BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN ROUND 14 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 back on the win over Subiaco in the International Football Festival at HBF Arena ahead of the final bye of the season this weekend.

QUESTION: Couple of days to reflect on it now. What are your thoughts on a big day for the club on Saturday and a fantastic win over a team that had been looking pretty much unbeatable?
ANSWER: There will be some aspects of the game that Subi will say they were slightly unlucky not to have beaten us, but I think we pretty much matched them in all the areas they are good at. Our stoppage work was good, I thought our strength around the football was good and both sides were really solid defensively. We play similar styles but I was really happy that our bodies held up against their bigger bodies. They have been able to physically impose themselves on other sides but we stood up well. They kicked 5.15 and that's probably going to be a valid thing to say that they had their opportunities, but in the last quarter when it seems as though there's a fair bit of talk about them having their opportunities, they kicked four points and we kicked three. If we kicked three goals and they kicked four, we still win the game. It was just a cracking game of footy. For a low scoring game, it was just a really dour struggle and it was a bit like a heavyweight boxing match where we just went toe for toe, and slugged it out. For a game that didn’t look great, the style of contest and combative nature of it I would think made it a pleasing game to watch.

Q: You identified that the last few weeks Subiaco had made their games a bit of a physical scrap, did you have your boys ready for that?
A: I think it's a bit of both. Subi are playing a highly contested, in-close type of game and I think a lot of sides are probably trying to counter that. We actually talked a lot about trying to move the ball quickly so it wasn’t really our plan to make the game how it turned out. It didn’t eventuate how we planned, but losing Teddy early in the game and whilst Kody went back out after quarter-time, we were basically down him as well and that meant our outside run was limited. Chris Keunen played 100 per cent of ground time and our key backs played 98 or 99 per cent of the time. We average about 135 or 138 rotations and we only had 98 so it probably took a little bit away from what we tried to do. The last quarter was just all about kicking it as long as we can and getting as many stoppages as we could. The players really dug in deep so it was really pleasing.

Q: Your last bye now before a run of eight straight games to finish the season, do you keep things similar to your previous byes?
A: We are going to give them the weekend off but they will get a program from our strength and conditioning staff, and Craig Soley is doing a wonderful job running that. They will have to do something on their own over the weekend, but we are mindful that it's our last break and like with most things, we can see it as a negative but we are seeing it as a positive that we will get some good continuity running into the finals, hopefully. Footballers tend to be creatures of habit and the last six or seven weeks we've had no continuity like a lot of sides with the State game and then a couple of byes thrown in there. We are looking forward to having seven of our last eight games being a Saturday, one's a Sunday and we will be able to get some normality into our program. The players actually like that and they know what to expect any given week, and they can plan their work and social life and home life around it. We are seeing it as a real positive.