BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN ROUND 11 Q & A

WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan discusses Saturday's win over Perth that was the fifth in-a-row for the Falcons and looks ahead to the Channel 9 WA Day Derby this Monday against East Perth at HBF Arena.

QUESTION: Saturday's performance probably wasn’t the greatest and you might not have been happy with quite a bit of it, but it was another important four points to rack up?
ANSWER: To Perth's credit I thought they were fantastic through the midfield, they ran really hard and ran hard off half-back. They weren’t a pushover by any means but it didn’t feel as though we played with the same intensity or defensive effort as we had over the last month or so. I was a little disappointed with that but for the players to work through that and come away with a four-goal win in the end was still a reasonably good performance, but we were a long way off where we need to be at.

Q: Nick Rodda had his best game of the year in the back-line and after a bit of a slow start to the year up forward, he's finding some impressive form now?
A: It was great to see Nick play a strong game. He read the ball really well in the air and marked it really well, and then used it coming out of the defensive 50 as well. We are really pleased that Nick is starting to find some confidence and some form after being relatively quiet early in the season. Hopefully that will continue and his work with Tyler Keitel and Joe Morrow as our key defenders is pivotal in the way we set up.

Q: You must be happy with the whole back-line is performing not only with Tyler, Joe and Nick, but the work Luke Meadows, Steven Browne, Blake Wilhelm and then Andrew Strijk in the second half on Saturday are doing?
A: It's something that we have been working on and it's been a bit of a changing of the guard in our back six with Strijk not playing there a lot of late and Luke Tedesco has found his way out of the side mainly through injury. We think both of those will play big roles in our back six at times still but Luke Meadows, Kody Manning at times, Blake Wilhelm and Steven Browne who is in career-best form are all going well. It's an area we have improved on but we had to because our team defence first of all, and our back six were pretty ordinary early in the year. It does make their job easier if our forwards are pressuring and mids are running hard both ways, and that has started to be more of the norm now and hopefully it will continue.

Q: You lost Kody Manning before the game on Saturday, should he back on Monday?
A: He was really touch and go to play last week. He just pulled up sore after our Thursday training session, went to the physio on Friday afternoon and then rang me late on Friday and said he was going to have to miss. When we left on Thursday night he was playing and up until about 5 o'clock on Friday he was still playing. It was disappointing and he had been in good form, and he adds a lot to us with his defensive pressure and ability to play multiple roles. We think he will be back this week definitely.

Q: Pressure on for spots as well with the likes of Corey Chalmers and Kris Shannon banging down the door, Luke Tedesco finding some good touch and even Chris Keunen now back but he might need another run in the reserves?
A: Chris will probably come into the mix after the bye. He struggled in his first week back and he was a little bit better on the weekend, but he is clearly a little underdone and that's because he was the only one of our injured players who couldn’t run during his time out of the game. He is paying a little bit for that at the moment but if he puts in a good performance this week and trains hard over the bye week then against Claremont he will be right into calculations. Chalmers, Shannon, Tedesco, Max Alexander and young Nathan Alexandre are all in the mix. The last two weeks it's actually been difficult to select the side and that was after a few weeks ago it was all about who we could get to play, but now it's about who can force their way in and who is unlucky to miss out. Joel Leeson also has to return, we are hoping Matt Guadagnin is only a month away from being able to play some footy and we are a lot happier with the health of our squad but at the end of the day a healthy squad doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to win. We still have to work hard on the track and on game day to make sure we continue our winning form.

Q: East Perth on Monday. Can it sometimes be difficult to prepare for a team coming off a 99-point loss or do you just gear up for a team to be desperate and hungry to bounce back?
A: I was really surprised with their result on the weekend. I put East Perth's side up on our board on Monday and I was really surprised that the team they had didn’t perform better against Subi, so I'm expecting a fired up East Perth on Monday. They are a proud club and not only that, but I'm sure they have had the riot act read to them from the Eagles coaching staff. We've heard that there have been some meetings with Eagles people down at East Perth this week talking to both the East Perth and West Coast players about their performance. I'd expect them to come out red hot this week. They could have up to 16 or 17 AFL-listed players so they will be far from a walk in the park as an opponent and I doubt very much our players will take them easily. And if they are, I'd prefer them not to turn up and I'll pick someone who is ready because they have been put on notice that it's not the East Perth we will be expecting Monday.

Q: It will be nice to be back home on Monday for the first time in a month, and before that you hadn’t played at HBF Arena for over a month?
A: It does feel like we haven’t been at home much but the upside of that is that it has to turn eventually and we'll have a run of games at home. We love playing at the Arena but we don’t dislike playing elsewhere as well. Hopefully the weather will stay fine for Monday and we have our junior parade day so it will be good if we can get a decent crowd for the WA Day Derby.

Q: It's a big game in terms of ladder position as well because after being 1-4, if you win you can suddenly have a three-game gap inside the top five?
A: The lesson in that is that if we don’t keep performing that it can turn the other way just as quickly. We have been really fortunate to come away with five straight wins after being 1-4 but we are far from being complacent. We just know that it's hard work and being at our best every week that is our challenge. If we can do that then we think we can be competitive against any side in the competition. As a coaching group and playing group that's what we talk about and we are all on the same page with that so hopefully the form will continue.