BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN ROUND 22 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 win over South Fremantle that guarantees West Perth second position and a home final ahead of the last round clash with Claremont at HBF Arena.

QUESTION: Another good win that you had to work hard for. They challenged you and hit the front early in the last quarter, but as you seem to be able to do regularly, you kicked the last four goals to win?
ANSWER: I'm really happy with our finish to the game. I was disappointed with some of the things we did through some of the first three quarters, but having said that we're experimenting a little bit with our ball movement. I think in the end we over-handballed and then failed to hold them up because they took 120 uncontested marks, which is a huge number for us to give up. In the second quarter they had 40 alone so we were really disappointed with our inability to slow them up on transition, and then we made far too many mistakes trying to move the ball quickly and to catch them out the other way. We have a little bit of work to do with our ball movement, but we were happy to come away with the four points and another win down at Fremantle Oval.

Q: Matt Fowler has had a solid and consistent year as a contributor in the forward-line without the breakout game, but it was good to see him get that on Saturday with six goals?
A: Our forward-line has a real mix of goal kickers and we try to spread the load, and across the whole competition that's probably the case with Yarran leading with 44 goals and Mike's coming third with 34. We've found different avenues to goal and we try to work on getting our forwards to cash in when it's their day, and take their opportunities. But we judge our forwards on more than the shots on goal they have and Matt's form over the last three or four weeks on purely goal kicking numbers looked a bit iffy, but he's done some really good jobs for us and he's defending a lot better. When he does get up the ground, he generally uses the ball well too but it was a nice reward for him and for us for him to kick six.

Q: The challenge defensively was to shutdown Josh Pullman and Ben Saunders, and Nick Rodda and Marcus Adams probably did that even better than you could have hoped?
A: I was a little surprised in the end to see that we only won the inside-50 count by one so they had plenty of opportunities, and Marcus and Nick continued their good form but they had some help. Joe Morrow's been very good for a number of weeks, Drew Rohde's playing some good footy, Blake Wilhelm is new into the side and playing good footy too. A couple of the, dare I say it, older boys like Browne and Strijk are giving us a good balance down there. We're really happy with the way we defended in the back six, but not so happy with how we defended through the middle of the ground.

Q: Tyler Keitel looked to roll an ankle late, but have you come through relatively unscathed?
A: He probably just rolled an ankle and he'll be 50-50 to play this week. There's a lot of conjecture in the press about AFL sides resting players going into the finals and coaches flirting with form and getting the required rest into players, but our view is that I have no doubt Tyler could play through the pain of his ankle this week, but what do we really gain from that. So if there's any chance that he won't be at 100 per cent we'll err on the side of caution and we've done that the last couple of weeks, and we did it again on the weekend with Chris Keunen and Aidan Lynch. That's our view that generally players will play through the pain, but we have to question if we need to be doing it leading into the finals.

Q: With Tedesco, Shannon, Rasmussen, Keunen and Lynch to come back in before finals, do you use this week against Claremont almost as a selection trial for that home final next Sunday?
A: It's a bit of yes and no with that. We'll pick a side that we think can win and where the players selected are expected to perform at a certain level. We might be down to player X and player Y for certain roles and without telling the players specifically, we might have some playoffs for positions. Say if we are tossing up between two guys on the wing, we might start them both there this week and then make our choice next week based on their form. That might mean that we use Aaron Black in a different role so that we can see that. I think legitimately if Rasmussen, Shannon, Keunen, Lynch and Tedesco all come back this week, I would think that we've probably got it down to 26 or 27 who could play the week after. There are going to be some tough choices and that's always great at selection, but it's also the toughest part of coaching. We've managed to be able to get the selections right on most occasions this year and we'll look to continue in that same vein this week.

Q: Interesting this week with Swan Districts needing you to do them a favour by winning for them to play finals, but Claremont simply has to win if they want to make it?
A: We'll try to block that out. There seems to be a scenario every week in our games where you can probably concentrate on something other than what's important on the field. Whichever players get the opportunity to represent the club, the expectation is that they perform at a level that should see us win. Is a fired up Claremont any different than a fired up South or Swan Districts the last couple of weeks, or a hardened Subiaco and talented East Perth? The challenge is the same each week and there's a bit of banter and fairytale around the finish to the season, but all we can do is play our very best football that we can.

Q: How proud are you of the group to have now all but secured that second spot to now be preparing for a home final next Sunday?
A: I'm constantly amazed and proud of the players for the performances they put in and rarely, if eve in my time here, has it been through a lack of effort that we haven’t got the points. The players commit at this level a lot of time, effort and energy to preparing themselves, and our players are fantastic at that. It's always great to see them get the rewards and for the family, friends and long-time supporters to enjoy us winning games. That's one of the best things about coaching.