Fly's presser
What's causing the downturn in form? Are you in a heavy training block, or are you in a genuine form slump physically and/or mentally?
"It's fascinating, isn't it? The psychology of professional sport. Credit to Hawthorn, I'll never stand in front of you or sit in front of you and denigrate the opposition because I thought their efforts were outstanding. The psychology of ladder position potentially, it's interesting where our players put their energy. There's a bit of play late in the game; I think it might have been Morrison tackles Noble and the crowd roars. Then 4 or 5 players get over to celebrate the tackle. That's been us for a large part of the last 18 months. That's been our energy levels and our want and excitement for others. It's a fascinating game this. I think the game's played above the head more than people give it credit for".
How do you fix this issue? First time you've lost consecutive games since Rounds 8-9 last year.
"You can only judge on what you see, and the players get to work and they come in and they prepare as good as any team I've ever seen. That was no different this week. I thought we prepared really well for the opposition. Knew what was coming. Uncontested possessions. I thought funnily enough, I tend to write a script on what the game can do and potentially threats before the game and the script in my head was they get a fast start and 4 or 5 goals in front of us, we'll be chasing our tail all game. That was the script I had in my head. That was one thing I was worried about. Got to be careful what you wish for. I think it's like anything, win, lose or draw we're in the growth mindset business. I hate losing more than most people. I must say that I'm not a bad loser, but I just hate losing. I'll do anything to make this group better and improve ourselves. This is not the end of the world. We're not wearing black armbands for this loss. It's just a moment in time. We've got work to do. There's great lessons that can be learned from this afternoon and certainly around that hunger and psychology. I'll be digging a bit deeper".
You've had a couple of players go down with injury. Can you give us an update on that?
"There's more than the 4 points lost here to those couple of players that we could be chasing the clock to get up. I think Nathan Murphy, it looks like he might have a syndesmosis. We're getting that scanned. Hearing on the low end of that if that is actually what it is. Nick [Daicos] got a knock to the knee, which we'll get a scan to see if there's anything more deeper than just a knock".
Can you give us a bit more detail on Nathan Murphy's injury. Is it possible he doesn't make it back until September
"I'm not going to make comment on that because we don't know until the scan. The doctor just say he's concerned that it might be syndesmosis low-grade. We'll know more when we get the scan so [he's] likely to be out next week as a minimum".
Tom Mitchell had ice on his leg. Do you have any concern there?
"No, not that I'm aware of".
What did Nick Daicos learn from today?
"It's not about Nick, but I think we all learn a lot about ourselves. The level of the tag was what we expected. Nick gets a bit of a knock, makes it harder for him to run off as much, so we put him deep. It didn't quite work. Then in the end you go, we're actually tying ourselves in knots here trying to find a place for Nick and it's actually disconnecting other parts of our game. In the end, we just went with what we knew. Back to a bit of a normal system. I think credit to Finn Maginness, he's found a role for himself in the AFL. He's a great kid. Lucky enough to work with him for 12 months. He works as hard on his game as anyone I've ever seen. Challenges always present".
When did Nick Daicos get that knock?
"I think second quarter. I don't know exactly [the time]. I don't want to take away from [the opposition]. We're not a team that gets a losers lip going. I'm not going to live in that world".
Could Nick Daicos have got better support from his teammates?
"We talked about that pregame, so it's an interesting question. I'm not sure. I have to look at the tape. We like to think we look after each other quite well. I think the disconnection between our game a little bit has just gone off the last couple of weeks if you compare that tackle on the boundary line to what we do. Maybe their wasn't enough of those efforts consistently enough. We'll look deeper into that, but I think we have great pride in our connection in the last 18 months and tonight wasn't that".
How did you assess the Blake Hardwick matchup on Jamie Elliott? Elliott kicked 3, but Hardwick still played very well.
"I would have thought that most of their players would have said they played well. I haven't seen him play like that this year. They're a young team that will look back at this game and be 'wow, we beat Collingwood at the MCG'. That gives them great hope for what's [in] the future. For us, it's about learning good lessons along the way. Getting our best players playing good. I didn't think our best players played well tonight, so we get back to work on that. Like any team, if you don't have your best players playing well, it makes it hard for others".
Will you look at Billy Frampton coming back in to replace Nathan Murphy?
"Yeah, Billy was meant to play tomorrow [in the VFL]. I think we'll rest him and keep him in mind for 5 days time or what it is post tomorrow".
Do you still need to tinker with the mix of talls forward of the ball? Today you lost centre clearances 18-3 which was a massive discrepancy.
"Yeah, 18-3 [at] centre bounces is not a great result, is it? If you just want to be pragmatic and call it what it is, you lose 18-3 then the ball's played in your back half, and you have to transition well. We can make all these other things up, but that's one thing we just need to get better at. We're a work in progress. This is not the last game of the year and neither is next week. We're working towards finding out some answers and some of these questions are upon us. We've got to find out quickly, don't we? Because there's three weeks to go in the regular season so we need to find out a bit more".
There was a view during the week that the Carlton loss would be 'beneficial'. Do you think you'll look back at this last fortnight when you're in September and say it was 'really helpful' in getting you through to where you want to get to?
"Yeah, I live in that world that I reckon I'd like to think so. I'm an optimistic guy, and I look on the bright side of life and look for the good in things. In the last couple of weeks, there's a lot of parts of our game that just doesn't look the same as what it has [in the past]. This is a long journey. A marathon. I'd like to think so whenever we get to reflect on this season, we look back and 'oh that was a moment'. We learned a lot last week. There was so much we learned last week, and we presented it to the players and then we'll learn a little bit more this week. Our best is in front of us, I'm confident of that".
https://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/ ... 1230843001
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