BELIEF is growing at IKON Park.
After another close finish against the Dockers in Gather Round, AFL Senior Coach Michael Voss is confident that his team is ready for another challenge against the Crows.
Noting the different ways the team has been able to win with key personnel returning to the fold, Voss was adamant that the Blues will need to walk into Marvel Stadium as determined as ever.
Here's what he had to say.
On Sam Walsh:
"He’s been able to get through what he needed to and it’s great to have him back in the team.
"We also understand he has a role to play, we don’t expect him to do anything else except get his job done for us and we know what that looks like for him. It’s his first game of footy this year so we’ve got to take that into consideration.
"I don’t want to underestimate Sam Walsh’s influence on our team, but if you think he’s the difference, we’re certainly going down the wrong path. We’ve taken a squad mentality to everything we’ve done so we appreciate that there’s one person that can step in and have a good role and a good say in that . . . Sam coming in helps us with that, but at the same time, we can’t be thinking that that’s the fix for us, that’s one part of a bigger picture."
On having a stable, cohesive squad:
"Through experience, I’ve learnt more that having stability, cohesiveness, working together, time to work together as a group is the most important part. When you’re a bit more settled, people are aware of what their roles are, what tasks they need to get done and they can work through problems together and thats what it hopefully affords us."
On Blake Acres' 150, Sam Walsh's 100 and Michael Voss' 450-game (as player and coach) milestones:
"Well firstly, 450 makes me feel older so that’s all that achieves. I think we do the acknowledgement as we always would, it’s important to be able to step back sometimes and acknowledge milestones that happen.
"These are small ones that happen along the personal journey, it’s their own story to tell and we’ll tell those stories with those two and their journeys to this point in time.
"We give it the acknowledgement, but then we shift our gears into what we need to do and the job we have at hand."
On reviewing the Fremantle game:
"We celebrated the good parts, that’s for sure. We celebrated that we were able to hang on defensively for a long period of time. We put ourselves in a position to hold the scoreboard pretty tight even though we had some things working against us.
"We certainly felt like Freo had the upper hand for most of the game so we addressed that and what parts of that game looked like but you also have to celebrate what we did really well."
On building trust and closing out tight games:
"I spoke to the group after and spoke about trust and it’s a hard thing to establish. They don’t have to focus on the guy beside them because he’s getting his job done.
"It takes a long time to get to that moment. It takes a lot of training, takes a lot of failure, making mistakes, and being able to correct those mistakes, learning what presents next time.
"We’ve had a lot of those moments, we’ve unpacked a lot of those moments and so hopefully we stand up when they present themselves. It doesn’t guarantee that we get through the next one but it does give great belief."
On scoring more from turnovers rather than stoppages:
"I think it’s having that balanced profile, we don't want to be heavily weighted in one area. To be a good team, you need to know what you’re good at and for us. Whether it’s a turnover game or stoppages, we’d like both of them to come together at some stage, because as the games get bigger and the year progresses, you want to join those things together a bit more tightly.
"We’re still not the finished product and we still need to get after a few things and if we can get that balanced profile we’re after, then we’ll be a very hard side to beat."
On what to expect from the Crows:
"We’ve had some recent games against them that would suggest that we can expect their best. I think what we’re finding is the competition is a really strong competition. It’s going to require teams to be close to their best for most of the year and that’s why games like Freo when you’re not quite at your best and being able to walk away with four points, they’re critical wins in the wash-up of the season.
"What we expect from the Crows is they’re going to bring their very best and they’ve been building across their year: there’s been commentary around how they want to move the ball and that’s one aspect that we need to consider. We also need to get our game going, make sure we have our style and they’ve got to try and beat them."
On Elijah Hollands:
"He walked off that game thinking he wouldn’t get up for this, but the scans came through quite clear. He was able to do part of training yesterday, so I believe he’s pulled up quite well and I expect him to play."
