Power coach Mark Williams praised his players for their resounding win against the rampaging Essendon. In his post-match media conference Williams also handed out praise to a range of individual players including Chad Cornes, Peter Burgoyne, Dean Brogan and Warren Tredrea. Here’s what he had to say .

Well, it’s a fantasic effort for the club to bounce back after four losses to play that brand of footy. Obviously the mindset of hunting an opposition was very much there, rather than sitting on top of the ladder for a week or two there back in round 6 or 7 and having everyone have a crack at us. To turn that around was important. I thought that the training during the week was terrific and I think that Dean Brogan had a lot to do with that.

Chad Cornes’s match-up on James Hird was probably a turning point for our team and hopefully we look back some time in the future and say not only is he playing a productive role of getting the ball but he’s actually shut down one of the best players ever in the AFL, a player that’s been very hot in form as well. For Chad to adopt that role selflessly, worrying about the team instead of himself, I think was a real indicator for the rest of the group as to what they had to bring to the game.

It was outstanding for Warren to catch the first ball and kick a long goal. I think it settled the team down a lot. It was very similar I suppose to the Grand Final where he kicked the goal from outside the boundary pretty early in the first quarter just to settle everyone down. There’s a lot of belief there.

It was fantastic to see Westhoff and Gray and Boak all in amongst it, some of the stuff they were doing was really exciting for the future of our club. Then you can go to the oldest player at our club in Darryl Wakelin, I thought he did a wonderful job on Matthew Lloyd. I thought Toby did a great job on Lucas also. To be able to shut them down was fantastic. Obviously the last quarter was a little disappointing but I’m certainly not going to be too unhappy with the performance, we had Wilson and Salopek out of the game limiting rotations. We also gave Boak a chance in the centre square which was nice to look forward to the future of our club.

You said Brogan had a lot to do with what happened during the week. What did he do?

Broges’s attitude and demeanour was important – he was fed up with being in a side that was playing the way it was and he told a few, and he produced some terrific aggressive stuff on the track on Wednesday, he probably had a crack at a couple and had a crack at playing hard and he even pulled up a bit sore from it, but I thought that it really went a long way to just shape the attitude of the group.

It was also significant for us to have around 12 of our past players in the rooms before the game, some of the real champions of our club. It was great to get a bit of their DNA rubbing off onto our (current) players. Josh Francou handed out the (number 10) guernsey to Travis Boak. He talked about the courage and the commitment that you have to live by wearing that guernsey and the fact that within a second Travis will be handing the guernsey on to someone else, which was obviously a reference to the fact that your career passes by very quickly and that you need to make the most of it.

And it was lovely to have Warren in the circle (singing the song) with the young guys who played their first winning game for the club. It is certainly a photo that I will get a copy of and keep – Warren our first ever 200-game player, our premiership captain, and playing with those three young exciting players for their first win.

How do you explain the change in the way you played, previously moving the ball slow and sideways to playing on quick and going relatively direct?

Unfortunately for all of us including myself, whatever you think about doing, it’s a bit harder when you get out on the track and actually do it in real time. We practiced and we looked at it, and we try and play that way (fast attacking football), but it doesn’t always work. We have to keep coming back to the drawing board, spending countless hours of instruction and analysis and coaching. It takes a long time. We at the club know that we’re a developing team, we know we have to spend hours doing that and all the frustrations that our supporters see is a 100-fold with us. We’d love to be able to roll it out every week and get the same result, but footy’s a bit tougher than that. And as I’ve said before any team can beat any team, and it will be like that for the rest of the year.

With the past players in the rooms before the game and Warren’s big occasion was it perhaps one of the most spirited and emotional lead ups to a game for some time?

It wasn’t emotional. I think the players had a very clear focus on what we’re about and they went out and played that way. We’ve invested a lot of time and effort into our leadership program and it shone through today. It doesn’t work every minute but we fully believe in it.

We look forward to reassessing where we are right now with the mid-season break. We’ve got a lot of things we want to achieve for the rest of the year as we develop our side to be a serious contender going forward.

In a season where percentage means a lot, you can’t just ignore the last quarter, can you?

I didn’t say I would ignore it, I said that we had a couple of injuries and that Essendon played well and there were a few turnovers from stoppages and I think if you look at it, we had the ball in our hands and then dropped it and they were bolting forward. Even if you looked at us against Carlton we had lots of shots on goals and lots of possessions in the last quarter. We probably took something out of that, we kicked 100 points, we kept going at it. The opposition (Essendon) are a proud club, they’ve got a lot of proud players playing there and when you’re getting your bums kicked you like to show something, and that’s what they did.

Quite a few talkback callers have rung praising Westhoff and Gray. Are you surprised that they’ve been able to have such an impact so soon?

I saw Robbie Gray play one game live and a few practice games. Our recruiting guy Blair Hartley did a particularly good job finding him, he wasn’t a high pick. And then Justin Westhoff I watched play a few times last year, and I was pretty certain he’d be a player. But I would say that Warren (Tredrea) has had a lot to do with that (Westhoff’s development), certainly his leadership and his experience up there to be able to point him in the right direction, along with Ebo (Brett Ebert). Ebo’s certainly moved a long way along from the wet-behind-the-ears kid in the forward line, he now tells people what to do, so that’s terrific, and Damon White’s the same.

(Forward line coach) Jason Cripps has done a terrific job with those young blokes, he’s spent hours with them. The modern game of footy is a lot different to when you would just lead up, catch the ball, turn around and kick the goal. It’s much more involved than that and he’s instructed them very well. They’ve played three games now. When they’ve played 50 we’ll probably be talking a lot about them.

Mark, last week you used Tempo Footy in the first quarter…?

We don’t think we do it very well and we certainly don’t want to use it all the time, but I think if you analyse how to stop an opposition scoring, then part of using that (tempo footy) as a method is very sound and all clubs do it. But we haven’t done it very well and we will continue to practice at getting better at it. But we don’t want to convince our players that that is a great method, because it’s boring and slow method of play, but what it’s doing is it’s trying to take the ball out of the opposition’s hands to make them frustrated to give you an opportunity.

So, why didn’t you use it in the last quarter today?

That’s a good question. We will talk about it on Monday. It’s a very good question. It might have something to do with the fact that the people we wanted behind the ball may have been on the bench. Certainly having two injuries may have something to do with it as well. As a club we’re an attacking team, not a defending team. We’re also a club that wants to put Travis Boak in the centre square, we’re actually looking to the future. We got six goals kicked against us, but we still won by five. You’re always trading off things. I’m trying to be as straight forward as I can. You can’t get everything out of every situation. We would have rather have done it better, I agree with you.

Were you happy with Peter Burgoyne Mark across half-back?

Peter was terrific. He was very good. He did a great job. He has probably never started a game in that position. He’s probably had some good role models in Gavin and maybe even Andrew McLeod.

What are your goals for the rest of the year from here?

To be 7 (wins) and 5 (losses) at this time is way in advance of where we might have thought at the start of the year. We’re pretty determined to make the eight. Whether we get there or not won’t change our mind about developing our players and giving people an opportunity to play. At the same time there are a lot of other teams almost at the same position as us and they’ll be trying just as hard as us. It won’t be all about us. There will certainly be opposition trying to beat us. But we’re well placed right now to have a crack at making the eight.

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