BILL GETS GRILLED – BILL MONAGHAN FINALS WEEK 1 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 109-point qualifying final win over Peel Thunder at HBF Arena and looks ahead to Sunday's second semi-final against Subiaco at Medibank Stadium.

QUESTION: At quarter-time things hadn’t gone to plan, but you let the team know about it and after that you probably got what you expected for the last three quarters?
ANSWER: Without a doubt the players got read the riot act, and got told a few home truths, and it was all about our intensity and ball movement. We are a side who kicks the football a lot more than handballs, and in the first quarter we had 63 kicks and 57 handballs. To Peel's credit they did pressure quite well early but for some reason it looked like we were just happy to keep handballing and that played into their hands. We had 120 possessions for one goal in that first quarter and then by the 15 or 18-minute mark of the second quarter we had 60 possessions and kicked seven. The turnaround was clear in what was required to be done and to the players' credit they copped it on the chin and reacted in the right way. I'm really pleased they were able to do that.

Q: You ended up with almost 500 possessions, 150 marks and kicked 22 goals. Were you happy with what you saw the last three quarters?
A: It's going to be really hard to judge what we got out of it and what we didn’t get out of it until we play Subiaco, and then any subsequent finals after that will either be against Peel, East Perth or Subiaco at full strength. All I know is that Subiaco had a week off, I assume they trained on Saturday and they would have had to do some form of training. If they did competitive work and if it was as hard or better than what we did against Peel, who knows. I just expect our players to be a lot better than they were early next week and we will need to be against Subiaco.

Q: It will be a hard game to review, was it a hard game to prepare for given that when Brendon Jones and Josh Bootsma pulled out, it virtually was Peel's reserves team with Leroy Jetta, Gerald Ugle and one or two others that you were up against?
A: It was extremely hard because I tried to paint all week that we had to be respectful of who we played, but I also know that young men read newspapers, listen to radio stations and watch Channel 9 TV as well. So they knew full well what was going on and in that way it was tough. Did we get out of it what we wanted to get out of it? In the end, we don’t know.

Q: Important to not get any injuries in a game where the win was wrapped up by half-time, how have you come out of the game on that front?
A: The early indications are that there's nothing major. Rarely would you get out of a competitive game of football without some sort of injury, and we've got a couple of little knocks but compared to where we've been over the last six or eight weeks, and most of the year, a knock here or a little bruise there isn’t going to stop anyone going into next week I wouldn’t think.

Q: You had tough selections to make and guys like Chalmers, Wilhelm, Shannon and Meadows all did well in the reserves that had a good win to make sure they are in contention still for next week?
A: All of those four guys had a real kick in the backside by losing their place in the team and it's the worst part of coaching. Anyone who has been in the senior coaching position knows that to have to go and tell someone that they are missing a game on a weekly basis is hard, but when it's a final and the further in the finals it goes the more difficult it is. Each of those young men are outstanding characters and people, and for them to be able to do what they did in the reserves is why we hold them in such high esteem at this football club. They are going to be huge for us as this season goes on and the message for them is that they could spit the dummy and blow a chance, or understand that the season could still go for another few weeks and a chance could open up. I was really proud of the way they played and they did themselves no harm.

Q: Sunday will be your 10th straight game since your last bye and you have plenty of momentum but probably some sore bodies while Subiaco is well rested but might have played its best football for a while. It will be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out?
A: In hindsight you look back and blame things on byes or playing too long, but they are all things that don’t occupy a lot of time in a players' mind. It certainly won't occupy a lot of my time and it's nearly irrelevant whether they played this week or not. People will say that our preparation was an easy win, but it was only a couple of weeks ago when Subi had a run of big wins against Perth and East Fremantle. They finished with a tough game against East Perth and they will have their own selection issues and hopefully there's enough in our side that they will have to have some significant plans in place to try and stop us. We are really excited to take on the best side in the competition and we expect to be more than competitive.

Q: What's the feeling like now knowing that whether your next win comes this week or next, it will put you into a second grand final in three years?
A: We are stoked to be in a second semi-final. One of the issues with a final five is that you finish second and you have to win a game for the right to take the top side on so potentially the second side has to play four finals. It's one of the things that as a coach I'm not overly impressed about. With the final five, you finish one and two, and you get one crack at a side and then potentially the grand final. In a lot of ways we weren’t sudden death this week, but we were in the same position as the fourth side. We are just excited and we think we have a good blend of youth and experience, and we have a number of players who have been through this before. The first three finals I coached here we lost and now we've won our last three finals so the positive thoughts in most of these players' minds is that finals time is great to be part of, and if you play to a certain standard you get rewarded and that's what we will be focusing on this week.