As it happened: Demons through to preliminary final after disposing of Brisbane

Q: How is Dan feeling after the big knock?

It was a decent hit. Smashed his nose and his face and some concussion so obviously he won’t be able to play next week under the protocols which is a pity. He has had a good year since he returned from a knee injury in round five.

Q: Chris, were you a little disappointed at the ball movement when Dan went off and how your team adjusted or was that understandable considering that it happened mid-match?

It’s probably understandable. Similar to when Eric Hipwood got injured against St Kilda, you practise a way to play and suddenly one of your key pillars in that’s not there. You would like to think you’d be able to adjust straight away but I don’t know many teams that could and I thought our guys did a reasonable job after half-time to adapt albeit it wasn’t perfect, it was still a little bit better. Sometimes you need to be able to call a time-out, you know. But it’s difficult.

Q: How about at the other end of the ground? You obviously touched on the inside 50s and it’s a difficult number to defend but Harris Andrews and Darcy Gardiner looked a little bit off their best tonight. Were they 100 per cent fit or did they just have a bit of a slightly down night do you think?

Yeah, was a little bit of a combination of both, I think. Darcy got a bit of a knock on the knee early in the game which troubled him but, you know, you can’t use it as an excuse. Melbourne were the better team tonight and let’s not take anything away from them. We didn’t lose because we had players injured. We lost because they won the hunt better and used the ball better and teamed much more efficiently than we did.

Q: Birchall spent a bit of time off the ground, was he a bit injured or what was the go there?

He got a bit of a knock on his knee but he was able to return. I don’t think there’s anything too dramatic for that one but it did sting him for 10 minutes or so.

Q: Going forward - sorry to take it forward straight away but obviously after a win like that how hard will it be not to go in unchanged? Would you really want to change much of your line-up after tonight?

We’ll assess that depending on who we’re playing against but the guys that played tonight I thought majority of them were outstanding. If you go through that, but we’ll get all the information, get the medicos to look at everyone, make sure we’re all clear, see how the boys pull up but at this stage the 22 who played tonight were pretty solid but we don’t know who we’re playing. We’ll wait until we get that and make decisions.

Q: Simon, does it feel different to 2018?

We’re a completely different side than we were in 2018. We’ve really established ourselves and the way we defend. We are more consistent in the way we play and put ourselves in a better position and in better form so it is a different experience but we sit here and we’ve still got work to do. As coaches and as the leadership group, we’ll go away and find areas of our game we want to continue improving and that’s been a great thing about our team’s development throughout the whole year is that they are never satisfied and they want to find ways to get belter and we have to keep looking for ways to get better.

Q: Simon, was there any concern about Lachie Neale getting off the chain like he did today? Something you need to work on a bit?

We spoke about him a lot throughout the game. There were little patches in the game where we certainly sent some guys to him to try and stem the influence, no question he’s an outstanding player and was having influence but a lot of these things come around with scoreboard as well, momentum in the game, scoreboard, the function of your whole group is what we look at and there was certainly periods we thought it would need to take some influence away. Majority of the night I thought our mids worked hard and got themselves into the game and got on top by the end.

Q: You mentioned it is a very different team to 2018 I think you had nine finals debutants tonight. Does it say a bit about the growth and maturity of those youngsters that they put their foot down early and when Brisbane came late in the third quarter they were able to keep their composure and see it out?

That’s been one of our hallmarks this year, ability to reset within games. We have got a core bunch of leaders that have experienced a lot as a group, gone through some of this together and we’ve got a group of nine players playing their first final and have come out of the last four drafts so we’ve got a mix in terms of our type of players but their ability to deal with pressure and understand what’s required in a game is very good and it’s driven primarily by our leadership group and the young fellas just follow. Proud of how our leaders went about it tonight.

“He is someone who, development-wise, has been unbelievable. He played in the backline three years ago in 2018 and drafted him as a forward to see him do well in the role he got drafted in is unbelievable.”

Q: Everyone looks so happy to play their role. You have Brayshaw playing on a wing, I’m sure when he was taken early in the draft he wasn’t thinking “I’ll be a winger run up and down the side of the ground.” Every one seems happy to play their role and it is working well.

Gussy has been phenomenal. As a group, we’ve come close to finals a few years in a row but it was about that maturing piece and Gussy is a great example of someone who is fully committed, bought into the team and he’s a gun and a star in his own right but playing himself on the wing and doing the team roles, that’s the reason we’ve taken our game to another level this year. It’s just been a team effort across the board.

Q: Jack, you seem to have supreme confidence, all of you players, in each other and the roles you’re playing. I think it’s really obvious each player knows their role. Is so defined. You must feel so confident in your game plan.

We’re really trusting the process, trusting the game plan that Goody (Simon Goodwin) and the coaches have from the get-go implemented and, yeah, you know like if the mids are having a bad day we’ve got Maysy, Lever, Petty, Jake Bowey, Trent Rivers, they’re mopping it up for us and then once we do win a clearance our forwards big Benny Brown, Charlie Spargo, Kozzy Pickett, Alex Neal-Bullen bring it to ground or kick snags so it’s functioning well at the moment. Hopefully they can keep it going.

Q: Tell us the plans from here. Straight through to a prelim final with all things equal, are you on the road for a month, what do you do tonight? Where do you go next?

Good question. I think we’re off to Perth tomorrow where we’ll do our quarantine and I’m assuming the games will be at Optus Stadium but really taking it day by day with the whole pandemic situation. It’s pretty changeable situation. Staying flexible but at this stage we’ll go back, recover and jump on a plane tomorrow.