Q. Does Salmon have an achilles problem?
A. He has always had a leg problem and a shoulder problem - he may play this week or he may be out this week. If he is out it will most likely be a shoulder injury.
Q. What about Dustin Fletcher?
A. He will probably play. He had a MRI scan last night to see if he can get through.
Q. Will David Hille play this week?
A. Yes, he will play this week.
Q. It was reported out of the Sydney game that he had a racing heart beat - is that correct?
A. Well he did have it just before the Sydney game. Last week we didn't play him for other reasons and it had nothing to do with his heart.
Q. What about Steve Alessio not training last night?
A. He will play. We like to give some players a night off every now and again - particularly players that have played nearly every game. Just because a person isn't on the training track - I might tell them to go and have a swim or don't come here. These blokes have been up for six months.
Q. Are you just trying to cling on at the moment with the quality of people you have out?
A. No I am looking for players that are actually going to replace them if they don't come back at any stage. Everyone thinks that players are going to come back - but we learnt from last year that some players don't come back after long term injuries.
Q. But you just don't replace a Lloyd, Hird and Misiti over night....
A. No, but I would say we are getting a little bit out of our younger players which is pleasing. The matches that David Hille has played he has played quite well. Young Joel Reynolds has played quite well. Bolton played quite well when he came on at the weekend - they are not superstars at the moment but they may be very good players for us one day. One of the difficulties Essendon has had over the last five years is we haven't had many early round draft picks. What we have to do here is make players and that is why coaching here is very important. We have to get medium players to play at their super best level.
Q. Have you been able to get much out of the Kangaroos game?
A. They are hard games to draw a lot out of. We have been criticised for our last quarters and we probably had one of our best quarters and we didn't win the game. Sometimes your first three quarters win the game and not your last quarter. We missed crucial goals at a certain stage where it would have been very team lifting for the side. Full marks to the Kangaroos, they played pretty well for 120 minutes and probably nearly let us back in, in the last quarter if anything. We kicked four goals and I think they kicked the one. There is not much in it at the present time when probably between first and thirteenth there is only a couple of games and one kick loses. I suppose the AFL has got it right where they want it at the moment - equalised. It is pretty exciting for the game - it is not exciting for coaches and players. You have to earn your wins and that is great. It is a learning game and this game never stops teaching you how challenging it can be. North without Carey and Essendon without Hird and Lloyd - it is a very challenging aspect.
Q. You have a great record at Colonial Stadium - does that give you confidence going into Saturday night's match against Port Adelaide?
A. We have a great record at Colonial Stadium - our players know how to play it pretty well. We are looking forward to getting back there. We probably didn't use the ball as well as we would have hoped in the conditions again - but we improved from the previous Anzac Day match. There were times when we could have kicked the ball a little longer last week in the wet conditions. We could have let the ball do the work through the air rather than wanting to pass down - not as bad as Anzac Day but still 20% improvement still there in the whole team.
