Q. It was always going to be a tough ask beating Port Adelaide, but you certainly gave Port a few worries...
A. We did nearly everything asked of us. Obviously it was well documented what we had lacking sitting watching in the stands. It got pretty interesting there for a while and there was a lot of nervous tension between both groups out on the ground, as you would expect. Our group was always very optimistic, even at three quarter time and prepared for the game to go right down to the wire. They got the money in the end and we have finished, so that is it.
Q. In your interview after the match on Channel 10, you said there was a sense of pride from what the team has achieved this season with the injuries the team has faced and the obstacles overcome. What is the feeling now?
A. To be quite honest, you are interviewed 30 seconds after the game and you don't want to say anything over the top and you don't want to degrade anyone - so you come through with the party line. There is certainly a degree of pride with what the team has achieved this season. It has been a year where we have been playing catch up footy and the thing that I am pleased about - is that the team knew that they were behind the eight ball with injuries and form, but at no stage did our footy club get down in the dumps, no one every gave it away - there was always huge optimism that we could pull our way out of it. Whether it is the culture of this club - it probably is that we expect to fight the year out. We get within a couple of goals with five minutes to go and that was our season. We fought our season right out to the last siren and it took a good team on their home ground to beat us.
You need to make the top four. The only people that decide what happens in finals is the top four. Then you get a bit of luck like Collingwood and the luck of the draw and then you are away. Fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth - they are just waiting to see what the top four decide they are going to do and then we are sent to play wherever. There are many stages throughout the year where we can look back and say - we missed the top four by two points. Now what if this had happened and this person wasn't injured, this person was playing and this person wasn't suspended. That is just the way it goes - it is a very hard game.
Q. Mark Bolton has been one of the huge highlights for the year, in how he has progressed as a senior player?
A. He has been terrific and added a new dimension to our team. He has come along more so in the second half of the season and has been wonderful. Lets not forget in the early stages of the year when we were hard up against it - the improvement of Danny Jacobs. People seem to forget that he held us together at centre half-back for most of the year and then gone forward and played numerous roles and then Bolts has come in the second half of the year and added to that. Then with five weeks to go we get this Lucas phenomena happening that all of a sudden gave us one of the best flexible six foot four groups in the competition. That is something we are really going to build on and out of a fairly ordinary season comes a real strength in our team. Lucas, Fletcher, Bolton, Lloyd, Henneman, Jacobs - are a very, very good unit of players that are interchangeable and they can play in any position down the spine and they can all run.
Q. What do you make of the performance of Andrew Welsh, Sam Hunt and Joel Reynolds - they played a bit of senior footy this year and gave us an indication that they have got what it takes?
A. I am optimistic with those three. Hunt has worked very, very hard. He found it difficult in his first year to combine Year 12 and football - probably not knowing what AFL footy is about. He put in a great pre-season and has had enough chances to know that at six foot five, very quick and can kick a footy - he will decide what he does now with the pre-season ahead. All of these players have got elements of their game that they have a long way to go, but a very good framework is there with those boys and if we are doing our jobs right, they should be 50-100 game players. They are a bit thin, but we will work on that over the pre-season.
Q. Paul Salmon's season was sensational - there has been speculation about him playing on. I imagine that will be one of the hardest decisions the coaching group has to make over the off-season. Would you like to see Paul Salmon play on?
A. We were very careful with Salmon and be nearly timed his run to perfection. there is a strong school of thought - were we too careful with him early on. We were conservative with him and apart from Gardiner getting away from him for 15 minutes, he just ran until he dropped. There is a bloke that is 37-years-old - a few players should look at the replay and have a leaf out of his book. Salmon had spent everything and then had to go to the bank to get more out - he was unbelievable.
Q. In terms of player hurting after losing the Semi Final - he was devastated after the match....
A. He was very emotional and I hope some of the players that think they have ten year careers in front of them and are sitting comfortably at 24 years of age - look over in the locker room and have a look at a bloke that it is it. He has given it his best and those players careers will enter that stage sooner than what they think. If some of them don't wake up to themselves, it will just go like the click of the fingers. He was the most upset after the loss because for him there is no more - it is the end of a brilliant career.
