As it happened: Collingwood Magpies defeat West Coast Eagles by one point in a classic elimination final

Q: End of the season, it is inevitable that some questions will be asked about some players for the following season. There's a couple that may be there are decisions to be made about or contracts to be offered for your former captain Shannon Hurn and obviously Josh Kennedy, who's been such a warrior for the club.
A: Yeah, well, I think we would have lost by 10 goals if they hadn't played tonight. We will work through those two boys. They don't look like they're dropping off too much. That's in weeks to come.

Q: Adam, two weeks quarantine now, that's a real double whammy.
A: We quarantine no matter what. Unfortunately, you know, we feel for our four emergencies who now have to go back into two weeks quarantine, but look, you know, if we had won, we would have kept moving forward. Only ourselves to blame.

Q: When you analyse the season, and we know how much an assistance finishing in the top four is, that early part away, the first trip away, when you just took a little while to get things going on the road.
A: Yeah, look, I think after round five, other than tonight, we lost two games, one to the Bulldogs by a couple of points. Percentage took a hit in the first three weeks when we travelled. We got beat by Port and Brisbane and obviously Gold Coast. Yeah, look, when you reflect on a year that's only 17 weeks old and you lose top-four position by percentage, the little ones count. Even more so. Bit like moments tonight. Little moments counted and we didn't make the most of them.

Q: The learnings continue for Tim Kelly, obviously and Levi Greenwood played really well on him tonight.
A: Yeah, I thought Tim worked pretty hard to try and get through that. You know, he's a good player. It's not the first time he has been tagged. Levi is a very disciplined honest player as well. We need other players to step up when one player is down unfortunately. I thought there was too many moments.

Q: They dominated early, West Coast, the start of the last quarter with Brodie Grundy off. But you held your nerve and obviously in the end it paid off.
A: Yeah, look, I think both the guys, yeah, they shared their role, two of the 22 we felt contributed pretty well.

Q: Let's talk about some of the heroes at the end. The [Brody] Mihocek snap, that's about as good a goal as you can kick in a precious moment.
A: Yes, and Jordy's [De Goey's] as well. They were low percentage goals, but we were able to finish and took advantage of that. We felt like we moved the ball pretty well for the majority of the night. We felt we got really good contest in front of the ball. That was an important part of getting the game on our terms.

Q: You almost had a score there to make it a two-point ball game. The ball bounced on the line and then came back. I'm not sure if you were thinking this is the 2018 grand final all over again up the wing, but it was a big moment for both teams. Fortunately this time for Collingwood you had players in the road.
A: I know you're a West Australian, so you can keep bringing that up if you like, but, you know, we're in 2020 now. You know, we did enough to win the game. Obviously it was a very tight margin in the end. There's still things there we can do better. That's the coach coming out of me now. Look, we'll enjoy this and, you know, I think you've got to enjoy your wins. We will do that, but we've got our sights set ongoing further.

Q: So how do you enjoy this tonight? You go back to Joondalup where you've been based. From all reports, pretty comfortable there. As comfortable as you can be away from home.
A: Comfortable, that's good. Everyone else was affronted. We enjoyed it, will go back, have a shower, try and get a bit cleaner than we are at the moment, then jump on the plane and head back.

Q: Just on 'clean', I wanted to ask about that headline in the West Australian during the week, the 'Dirty Pies' headline. It referred to the quarantine situation of the game. Was there any upset from the Magpies' point of view with that?
A: No. As I said, we focused on the things we can and got most of those - we got them right for the most part. You know, we're looking forward to next week, mate.

Q: Just on the season, obviously there's still more of the season to come for the Magpies now, but it's been an extraordinary effort. Not just from Collingwood, from everyone in the competition and, indeed, the leaders of the competition. It has been quite something, hasn't it, to get everyone to this point?
A: Yeah, it has. I think it shows a lot of resilience. And everyone's been doing it tough in some shape or form, right around the world, really, and right through Australia, Victorians in particular with the lockdown they've endured over the most part of the last three, four months. We feel like we've been very fortunate to continue working. We've lost some of our staff already and we're going to have to make some hard decisions even further going forward. We really feel that. It's a shout-out to all
our staff, whether you are back in Victoria or the Sunshine Coast at the moment, but we wanted to finish this season whole and we still intend to do that together, whether it's in body or in spirit.