JACOB Weitering spoke to Gerard Whateley on SEN on the back of the Geelong game and ahead of the Collingwood game. 

Here is what he had to say.

On Tom Hawkins:

"It was going to be a tough one with Liam Jones out and obviously they had Jeremy Cameron out as well, so it was going to be a big battle and it’s always a pleasure to take on the best forwards in the competition. I really respect the way Tom goes about it, I’ve had a few contests with him in the last few years and it was nice to come away with some consistent footy and play a good game. 

"Liam [Jones] and I do go through the vision, typically his strengths because he hasn’t got too many weaknesses. He’s a very strong man, I was giving away five or six kilos to him which I don’t usually do, maybe a few centimetres to a few players. It was a good confidence build for me. 

"I think with Hawkins, his team and his midfielders are terrific at delivering him the ball. He knows exactly where the space is, he’s one of those forwards that instinctively creates spaces for him to lead into. He loves the pockets, he loves the short lead, I didn’t want to get into a wrestle with him because he is so strong, he pushed me out fairly convincingly in the first quarter in a contest and it was a contested mark against."

On reviewing his game:

"I think when you’ve got a role like that, whether it is tall or small... it’s 120 minutes, you have to be on. It only takes a passage of play, they don’t need much. I’m only 23 so I hope to be playing on those types of players for a long period of time.

"There were still some work-ons for me, [Hawkins] did push me out of a couple of contests, I probably got too excited to get to the front spot and he just pushed me out and made a good contest. Probably the lead up is something I can work on, I’m not the fastest player so I do rely on my craft and my ability to position myself in a place to get the ball or half the contest."

On goal-kicking consistency:

"It was frustrating but at the end of the day, it’s very hard to pinpoint one player and a line in regards to a result. Harry and the forward line don’t go out to miss goals, they just don’t and people ask if they practice goal kicking, they spend hours out there.

"They knew it wasn’t good enough, you’ll see a response this week. This group is really good at responding to criticism, and individuals who weren’t at their best go out, and train and they do their best the next week."

On changing up the defensive structure:

"There hasn’t been too many changes to the game plan itself, it’s more been about the process of playing together, playing team defence. It’s never a quick fix. Consistently before the bye, we were getting 100 points scored against us and it wasn’t good enough and we understood that but week by week, we were chipping away at different areas of our defence that we wanted to fix up.

"Something on the weekend I wanted to point out was that the stats were the same bar the inside 50 count, which isn’t necessarily on the forward line. Our ability to transition the ball inside our 50 wasn’t good enough so that’s on the backs and the midfielders. You’ve seen the results of six to eight weeks of work and credit to 'Teaguey' and Dale Amos on that."

On Collingwood game:

"We’ve got the Pies this week which is a massive game: They got the win over us in Round 2 and we want to respond.

"It probably doesn’t resonate as much as previous generations. We hear it a lot from supporters and past players at the Club but we know it’s two big heavyweights in Melbourne going at it. They’ve had some success in recent years, they’ve been to a grand final, we haven’t. Maybe the level of it hasn’t been where we want it to be so it would be really nice to go at them if we both rise up the ladder."

On Back our 'Baggers:

"We did this last year, Hyundai has been a great sponsor of ours for many, many years now. They give us the ability to run out there every week, along with the supporters. They’re giving up their spot on our jumper for some of our members, 23 members will get their names on guernseys come Sunday, so it’s really exciting from them, I would’ve loved to do that growing up."