WORK to do.
AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss admitted that his side still needs to work on their fallback structures when it comes to momentum swings in games.
Conceding that the Blues let themselves down, Voss still acknowledged the fightback that was shown to the final siren.
Here’s what he had to say.
On the game as a whole:
“It was a game of momentum. For how well we played in the first, we could equally say the opposite for the next two quarters. We were completely dominated in the second and third quarters. It was more ‘how do we turn off the scoreboard?’. Because we just couldn’t get our hands on it for large periods of the second and third quarter.
“We certainly felt like that momentum was against us. Not a hell of a lot was working in the things we were trying to adjust because we couldn’t get our hands on it.
“That started to change probably in the backend of the third quarter just a little but then in the last quarter, the guys were able to play out really strong and we could’ve got to three-quarter time and say ‘it’s too hard’ but didn’t and we stuck at it.
“Maybe a bounce of the ball one way or the other could’ve got that closer. Despite the day not being ours, I’m pleased we were able to play it out right to the end.
On conceding 70 points from stoppages:
“Normally it’s a real strength of ours. Coming in with the way that they’d picked, we thought they were trying to activate a bit of speed, we’ve been able to manage that pretty well over the course of the whole year, not just in recent weeks.
“It’s not often we concede 70 points from stoppage. That’s an enormous number, so that’s something we have to look at. Clearly they got territory from that part of the game. The run was one part but when you concede that many points from stoppages, you’re not getting territory and it’s very hard to generate your game from your back half like we were having to do.”
On Jacob Weitering’s time on the bench:
“He was quite limited in his movement. There were a couple of things we were managing there for a little while, not the right part of the game, unfortunately. They battled along and they’ll pull up okay. In the game itself, it was a bit difficult for them to manage, but they forged on.”
On the Giants’ forward dominance:
“We probably didn’t support enough. I felt like it’s not too often we look at a scoreboard where we conceded 100 points like that and when you’re getting that clean ball through, your defenders are left one-on-one and you can’t get the support.
“We’ve been really good at being able to support one another and I felt like we let our defenders down a little bit, couldn’t get any delay on it and like every defence, that puts you under pressure.
“At the end of the day, we weren’t able to play our method for long enough. You don’t expect to have that big a time in a game where you can’t get your method going, where you can’t get your hands on the ball.”
On what happened after quarter time:
“We need to stay present. In some ways, you could argue the scoreboard shifted where our focus was. Over a long period of time now, we have a great clarity and feel for when things work for us and when things don’t.
“We’ve spent a hell of a lot of time on what our identity looks like and we’ve got enough experience to know what we value and what’s really important to us.
“The reality is we drifted away from that and when pressure comes, that’s what we go back to, that’s our fallback point. Unfortunately, that wasn’t strong enough for us and GWS was able to hit the scoreboard as a result and we ended up losing that connection.”
On the result:
“What it shows is that this game is extremely hard, and the competition is extremely even. We knew coming up here what kind of challenge GWS would be.
“They’re a good footy team and we’re playing on their home venue, so it was always going to be a challenge. We’re trying to become a very consistent football team and that’s what we’re still trying to achieve.
“I feel like we’ve got some confidence from the public that we can perform and perform when we need to, but we let ourselves down today.”