Q. What is the latest with Dean Rioli – do you expect to have him back?
A. Yes we do – I haven’t been practicing breaking up my own marriage so I am not quite sure what is going on. You get under stress - like any workplace you leave people alone and let them sort it out themselves. You just stay out of it.
Q. Are you confident he will be back.
A. Yes – the good thing about this is we keep finding another kid everytime we put one in – last week we got David Hille up in the ruck so that was good. If we have to put a kid in we will put Joel Reynolds in or someone like that and he might just excite us too.
Q. Was that a precautionary measure sending Rob Shaw and Michael Long up?
A. We just don’t want him to get up there and fall asleep on us. You can get pretty relaxed – up there fishing, he might not want to come back.
Q. In previous years when he goes home he gets on the turtle and puts on a bit of weight – is he doing any training up there?
A. Well we’ve sent Longy and Shawry up there to help him eat well. As far as I am concerned he will be back in two to three weeks and hopefully that is it.
Q. Have you spoken to him?
A. No – I have given him the time off. I think that was the right thing to do.
Q. So when was the last time you spoke to him?
A. About two weeks ago.
Q. Have you spoke to Shawry?
A. Robert will come back tonight I would say.
Q. How long are you prepared to give him?
A. As long as he needs – I am not a therapist or a person that talks about marriages. Whatever time he needs.
Q. The club was hoping that he would be back this weekend and now you are saying two to three weeks from now.
A. Well I don’t know and I am not going to be rushing into any decision. From my point of view it is about focussing on the players that are here and they are fighting for their chance. As far as I am concerned that is where I need to focus on as a coach at the moment.
Q. Marital status aside he appears to be one of those blokes that footy isn’t everything to him.
A. He likes his footy and he has copped a far bit. His first year as a rookie he probably was just unfortunate – he had a terrific year and could not even get a game because he wasn’t able to get on the list. Then he had a broken collar-bone and last year he had a stress bone in his leg. It has been pretty awkward for him.
Q. You have no doubts that he is motivated to come back.
A. He likes his footy. To be honest I haven’t thought that much about it – that is the truth. Not that I don’t think that Dean is not a terrific player but to me it is about making the next decision for Richmond and Essendon and then Brisbane the following week – so we have two teams in the top four that we are playing against in the next fortnight.
Q. What about Scott Lucas?
A. He is 50/50 Scotty – he may not play. We will probably have another run tomorrow night to see if he is alright – if he is not we won’t play him. I will probably bring up another kid – Richards or Hunt – one of those players that has been playing quite well. We are in the process of bringing in the next bunch of kids as far as I am concerned. I think six or seven boys last week never played in the 2000 premiership. That is a third of the side we have already made a transition on.
Q. Has Salmon been ruled out?
A. He won’t play.
Q. What about Alessio?
A. He will probably play the next week.
Q. How much was last weeks game influence David Hille’s development?
A. Well we have also thought that he has been there with a good chance to play good footy. He was Victorian ruckman in the U/18s – so there is a fair chance you are going to have a bit of a career after that. The Victorian country ruckman was Josh Fraser.
Q. He was still raw talent at that stage.
A. Well he was only because he really hadn’t played a lot of footy because he had been an Australian Volleyball player. The more we can get into other sports and recruit these young players the better AFL footy will be. Henneman was rowing at one stage.
Q. The clubs made a push to broadcast matches through the internet – how concerned are you that Bombers fans may miss out on coverage of matches?
A. Well we wouldn’t like that. We have gone from building a club up as a suburb of Melbourne to be a club of Australia – so we want all the fans we have around Australia to be listening to the games. We are fortunate the club decided to keep its internet rights and we went about it the way we did. If everything else falls over and we have a channel there, well good luck to Essendon.
Q. With regard to the game it really is a fantastic battle with players like Lloyd, Hird, Richo and Ottens.
A. I think that is the great thing about this match coming up. We might get 80,000 - 90,000 this week This will nearly be as big as Collingwood v Essendon on Anzac Day.
Q. Rama got a knock last week is he alright?
A. He will be fine - Rama gets a lot of knocks particularly from the coach!
