From the Coaches Box - start to finish
In Cellarbrations' From the Coaches Box, assistant midfield coach Marty Mattner talks about what went right last week and tomorrow's challenge
The game was really a four-quarter effort across the board from the boys, which was something we were really pleased with. In the week leading up to the game, we spoke about the need to bring our pressure, contested ball, tackling and all the things we pride ourselves on, and on the weekend, the boys did that. Not only did they do it, they did it for four quarters from start to finish. Fremantle did come back at us a couple of times, especially in that last quarter, but we were able to fight it out and have a really good win in the end.
We saw some really terrific performances against the Dockers. Josh Kennedy was one of them and ‘Joey’ finished the game with 38 touches, and has had a really good season so far. Dan Hannebery also had a really good game, which was without a doubt his best game for the season so far. Benny McGlynn led the way and had lots of tackles and was hard at the footy, while young midfielder Harry Cunningham played a very important role on Stephen Hill, so that was really good. Those guys playing like they did and playing their roles, went a long way towards us winning the game.
We travel down to Melbourne to take on the Demons on Saturday night, and we’re expecting a tough challenge in what will be our first Melbourne game for the season. While the Dees have struggled to put wins on the board over the last few weeks, they’ve still managed to produce some really good footy, so that’s what we’ll be expecting this week. We’ve just got to continue to work hard and bring what we brought last week against the Dockers. We just have to control what we can control, play the footy we want to play, and hopefully notch up a win this weekend against the Dees.