BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN Q & A

WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan will be conducting a weekly question and answer segment each week during the 2014 WAFL season for the club's website. Here is edition No. 1.

QUESTION: What have you taken out of the pre-season wins over East Perth and Subiaco?

ANSWER: First of all the players worked really hard over the pre-season and that's not only the guys who were lucky enough to play in our premiership team last year, but the young guys in particular have really come back with some hunger. They got a bit of a taste of finals footy in the reserves and they are keen to push the group along. We have also been able to add four or five players from either other WAFL clubs or amateur clubs and they are the ones who are driving the premiership players to improve.

I have been very impressed with our pre-season and that's been reflected in our two performances. Whilst we made plenty of mistakes as you do at this time of year and our ball handling wasn’t where it needs to be, the focus has been on physically preparing ourselves.

We did play a fairly second string East Perth side in 20-minute quarters so that was a bit of a light hit out, but Subiaco early on really came at us. From all reports, they worked really hard over the pre-season so that was a really good test for us and I was happy with the way our players kept battling away all day, and in the end our pressure skills in the last quarter were as good as they were in the first quarter. But there does need to be a significant lift again in two weeks when we take on East Fremantle in Round 1.

Q: Losing in the pre-season isn’t always a concern, but it must be nice to have some winning form?

A: Pre-season matches are always very interesting and coaches can always sell losses, but what we have been trying to do the whole time I've coached is that whilst the results aren’t crucial, we want to put our best foot forward in every game we play. Over the two weeks we've played, it has given some players on the fringe of our best 22 a chance and they can't afford to just go through the motions. If they are in good form then it puts pressure on the guys who think they would be in the team for Round 1 so it makes them step it up again. The focus isn’t to win, it is to make sure we are going in the right direction but we expect a good performance every time we play whether it's pre-season or a Foxtel Cup game, we will be giving 100 per cent.

Q: The battle between new recruit Seva Martin and former ruckman Frank Stockley?

A: It was a really interesting duel and from West Perth and Subiaco fans, and coaches, that is going to be a really interesting swap to keep an eye on. We have been impressed with Sev's commitment over the pre-season. He is a big lump of a lad and he is a developing ruckman. We gave Frank our blessings when he left and he was obviously at the age and experience who felt ready for league footy, and I had to sit down and tell him that he was still second behind Chris Keunen until he could prove that he was first.

Sev is developing and has some issues around his kicking, but with his size and bulk he is going to be a huge plus to us. When he first came over and we talked to him, we had a long-term view of him where Chris is going on 31 this year and is probably in his last or second last year so Sev just needs to be patient and to keep working hard. At 208cm, though, he is a good enough size and at an age where we think we can help him develop further and he should turn into a very good league footballer down the track.

Q: Andrew Strijk and Andrew Krakouer are the only players to not play a pre-season game?

A: We haven’t seen a lot of Andrew Krakouer around and he is still probably a month away from playing competitive footy. When he's been here both before he announced he wasn’t going to play with us and now since coming back, his training has been first class. He is a quality act and that will develop over time. We won't rush Andrew and we have a longer-term view of the season than trying to get him out quickly and opening up all possibilities of injury.

Matthew Spencer and Matt Guadagnin both played against East Perth, but had commitments for the Subiaco game. At their age and experience, though, one hit out is probably enough but Spencer would likely have preferred another one just because he is trying to break into our side.

The only other one who hasn’t played any competitive football is Andrew Strijk who is coming off a shoulder reconstruction. He was touch and go to play against Subiaco, but his medical clearance has now come this week but we have a bye in the pre-season schedule. So we have a dilemma about if we can get enough match simulation into him to play him in Round 1 or if we be more conservative with him and ease him back through the reserves.

Anthony Tsalikis has played both the reserves games coming off a shoulder reconstruction last year. He played a half against East Perth and then a full game against Subiaco so he has put his name up in the frame for Round 1. Both Anthony and Andrew have been around long enough where if we pick them for Round 1, we know they will give us everything they have.

Q: So everyone except Krakouer will be available for selection for Round 1?

A: At this stage, yes except Kody Manning who is out with suspension. We will still have 18 of our premiership players available with Salecic, Mellington and Hutchings the only ones not here and then you take out Kody for the first couple of weeks. When you add in a few of our good young players, guys like Manzone and Tsalikis who didn’t play in our premiership and then the new players, selection for Round 1 will be quite tough and we will have to find a way to chop down 28 to 22. There will be some genuinely disappointed players, but that's good for our football club and everyone will get a chance throughout this year especially with us playing in the Foxtel Cup.

Q: How do you approach this weekend because once the season starts you won't have a bye potentially for a long time because of the Foxtel Cup?

A: We treated the game with Subiaco as our last opportunity for match practice and we are backing our strength and conditioning coach Craig Soley in, and he has run a really good program over summer. The plan all along was to have a heavy workload into our two practice games and then we will begin to taper off. We won't do much match simulation work now. We will just do some short and sharp work with a bit of competitive stuff thrown in. We felt that the second half on the weekend showed that we are on the right track and there is no need for us to play any catch up work with our fitness leading into Round 1. Mainly we will just try to fine tune our skills and we will train Saturday morning, but it's not going to be a practice match so to speak.

We had the opportunity to play one more practice game and chose not to given that this might well be, other than the state game, our only opportunity for a bye for the rest of the season. Hopefully we go a long way in the Foxtel Cup and that's what we are hoping for, so we wanted to give the players this weekend off really. That's a little risky given you go into Round 1 coming off a bye, but it can tend to be scrappy anyway and hopefully our endeavour and efforts will be at a high level and we may be able to cover any slight deficiency from not having a game.

WITH CHRIS PIKE