Scott on Team Selection...
No one should make the assumption that when we lodge our team, that's the team that's going to play because it's got virtually nothing to do with gamesmanship or tactical issues, and virtually everything to do with the fact that we need to lodge a team but we're not certain as to what that's going to be.
Our policy, and it's not every team's policy, [is] to give our players up until the last minute, and for us, that's an hour before the game so if we have guys that are a 10% chance of playing we tend to pick them knowing that it's unlikely but we don't want to not pick them and have them come up and be forced not to play them.
Scott on the Forward Line...
We always considered Jeremy [Cameron] this preseason to be a bit of a new player for us.
We had a really truncated pre-season last year. We didn't get our whole squad back until mid to late January, so he was a new player into our system that didn't get much chance to build some cohesion before the season started, and then he got injured. I think he played 12 games but we looked at it as seven or eight of those were games where he was really primed and ready to play well.
We were always optimistic that with a full pre-season this year and those games under his belt last year in combination with Tom Hawkins, we thought we'd get better down there. Tyson Stengle has added something to us, Gryan Miers coming back has obviously helped, we think Pat (Dangerfield) will play forward at times. I find it difficult to assess where you're at at any one point in time suffice to say we're optimistic about the cohesion and effectiveness of that forward group into the season.
We think it's going well now and should get better.
Scott on Brandan Parfitt's Milestone...
We always had high hopes for Brandan, he's probably a good example of a player that came into our system, [and] played pretty much from the early days.
We found a way to force him into our team because we were so optimistic about the player he could be. I think it was about his fourth game, maybe four or five, where he did a bad hamstring and missed eight weeks. He's had a little bit of that through the early part of his career, which you don't deliberately do but I am of the view that it helps build resilience within players and we think he's come through some of those physical challenges, and not only now is he a crucial part of our team but he's at 100 games which makes you a pretty experienced player.
He's an experienced young player and every club wants those.
Scott on Ollie Dempsey & Generation Next...
If you're watching the games, you're seeing some things you like from Ollie, but we don't put a ceiling on any of our younger players.
We've got a bias to try and get them in as soon as they're ready, even a little bit prematurely at times depending on the balance of the team. I think it's only natural to take the view that young players that can do it at the VFL level without a full complement of listed players will play even better when they have a full complement of experienced players around them so I think that helps Ollie's case.
But I think to be fair to be everyone, there's a group of eight or nine [players], that's why I try to avoid talking about [individuals], there are a group of guys that are all a chance to come up and play AFL footy sometime soon.
Bonus bits:
Tom Stewart: It was short-term. The feedback I got from the doctors is that it was just really bad timing. 12 hours earlier or 12 hours later and he would have been fine and that's the feedback I've got is that he's recovered quickly and he's ready to go.
Joel Selwood: They'd all rather play and that's what we want from them. We're not asking them to put their hand up to sit out but Joel had been a little bit crook as well - it wasn't an acute gastro thing like Tom and it certainly wasn't any covid issue, but that combination of factors convinced us it was a good decision (to rest him) and it would have been a good decision if we lost the game in our opinion.
Esava Ratugolea: [We're] giving him a few more days. We've still got some confidence that we're only Friday now, by Monday he'll be a good chance. But again, for us it's not necessarily a binary decision that he's right so he plays or he's not, so he doesn't, there are a few more things given we're only at Round 5 that we need to consider with a younger, developing player. We want him in such physical shape that he can perform really well as opposed to just getting through.
