BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN Q & A

WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan will be conducting a weekly question and answer segment during the 2014 WAFL season for the club's website. Here is the latest edition discussing this Saturday's WAFL v NEAFL State game in which he is coaching WA into battle.

QUESTION: Happy with how the preparations have gone for the State game this Saturday against the NEAFL at Blacktown in Sydney?

ANSWER: We've had a relatively short preparation and that was by design. Sometimes you can start three or four weeks out, and chop and change your squad, and impact on club training. We've really tried to bring that back a little bit, which is not to say anyone is right or wrong how they do the program. We only had the one training session before this week and that was on a Monday night to limit that impact at club level because everyone's No. 1 goal up til now has been to focus on their club sides. With us also being in the Foxtel Cup, that's taken my attention away from some things at our club as well, so I wanted to minimise my distraction as well.

The squad has been really good in the sessions we've had this week. They communicate well, they mingle together, we've done some fun stuff and serious stuff, and we think the balance of how we've gone about it is right. We have an advantage ahead of our opposition because they don’t actually get together until Thursday and they will have one training session on the Friday. I don’t think there's any right or wrong, and maybe in hindsight we'll look back and say we could have done things differently, but like any game what is important is our mental approach to the game. If we are switched on and willing to work hard, then how we've gone about our preparations is largely irrelevant.

Q: What are you expecting from the NEAFL as an opposition?

A: I am expecting a very good side to be put out on the park. They have a sprinkling of ex-AFL players and they get to pick from a competition that spans two states and two territories. In terms of the quality they can put on the park, we are expecting a very good side to be up against us. When Queensland and the Northern Territory combined a couple of years ago, they ran us to within a goal down in Mandurah and there were guys like Dayne Zorko who were drafted out of that side. That is an emerging market and the number of ex-Victorians and even their native players to Queensland and NSW, who traditionally would have had to go interstate to play at a state league level, can all play in that one NEAFL competition now. That competition has now become really strong even though some sides fall off the pace a little bit, but that's the same in every competition. Their really strong sides are very strong and there are a lot of good quality players. We've got Trent Manzone and Matt Fowler at our football club who have come out of that competition, and they were only young when playing there but they can now play some good WAFL footy. Subiaco had Joey Daye last year from there who has gone back and there are always some people capable of bridging the gap between the non-traditional and traditional states. I'm expecting them to have a very good side with some pace, size and strength, and anything but our best performance will leave us vulnerable.

Q: Late change in venue means that firstly, being at Blacktown you are familiar having played a Foxtel Cup game there, but secondly you won't get the sort of crowd turning up that would have been getting ready to watch GWS play Richmond if it was still at Spotless Stadium?

A: I'm not sure the Giants draw huge crowds anyway and I would think that it would be a 15,000 crowd there for their game anyway. You have to finish the curtain-raisers an hour before the AFL game as well and the crowd really does only roll in over the last 15 or 20 minutes before bounce down. It would have been a 10am start, so we would have been battling to get 300-400 people in the crowd which would have steadily built up.

In the last quarter, we may have got 3 or 4000 but the facilities at Blacktown are first class. It has been used for AFL matches in the past and Foxtel Cup matches so the venue itself is great. The main difference is that we will get on a bus on Saturday morning and it was going to be a 20-minute ride, but now will be an hour. The flipside is that it was going to be a 10am start and now it's 12pm so the players can probably get an extra hour's sleep in and we won't be so rushed in the morning. To get at a venue for a 10am start, we would have been there by 8.15 and up for breakfast by 6.30 which is 4.30am Perth time. In some ways, it's a better time to be playing so it just depends which way you look at it. You can look at it as a positive or negative, and my view is that it doesn’t matter. We are playing for WA and will go out there to do our best job.

Q: As coach, are you excited to be in charge of a team representing WA?

A: My view is that we have an obligation as coaches, selectors and players to uphold what the WAFL stands for. The WAFL competition has been great over a number of years, we were able to beat the Victorians for the first time in 20-odd years last year so there is a great expectation on us to perform at a high level. I'm excited about coaching the very best players in the competition and whilst there are some people who think we could have selected different players, what we've done is select a side that we think will gel together and be able to cover anything the opposition put at us. I'm excited about that. I'm excited for the West Perth players who are in the side and there are some veterans playing who love State footy and have been on AFL lists, and there are a fair few debutants as well who can't wait to get out there. It's an exciting time and I'm sure all the boys will put in a great performance.

WITH CHRIS PIKE