. Shaun not naturally gifted in terms of physicality at but he does give a strong contest. Crashes packs and gives us a good start. Ivan too. We expect multiple players to play that role.
* Lessons from 2013? We need to be more physical. And we got monstered in the ruck in the 3rd final due to lack of height. Ivan at 200cm was up against Warnock 206cm. Carlton got on top in the clearances.
* Hampson & Ivan allow Vickery to play forward. We've cooked Ivan by round 15 in previous years out of necessity. Hampson gives us to chance to give Ivan a chop out.
* As coach you're a part-time psychologist. Need to do everything right to get the best out of our players. Need to know when to give them a clip behind the earhole and when to back off.
* Vickery - to his credit he's only 23 years old. Her's been in the system for 5-6 years so he seems older. When Ty stands up it helps Jack. Need more consistency from Ty. He's kicked 8 goals in 2.25 preseason games so he's done incredibly well so far. We'll be pleased if we can get 40 goals out of him.
* Jack - what he meant was he was going to pull back on the media work. He cops a whack from a small minority in the media. Dimma said he'd love to give these people a whack [ed. Robbo mentioned Maclure wouldn't last two secs up against Dimma].
* Gold Coast - Not just Ablett. Got a number of talented mids and good developing tall forwards like we have in Ty.They are going to be a very good side.
