TIME to get started.
While the Blues are starting 2024 where they finished in 2023, AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss was adamant that they weren’t putting all their eggs into one basket.
Noting that it’s the first game of a long season, Voss wants to see some home-and-away consistency from his side, starting with Brisbane at the Gabba in Opening Round on Friday night.
Here’s what he had to say.
On Zac Williams:
“To see his journey from the day it started and see what he’s been through, he’s had a lot of bad luck with the injuries and some other things that he’s been managing as well and that’s made it an extremely difficult period of time.
“He’s been pretty focused over the last little while and hasn’t missed a beat really. To have the consistency he’s had since we got back from pre-season, it puts him in a really strong position to have a good season.
On the prospect of the Gabba:
“We come up here, we’ve got another opposition to play. We’ve got a very impressive opposition that we have to get over and they’ve got an extremely good record here at the Gabba, and that’s something I’m sure they’re proud of and want to keep intact.
“We’re aware of the challenges in front of us, it’s going to have to be our best football to get a result.
“We look at every game the same no matter where we go. Maybe the challenge rises a little, but I think it has more to do with playing a talented side and the system that they play that we have to overcome.
“That asks lots of questions of you, but we want to be a side that is consistent inside the circle and that requires a set of actions and behaviours that we have to replicate for 120 minutes so that’s all we worry about.”
On the preliminary final:
“In some ways, it was our first look at it, being able to play finals football. We’d been buzzing around the mark for a couple of years but that was our first exposure.
“To see that atmosphere and play in a preliminary final was going to be a huge experience for us so we’ll lean on that: that doesn’t necessarily mean we get to transfer all that to tomorrow’s game, but there are some things we take out of it. The challenge is now how to replicate it and how to do that for a longer period under really big game conditions.”
On the chance to be part of Opening Round:
“We’re extremely privileged, we’re lucky enough to have a group of supporters that like to travel so they do turn up. Those were some of the more unbelievable scenes that I’ve seen at the Gabba in my entire time [at the preliminary final], to see that crowd, I imagine it will look a little bit different tomorrow but we’re really privileged that we get to play in big games.
“The fact that we get to open up the AFL season, whether it’s in Brisbane or in Melbourne doesn’t really matter to us: we’ve got Brisbane this week and Richmond next week, to kick it off so we’re very fortunate.”
On the learnings from Brisbane and Collingwood:
“We actually look a fair leaf out of the two Grand Final teams. They’ve had four or five years where they’ve been around the mark and they’ve had their own experiences at the back end of the seasons, but the one thing they have been is extremely consistent home-and-away sides.
“They’ve given themselves the opportunity to put them in a strong position at the final end of the season and that’s something we haven’t been able to replicate over a period of time.
“For me, that’s about consistency. It’s not just about one round, it’s about how we roll that out for 23. We hope to replicate that and this is only our start: sometimes you make such a big deal about the first game, you feel like there’s no other games that exist on the calendar but that’s the feel you get when it’s [Opening Round].”
