Summary* I thought our first 2.5 quarters were pretty good and we were the better side. There was a period in the first 10 minutes of the 3rd quarter where we dominated but we couldn't put it on the scoreboard. We didn't take our chances and kicked 4-5 points. Unfortunately AFL today is a game of chances - we didn't take ours and they took theirs. They kicked the last 9-10 goals of the game which is disappointing. But the thing that killed us at times was our lack of composure. We had control of the ball and we just make a silly mistake that costs us going the other way and we've just to rectify that and get it out of our game. At the moment the mistakes hurting us are simple ones that we control which going back the other way is killing us on the scoreboard.
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Q. Asked about the two mistakes towards the end of the 3rd quarter? Yeah they're the killers I suppose. At 3/4 time we could've gone in 20 points up or whatever it was but two mistakes from two of our better players at times - yeah they're the mistakes we need to iron out of our game to get to where we need to go.
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Q. Asked about us falling away?No doubt their (Essendon's) intensity lifted. Their tackle count in the last quarter and a bit doubled ours. Contested ball was about the same but it was just the amount of times we turned the ball over for it to go the other way. Look we had control of those situations and they're the things we need to iron out. The simple turnovers are the ones that cost going the other way. That's the stuff that really hurts us.
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Q. Is that a sign of where you are at? Dimma replied no we're better than that. You know they shouldn't still be in our game. Just got to remain composed and train them out and get it better.
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Q. Just 9 goals from your forward line - any thing you can do about that?Look we're one of the better scoring sides. Tonight we had about 43-44 inside 50s for 9.12. We had some gettable shots on goal we missed plus a couple out on the full. Our forward line didn't function overly well tonight. There's no doubt about that but Essendon's down there was pretty good. Hurley was good at stages; Dustin Fletcher has played a truckload of games. We're played a 21 year old, a 20 year old down there at stages too so they are going to get monstered. But we expect our forward line to function better next week.
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Q. Vickery plus Griffiths and Post who both showed moments you can build your future on?I think it's exciting going forward no doubt. 21, 20 and 19 year old - three key position players who can pinch hit in the ruck also. For a development stage I thought it was good. Remember they are going up a 30-31 year old in David Hille who is an experienced campaigner and one of the elite rucks of the competition. I thought we broke even in clearances tonight so that was a reasonable result. I thought they competed fairly well and contributed up forward as well.
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Q. Is the development graph still moving in a positive direction and is this just a bit of a lull?It's a funny one. We are still a very very young side. Our games experience is ... well you guys will find that out. Our back six we had 3 first year players back there at one stage tonight. We've just got to keep playing these players for where we need to go. The easy thing is to top up with talent that's not quite there. We've just got to make sure these players play as much footy together as humanly possible. At some stage it might be nice to get Grimes back, Astbury back and Moore back but they're not coming back this year. We've just got to keep playing these guys and develop them and set up for when we do genuinely have a crack at a finals assault.
http://www.afl.com.au/video/tabid/76/default.aspx
