It really looked like your pressure and the way you set up defensively around the ground really forced the Bulldogs, regarded as one of the best users of the ball in the comp, into many, many turnovers and skill errors. Was that perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the whole performance?
It’s probably something we’ve been working on and become part of our DNA of how we play, our ability to defend. Last week against Adelaide, we were certainly not the level of where we wanted to be. There was an area of our game where we wanted to bounce back in and we knew the Bulldogs were a team that wanted to move the ball a certain way and our ability to defend the most dangerous areas and put them into spots they didn’t want to be enabled us to defend really strongly behind the ball. So it was a really pleasing effort from that side of things and continues our belief in our ability to play a certain way and our belief and our game style. I’m sure our supporters that are at home watching tonight are starting to really see what the Melbourne DNA is and that was on show on the biggest stage, which is great.
There seemed to be a reluctance on the part of the Bulldogs to kick down the line particularly in the first quarter. Did you anticipate that might be a strategy on their part or just have to adjust accordingly?
Yeah, that’s how they’ve played. They’ve been the number one team to score through the corridor. They do like to switch the ball. We understood that in terms of how they played and how we wanted to set up defensively. With a team like Western Bulldogs, you have to be ready for everything. They can play in multiple ways. That’s why they’re a good side. They execute the areas that we wanted to, it’s really strong.
How hard was it to plan given the interruptions during the week?
Yeah, it was different. Doing a team meeting on Zoom yesterday was a new experience. Wasn’t getting a lot of feedback from the boys, but must have gone OK. Yeah, look, it was different. One thing that’s been - we’ve been really working towards is just being ready for anything. No-one knows what the situation is you’re going to face and we want to be a team that’s just mature enough to handle anything that comes our way.
For us this week, we had no last training session. The guys were in isolation. They weren’t allowed out of their house for the last, you know, 24 hours. Yeah, it was different, but we do want to make that as an excuse. We wanted to make sure we prepared as best we could and come out and put on a performance that we’re really proud of. I think that just shows the maturity of the group at the moment.