John Longmire appeared in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, August 6 off the back of tough loss in Adelaide. The senior coach reflected on Round 21 and the team's confidence moving forward, touched on Joel Amartey and the upcoming Collingwood clash at home.
On the Round 22 performance
“We processed it on the Sunday and then you're heading to a solution mode. Part of that's been giving the players a couple of days away to try and freshen them up physically and mentally and make sure that they're in a good space to reset for this week. That's the most important thing.”
On the dip in form
“Every team has had ebbs and flows. The thing that hit us behind the weekend was the drop in performance and standard… We’re confident that we can return to a level of competing that gives us the best possible chances in games and part of that is to spend a couple of days with the players, pressing them up mentally and physically to be able to attack Collingwood this week.”
On the first quarter battle against Collingwood
“We've talked about it and I said it after the game that we've got to start doing something about it now. We've tried different things, and we need to start doing something about it. From a pure performance perspective, that's what we need to do.”
On how concerning last week was for the rest of the season
“You go through an enormous disappointment the day after the game and you let it wash through. Then you come in yesterday, like we did as coaches, and I spoke to a couple of the senior players, and you work through some of the solutions. Obviously, any loss is a disappointing one, but particularly the way we lost on the weekend was extremely disappointing. But you need to get that out of your system and look towards some of the solutions of that…”
On team first approach
“I'm confident that our playing group know that team first is the reason we've got to where we've got to this season. We've played a lot of good footy this season and individually played a lot of good footy. But that's always been on the back of outstanding team performance and working for and with each other.”
On confidence
“Every year there's a different challenge. From losing six in a row, coming off a grand final defeat, to various injuries that happen that are outside of your control… In the end, you go back to what you know. What we know is we've played some really good footy this year. You go back to what you know. We're confident in our playing group and our staff.”
On premiership chances
“I want to get back to a level of competing this week. That's what you turn to. That's part of long-time coaching and part of the experience that we've got around us. To be able to return to what you know and what you know works. Getting back to that focus, which is focusing on what we need to do for this week. It's never been something more than that…”
On Joel Amartey and Lewis Melican
"We didn't play Joel on the weekend because he and Lewis Melican we would always plan to give a rest for the back end of the year. They've had an enormous workload this year. Joel feels good, but we saw his program and talked to our medical staff. We didn't want to put him at risk with his workload and his history. He should be ready to go.
“We'll consider Lewis Melican, we'll have a chat to him and the medical staff about what he looks like. So, we should get a couple back this week.”
On changes to the team this week
“There might be two or three based upon those guys. You've got to provide some solutions to players, but also provide some confidence to them. Generally, the playing group over the journey has been pretty good.”
On Justin McInerney
“He's been fantastic with his rehab, but he's probably around about three to four weeks away.”
