I think our first third of the year was probably good. I think the last seven weeks haven’t been as effective as they should have been.
The club has been given a bit of latitude because it is rebuilding, but have you sensed that there is starting to be a growing sense of pressure to perform?
I think because we started the season pretty well the expectation certainly went up, which is fine because we were playing OK. We have probably been inconsistent over the last seven weeks. We’ve been competitive against some teams and uncompetitive against others. The classic case is we didn’t have a great first quarter against Collingwood but the next three quarters we were competitive. That’s not an excuse but after the bye we went interstate and we played poorly against Adelaide. The highs and lows in the second half of the year so far have been pretty disappointing.
Tom Scully was always expected to be a star but you must be just as happy with how Jack Trengove has come along too?
We didn’t see a lot of difference between the two of them. We were required to pick a player at No.1 and a player at two. They’ve both contributed well. They’ve both managed their loads really well. Their attitude to training and their attitude to recovery is great. They are incredibly coachable young men and that is a common theme among all the players we’ve drafted over the past couple of years. They listen and really want to make their mark, which has set us up for a really successful period.
Do you think Jack Watts is improving from week to week?
If you go back to the Port Adelaide game up in Darwin, Jack has always had clean hands and some of his stuff outside 50 and the middle of the ground has been pretty good. He’s been able to mark the football and move the ball on well and make some good decisions. He’s done some pretty good things through the middle of the ground. He still gets his chance. Last weekend against St Kilda he took a really nice mark inside 50 and had a shot from probably 40. One of Jack’s great strengths is he is a very good set shot for goal. He is 196cm, and as his body gets bigger and he puts on more weight he’ll impose himself on games more. He is picking the game up week by week which is really pleasing.
Mark Jamar’s has shown some remarkable improvement at 26 years of age. Where has that come from?
Last year when Mark got injured he spent a lot of time really evaluating his own game but also going and watching a lot of AFL games, watching other ruckmen play. I think he’s invested a lot of time in his own knowledge. (Assistant coaches) Mark Williams and Scotty West have been very encouraging and his ruck coach David Loats has been very encouraging to do that. We set Mark a project last year from a teaching, learning point of view. He’s really grabbed hold of it and his preparation for our opposition and also his own game is very analytical. I think he has got to a level at the moment where he continues coaching almost against himself to make himself better. He is always looking at ways of subtly changing a few things up. He is a lot more focused and he is very determined. He is getting a bit of reward at the moment even though the year’s not finished. He’s still got plenty of footy left in him.
The club has only been in the new facilities at AAMI Park for a few weeks, but have you noticed if it has made any difference?
We sat down and looked at the program. We knew our time efficiency would be a lot better in the new facility. It has been fantastic. For us to go and have a recovery swim we used to have to drive to MSAC then drive back to the Junction Oval because that was the closest pool. Now we just walk out of our locker room and walk 20-30m to not only a state of the art swimming pool but we’ve got hot and cold baths next to it and a shower facility next to it. Travel has gone from at least an hour down to half that. It is convenient but the quality of it is the most important thing. At the Junction we had to get the ice out of the machine, the players had to fill the baths up and do all that. Now it is there for them and it becomes very time efficient for us. That is just one element of it and as our program becomes more effective, we’ll develop more time in a week which we can reinvest back into football which will be really exciting.
It must be nice to be so closely located to the administrative base at the MCG too.
Yeah, that is fantastic. We have staff coming back and forth. We have staff from the ‘G that come over and some of our (football department) staff go over there as well. Schwabby (CEO Cameron Schwab) said it is just under a five-minute walk from his office to our front door. That’s really good and the benefits of that has been terrific but as the weeks go on the benefits of being so close to the club almost being together are fantastic.
What roles do you see for Jared Rivers and Brad Miller in your long-term plans?
I think once you start getting into list management you are looking at players who can still lead from the front and players who still provide their knowledge to players. Our leaders at the moment have been very good at persisting and helping our young players. We’ve got a number of players who haven’t played enough games. The age of the players is not the important thing. It is how many games the player has. Someone like Cale Morton has played 45-46 games at the moment even though he’s only 20 years of age. We’re hoping at the end of the year Trengove and Scully are going to get to 19-21 games hopefully. We are looking at more games in the second half of the year for Liam Jurrah. Someone like Jamie Bennell and Neville Jetta are starting to accumulate some games. Garland, Grimes too. If you go through our list the guys are starting to get some games together and are starting to push to the 40-game mark. I don’t individualise players but our leaders have been very good at bringing some of those guys along which is the important part of passing knowledge on to a young group.
How long can James McDonald go on for? Could his hamstring problems slow him down?
I think James has shown this year that when his body is right he is fine. He is incredibly strong mentally, James. I think the year he has had so far up to the hamstring injuries, he has been flying. Physically if he is not in the best nick of his career he is right up there. When you talk about players who have led from the front and show the way at training and also work rate and effort during the week, he has been phenomenal for this club since I’ve been there. He has been amazing for our group. The situation the club was in, I think he has really stepped up and led from the front.
Who are the next wave of leaders at the club?
Probably because we’ve got a lot of young players, someone like Brent Moloney who is only 26 - his leadership has been fantastic over the last two years. Of the group outside the leadership group, someone like Jack Grimes is very good. Of the emerging players this year there are Trengove and Tom Scully. The guys like Cale Morton and Grimes have been very good. They are very determined guys and are willing to do everything they can for the team.
How important is Liam Jurrah’s return?
He is a really important part of our forward line. Unfortunately this year he hasn’t played with Jack Watts; he hasn’t played too many games with Colin Sylvia, just because of injuries during the year. We expect LJ to be back playing and he does provide some excitement and it will be good to see those three or four blokes working well in the forward line where their speed, athleticism and goal kicking potential is something that we have been missing so it will be good when we get them all on the park at the same time.
What has been the biggest area of improvement for this year?
Because the year has been cut in half, the first half I think we showed a regular attitude to take the game on and really play some bold football. I think that has got us into some trouble but it also got us where we were in the games that we closely lost or the games we won. In the second half we are trying to play that bold, exciting footy but we’re probably turning the ball over too often. I think our decision-making is something that the first half of the year was at a good level and since then at times we have turned the ball over without too much opposition pressure. Therefore we’ve been scored against. I think the decision-making element is something we spend a lot of time on. I’d like to think people are seeing that when we are playing well that the decision-making seems to flow reasonably well.
There are a few young blokes trying to get over injuries such as Luke Tapscott, Sam Blease and Max Gawn. Where are they at?
Tappy played his first game last week in the VFL reserves. He has been out for a while, Luke. He has just got over a hip operation which a lot of players in the AFL are now having. He is moving really freely and we weren’t going to really play him until he was ready to go. We probably overcooked him and were a little cautious. He got through really well. Sammy Blease also played the second half on the weekend. Maxy’s still probably getting over that ACL operation and is a couple of weeks away from playing VFL reserves but by the end of the year I’d like to think those three blokes will have played as many VFL senior games as they can. Tappy’s probably the one who is ahead of the other two at the moment.
Are you worried about losing players to Gold Coast at the end of the year?
It is always a threat when you’ve got two new teams coming into the competition. With two new teams coming in they will do whatever they can to try and entice players away from their existing clubs, like we’re trying to entice them to stay. We think we’ve got a pretty good future ahead of us. As a football club we’ve been around for 152 years and we have a very proud history. We want to create our own history and we will fight to keep the ones we want and we certainly won’t be assisting Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney with anything that they are trying to do. The way it is being set up, I think all clubs are under no illusion that there is a chance they are going to lose a player and maybe two. We’ve just got to fight and try to keep our list the best we can.”
You have recruited a lot of young players in recent years. Which positional needs still have to be addressed?
I think we’ve got to have another tall marking forward. We’re probably looking at a bigger type of player up forward. We need a tall agile player who in a contest can mark the football but obviously bring a close crumb to our small players. I think that sort of a player is still pretty strong on our radar.
When can we realistically expect to see Melbourne back in the finals?
At the moment we’re still having to get our process right and I have said this before, it is factual at the moment. Two years I go we had 118 points (per game) kicked against us. Last year it was 103. This year we’re probably averaging around the 90 mark but we’re only kicking 80 points for us. The first year was about 74, last year was 77. Until we can bridge that gap, that is the thing we are really focusing on, the process of ensuring we get scored less against and try to get our scoring rate up. Once we start competing in that area I think the wins will follow. We are getting there better this year but next year and the year after we must improve that because you can’t win games unless you win quarters. Last year we won 32 (quarters) and we should win more than that come the end of this year. Then we’ll reassess it and see what we’ve got for next year. We’ve just got to make sure that difference starts to change.
