BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN Q & A

WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan will be conducting a weekly question and answer segment for the club's website. Here he looks ahead to Tuesday night's Foxtel Cup semi-final against the Western Storm at Patersons Stadium.

QUESTION: What sort of team are you looking to field in the Foxtel Cup semi-final?

ANSWER: Probably like we did when we went to Melbourne it will be a hybrid but the majority of players will have played league footy. We will probably debut two or three guys who haven’t, but again we are really strong in our belief that our depth in terms of guys who are capable of playing league footy is probably beyond 30 players depending on what positions they play. We will play somewhere between seven and 10 who played against East Fremantle, and we will bring in another 10 or 12 who didn’t but that will include Matt Guadagnin and Chris Keunen so they are two players who will strengthen us. There will be then Brayden Antonio, Luke Meadows and those types of guys who will come in who have played league football and another handful of guys like Corey Chalmers who might get a chance to debut. I reckon out of our 22, I would be surprised if any more than two or three haven’t played a senior WAFL game.

Q: On top of Guadagnin and Keunen, does Ray Bartholomew get another run and is Marcus Adams a chance?

A: Ray will play purely from a conditioning point of view because he missed three weeks, played a game and now has had another week off with our bye. Marcus won't play. He is right on the border whether he can play Tuesday night or not and we are clearly going to say that Sunday is more important, and if it's one day out then we don’t want to risk getting it wrong. Marcus will miss even though he trained last week and will train all this week. We expect him to be fit for South Fremantle on Sunday. The team we pick has mainly got to do with game time and we pretty much will rest everyone who played State footy and has been playing regularly. Chris will play on Tuesday because he has missed the past two and-a-half games and Kody Manning played our last Foxtel Cup game because he missed the opening three weeks, but he has now played every week since including the State game so he won't play. We are really respectful of the opposition coming over and we know that we can't treat them with disrespect and we want to advance to a grand final in that competition. We will be putting out the strongest possible side we can whilst making sure we are in a good position to win the game.

Q: What do you know about the Western Storm as the opposition?

A: I watched them play their Foxtel Cup game that they won. I have been reading reports about how they are going and Tasmania had a State game against the NEAFL with six players from the Western Storm in that so we'll wait and see if those players back up from Saturday to Tuesday. What I can tell you from the Foxtel Cup game they won is that they went to Adelaide and had a real crack. They laid 84 tackles in an 80-minute game and that's a significant number, and they had 165 possessions and 120 of them were contested possessions so they are going to be a side who will put us under pressure, and give it everything. They are 8-2 in their regular season as well and I will be painting the picture that if we don’t pay them respect, it opens us up to be vulnerable like West Adelaide was. We think, though, that by playing here with relatively fine weather that we have players who want to be playing for spots in our regular side, and that we are really lucky to have some talented young players who I expect to perform at their best.

Q: Aside from the obvious financial windfall, what would making the Foxtel Cup grand final mean to the club?

A: That's a really difficult situation because whilst it's based around the sides who performed well last year, so let's call it a champion's league-type competition, us for instance are 5-6 right now and sitting fifth. It's rewarding form from the previous year and then we took a 50-50 side in terms of who had been playing league footy and who hadn’t to Melbourne, and we will do the same this week and they are not games played at full strength or at full time frames and involving sides who aren’t necessarily in good form this year. It's a strange concept in a way and it's not being played parallel to the season that you are performing in, but the money side of it and the exposure on a national stage are the most important things about it. Any time you play in a competition you want to win so if it's a grand final and there is something in that then that's good, but that grand final clearly won't be at a standard of what you would play in your regular competition. It gives exposure for our kids to a different form of pressure and circumstances though.