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. 2 ahead of Round 1 this Saturday against East Fremantle at East Fremantle Oval.

QUESTION: You have been able to turn your full attention to East Fremantle, what do you make of how they are looking?

ANSWER: Whilst along with Claremont they have probably been hit the hardest in losing their AFL-listed players, they have McNamara and Dalziell back full-time with them, and they have a good group of experienced players Dodd, Rory O'Brien, Mark McGough and Rob Young is back fit, Lester-Smith is back from a long lay-off and they have added some size from other clubs with Bristow and Chartres on board. Having spoken to their coaching staff over the summer on a number of occasions, they are really excited about being able to have control over their whole group again which hasn’t always been the case down at East Fremantle. They regularly could have four or five selections up in the air on a Friday afternoon.

I just think that by having control of all their players will see them improve this year but whether or not they have lost a fair of talent and whether they are as strong as last year, that's for someone else to answer not me. All I know is that they will be fired up and ready to go on Saturday, and we will need to be at our best down at East Fremantle Oval to beat them.

Q: You played well at East Fremantle Oval twice last year?

A: We have had plenty of time to reflect on what we did last year and there were two terrific victories down there in what were completely different games. One was a high-scoring shoot out and the other was a defensive slug fest. It is always hard to go down to East Fremantle Oval but to borrow a Ross Lyonism, we are prepared to play anyone anywhere, and we think about our preparation and what we need to do to stick to our structures. We are confident that going to East Fremantle isn’t going to be an issue.

However, the time for reflecting and thinking about what we did last year is well gone. All we can control now is what comes ahead of us and that has been the focus all pre-season. The players have been really good with that and now we are bedding down to get ready for Round 1.

We probably had our side selected last week in our match committee meeting and this week we will look to iron out a few structural things to get ready for Saturday's game. 

Q: How would you sum up the shape up the competition coming into 2014?

A: It is really hard in the WAFL to judge how sides are going to go until Round 1 actually starts. There is a lot of player movement and there are always kids popping up from the country or amateurs who can play, and an influx of players from interstate like James Sellar and Lachlan Delahunty who you aren’t really sure how they will cope with WAFL football.

The disappointing part for me probably is that because of the East Perth and Peel alignments with West Coast and Fremantle is that the WAFL as a whole has lost six, eight or maybe 10 players to the competition who still should be playing WAFL footy and who were great assets to the competition. I'm talking about guys like Marlon Motlop, Paul Bower, Aaron Sweet, Devin McFarlane, Mathew Seal and Brad Holmes.

You might be able to make a little bit of an argument that the whole competition might come back a peg, but clubs are resourceful, the sides are well coached and the commitment of the players can never be questioned. I expect it to be a tough and hard fought season, and I doubt you will see a side go through the season winning 17 or 18 games. I think the competition will be a lot more compressed this year with the great unknown being how will East Perth and Peel go. We are the 2013 premiers and only won 13 games in the regular season, but we will just take it week by week and whatever ends up happening, the WAFL is a great competition.

It is great for families, will still be a good product and I'm expecting it to be an exciting year. There will be continued debate about the alignment, but it's done and signed off on now and the focus has to be just on playing our best footy against East Perth just like we do against an East Fremantle or Claremont.

WITH CHRIS PIKE