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 this week's following Sunday's one-point win over Peel Thunder.

QUESTION: Without a doubt you escaped with the four points on Sunday against Peel, but such an important win. How do you reflect on it?

ANSWER: I don’t know if it was our best worst performance or worst best performance. We got out of jail clearly. Peel had us on toast after what was a really disappointing second quarter for us, but to the players' credit I thought for about 90 per cent of the second half we dominated. They were able to kick two quick goals in the third quarter to steady, but that was 20 minutes into the quarter. Then it was about 20 minutes into the last quarter when they kicked their only goal. Aside from a five-minute patch in the third and fourth quarters, we pressed really hard. It's not easy to make up seven goals in a half and a lot of things need to go right, but Steven Browne kicked the winning point from the top of the goal square even though it didn’t please us at the time. Had he not kicked that point, we wouldn’t have won by a point. Then with the finish of Slick at the end, we were excited but it's a hard read. Take out 20 minutes of the second quarter and it's probably a good performance, but the fact is that 20 minutes was diabolical. We need to find out why that happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Q: Where Slick marked it, it suited his kicking style perfectly. What were your thoughts as he lined up?

A: I'll put my hand up here and say that if there is a spot on the ground where you would back Slick, that was probably it. He was probably as good a chance to kick it from there as 30 metres out directly in front. It was set up perfectly for his hook, but at the end of the day it is still a clutch kick from a difficult position and a lot of pressure on it. It just did suit his natural right to left shape, and opened the goals up for him. It was probably more like a 45-degree angle shot on goal for him given the way he kicks the ball.

Q: Crucial win because the difference between being 3-4 and 2-5 is massive?

A: Very much so. We have worked hard over the last couple of weeks and we were pretty good against Swans before our bye before getting done by seven points up at Bassendean. In hindsight looking at how Swans have gone since that game, it probably wasn’t too bad of an effort and to have more scoring shots and inside 50s against them. To then go across the other side of the country and take on a talented Box Hill side, come away with a victory and play against another AFL-aligned side, it's actually hard to get a read on our form. The fact is, we are going OK but we're not going as well as we want to be going.

Q: It probably would have been impossible to come back from 42 points down with a man down on the bench, but it was a brave effort from Razor to keep playing despite the damage done to his face?

A: We were able to conceal that pretty well on the day, but Ray has a depressed fracture of his cheekbone and two fractures in his eye socket. That happened 10 minutes into the first quarter and he ended up playing 50 minutes of the game purely to give our forwards a rest for three or four minutes at a time. His ability to block out the pain and make that sacrifice when it would have been easy for him, especially after half-time when the pain kicked in, to say it was too much to go back on to the ground. We think that had he not been prepared to do that we may have run out of steam. For someone who didn’t touch the footy after he did it, he played a big part in helping us get over the line.

Q: Two games in a week and you won by a combined three points. Must give the side a lot of confidence that they can win from any position?

A: We lost a couple of close games through the start of the year and they can have a huge impact on a season when it's as tight as it is. To get those two wins, albeit one was in the Foxtel Cup, showed great resolve from the playing group and it gives you confidence that if you keep working hard, stick to your structures and never give in, you are always in the game. In my time and especially the last couple of years, the boys have showed the resolve to never be out of a game. The leadership group was questioned at half-time on Sunday and I was proud that I didn’t do my Charlie and instead talked some sense, and made subtle changes to how we were playing and positions. I put it on the leadership group to lift and I think they all did. that's what is really good about the guys we have here is that they are here for the right reasons, the team comes first and hopefully that can kick start our season because this week we have a tough match against a red hot opponent in Subiaco.

Q: Subiaco sits on top and probably has only dropped away in one quarter all year, in their only loss to Swan Districts. What do you make of them?

A: They haven’t had any real stars either and from watching them, they are attacking the ball hard, they are good in the clinches, win the contested the ball and their foot skills set them apart from a lot of sides. They get a fair bit of run off half-back and use the ball through the corridor, and have a couple of exciting forwards as well like Yarran, Boland and Deluca. They are playing a very strong, team brand of football and we are going to have to be at our very best. Our players are looking forward to the challenge and I think it will give a really good indication of where we are at the moment, and if things are back on track or if we have a lot of work to do to match it with the top sides.

Q: Naturally Bartholomew is out and Jones should be right, but Matt Fowler made sure you noticed him in the reserves with eight goals?

A: Not only with his 8.6 but the celebrations after each one of them were very noticeable. He was just unlucky because we tried to mix up our forward-line. Matt is more of a leading forward and we wanted to play Rodda and Adams in the same forward-line to streamline the way we move the ball, and get more aerial contests. It was as much for structural reasons as anything and against Peel we needed to go in with an extra big bodied defender so we played both Spencer and Marusic. We probably don’t need as much height this week and we select sides on a needs basis. If we don’t need three tall defenders, we won't pick three tall defenders. Jordy comes back and can play tall and small. Subi has a little bit of pace in their front half so we might need to find a small back the ilk of Kris Shannon or Luke Meadows to help us out. We will just try to pick our best side and hopefully throw the challenge out to Subiaco. It should be a cracker of a game.

WITH CHRIS PIKE