Senior coach John Longmire appeared in a press conference on Tuesday, June 4, following last week's bye.

He touched on Will Hayward's contract extension, Tom McCartin's return to play and what the team needs to improve ahead of a Sunday afternoon clash with Geelong. See what he had to say below. 

On Will Hayward’s contract extension

“It's fantastic for the football club. We're thrilled to have a quality player like him commit for the next five years, but also not only as a player but importantly as a person - he's a high-quality person.

“To see Will and Ollie join the club as 18-year-olds and see them both commit longer term now is one of the real thrills as a coach. Will’s football this year has been fantastic. His pressure, what he does off the ball is as important as what he does at the ball and what people see at home, so he's a highly valued member of our footy club on and off the field.”

On Hayward’s performance

“We've altered his role slightly, but his impact around the ball has been big. We see his chase downs and things like that that he regularly does during courses of games, which really helps with our team and helps our defenders, but also helps our forwards. It helps with our ability to score, but he's got that unique ability to chase, tackle, take marks and hit the scoreboard. All those combinations are highly valued, so we can understand the interest that he had.”

On the club’s long-term contracts

“We've had a large group of them that we drafted and have come through together and are playing a lot of football together. We invested heavily in them in the early days.

“We went through a couple of seasons where we didn't make the finals and then we went into COVID. During that time, we were trying to build the next generation of players to come through and hopefully be consistent AFL senior players for us and be good, high-quality players. We know we've still got a lot of work to do, but part of that work is actually re-signing them and getting the group together and pushing forward, and that's what we hope to do.”

On Tom McCartin’s return to play

“We'd expect Tommy McCartin to come back in the team. He would have probably played if the Bulldogs game was on a weekend rather than a Thursday night. He was a little bit short in his prep for that, but he's been training the last couple of weeks, so we expect him to come in and be available this week, which is terrific.”

On playing Geelong

“It’s a big game. The Cats are always around about the mark. To their credit, they've got a wonderful organisation that are competitive every year, and they're competitive again.

“They've introduced some younger players to their team that are playing key roles. They might get a couple of really senior quality players back this week, and that challenge is always going to be there. They've got some superstars all over the ground in their forward line, a couple of quality A-grade key position players, and then all Australian-type smalls. We know what their backline's about. They're really sound behind the ball. They're a really well-coached, well-led footy club with quality players all over the park.

“We look forward to those challenges against what we hope is a big, big crowd here on Sunday, and we're looking forward to plenty of red and white.”

On coming off a bye

“It’s something we’re mindful of. We had a few days off after the Bulldogs game, but we got back into it over the weekend. We had a good training session here on Saturday, trained hard, and we know we need to sharpen up.

“There are some areas in our game that we think we can improve upon. We're trying to still get better at it, and we need to spend some time doing that."

On Callum Mills

“His shoulder’s good. He had a bit of a groin problem in his rehab as he was coming back, and then he had his calf, which set him back a bit. He's still a few weeks away from playing, but we need to give him a good training block. He just needs to get some really strong work under his belt, so that'll take a few weeks now. Hopefully we'll see how he goes over the next few weeks and introduce him back into gameplay.”

On mid-season draftee Tom Hanily

“Our recruiting department had their eyes on him and said he could be a really good addition. He's a good two-way player. Gets up and back hard, so those attributes really appeal to our recruiting staff.

“He's turned up here and is hopefully enjoying life. It's a bit harder when you come in as a mid-season draftee, but he's fitted in well so far. His first training session was on the SCG, so it's great to see that excitement in a young player's face when he turns up for that first training session.”

On the second half of the season

“We still feel like we've got some work to do, and we've been obviously pleased with our first half, but we know the challenges don't diminish. They just keep getting bigger. We're confident in our playing group that we know what sort of football we need to play.

“We're trying to get better, and who knows what the back half of the year entails with us, but we've just got to make sure we boil it down to every day and every day we walk into this place trying to get better.”

On Robbie Fox

“Foxy's going okay. He won't be available this week, but he trained this morning. He's not quite ready for contact, so he might be a couple of weeks.”

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