BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN ROUND 8 Q & A

WEST Perth premiership coach Bill Monaghan will be conducting a weekly question and answer segment for the club's website. Here he discusses the remarkable come from behind win over East Perth and looking ahead to this Saturday's clash with East Fremantle at HBF Arena.

QUESTION: What happens in a game like that when you are able to turnaround a 42-point deficit and end up kicking the last 12 goals to end up winning?
ANSWER: There were times in the second and third quarter when we weren't playing as bad as the numbers would look. Sometimes the scoreboard doesn't truly reflect the way the game is going and they got three or four over the back goals, sometimes from their good work and sometimes from our poor work so we probably should have never been in that position. Everyone is going to talk about our last 40 minutes of the game and our last 10 minutes against Swans, but our first 20 minutes on Saturday was actually as good as we have played. But we kicked 1.4. The ball was played exclusively in our half and it's hard to maintain that style and intensity for a whole game. When that fell off, we drifted out but essentially the change in the fortune was based around our increase in intensity. I thought we really lifted both offensively and defensively, and were able to win enough of the ball and deny it to them. We were able to use our pace to advantage and there were a number of contributing factors.

Q: When you review a game like that do you focus on the last 40 minutes and try to replicate that more often or do you try to look at why you fell seven goals down and try to stop that happening again?
A: When we were 42 points down you've got to remember they only had two more scoring shots than us so it is a fine balance between the two. Yes we have to identify the areas and reasons why we are not doing a great job, but it's very important that we focus on the things we can control, and that is our levels of intensity, work rate and run, and that was clearly at its best when we were playing well. It's probably a conundrum that all coaches go through, and I heard once that you have to strengthen your strengths, and weaken your weaknesses so that probably means you have to do both.

Q: You made some changes midway through the third quarter that seemed to work with Rodda and Manning going forward, and Strijk moving further up the ground?
A: Throw into that Mike Lourey going into the middle for a bit as well. We were discussing for a fair period of the third quarter what we could change and sometimes you can hold on a little bit too long, so 10 minutes out from three quarter-time we made four or five structural changes, and they all seemed to come off. Kody kicked one either side of the break, Strijk kicked one late in the third quarter, Lourey won a couple of clearances through the middle and obviously Rodda's competitiveness up forward really helped. We took a bit of a gamble leaving five-gamer Sam Rotham playing against Johnson and Lycett, but sometimes you have to fly by the seat of your pants, and that was a real case of if we keep going they are going to win anyway so let's keep the ball away from the back-line and Sam won't get exposed. Sam is doing a great job down there and his composure and willingness to compete is good. He has to keep getting bigger and stronger, but he is exciting for the future and I was really pleased what he did and what Rodda did going up forward.

Q: How did you see the battle between premiership teammates Laine Rasmussen and Mark Hutchings?
A: We moved Laine back in the second half. He was very good early and he has great strength in mind and body so he was able to keep Hutchy away from a lot of contests, and match him over the ball but clearly one of the areas we were poor in during the second quarter was clearances. Whilst Chris battled manfully and in the end played really well in the last 45 minutes, they dominated us in the clearances in the second quarter and we generally don't tag a lot of inside midfielders because if they get good position, have good strength and clean hands then you can't really stop them. We are a bit of the belief that you tag blokes on the outside but one of the reasons we went with Hutch was because he works hard forward and has an impact on the scoreboard. But Laine like the rest of the team struggled around the stoppages in the second quarter but he then went back and played his usual exceptional game across half-back where his attack on the footy is second to none.

Q: Speaking of midfielders like that, Nelson had another 43 possessions and if possible has got even better this year?
A: There are always people with conflicting views over how Shane goes but we are being highly critical of a guy who can find it 45 times, have 11 clearances and eight tackles. They are like season stats for me when I played and he gets them in one game. And he generally only plays 70 per cent of the game as well. We expect him to do things offensively and defensively as well, so it's not as though we just send him out there to find as much footy as he can and not do anything else. If we did, the numbers he could rack up might be scary. We are fairly hard on Nelly and around stoppages he is very good. I think people need to stop judging Shane on the gut feel of what they feel happens on the day. I am consistently amazed with how good he is when I watch him back on tape because watching live you miss the work he does in the clinches and around the stoppages. I dare say that his hands in traffic and in congestion are as good as we've seen, and that's for someone who only weighs 75 kilos, gets tagged every week and run into off the ball, he just keeps getting up and finding the ball. He is an exceptionally good player and people need to give him more credit rather than focus on a couple of areas he can improve on.

Q: Now if you can beat East Fremantle this Saturday at HBF Arena you can head into the State game in second position, but they have won four straight and won't be easy?
A: They are a very good side East Fremantle and they have a lot of good, quality players both who have played AFL footy and who have been around the WAFL scene for a number of years. They are always a tough opponent and they are in good form, but whilst we lost to Claremont our form isn't terrible. But we believe we can still improve so we are looking to do that this week against East Fremantle and try to win another home game.