Round 20 Coach’s Comments

With Thanks to Audi Centre Doncaster, Chris Newman caught up with Box Hill Hawks media post-match.

Q:  We’re joined post-match by senior coach Chris Newman, than you very much for your time. It was a big day today – Casey were unbeaten in twelve, top of the table – what was the approach going into it.

Chris Newman: yeah, it was a big day. Their strength is their ability to hunt and outnumber, their work ethic and their ability to fight out games and find a way to win is something were quite envious of.

They’re a great team and they play a great system under Jade (Rawlings); they were undermanned today, we know that, but they’ve got some real quality to come back into the team which will only enhance their chances next week and going into finals.

I was really proud of the way we were able to match them inside with out physicality and give our forwards a decent look at it – I thought our forwards competed really hard today in the air and at ground level.

Q: You mentioned the hunt. The will and intent from our boys today was outstanding, what did the coaches’ box make of that?

CN: I think that was the key to being in the match. We not only had to match them in that area, but we thought we had to go to that next level to win the ball and provide some numbers in support. I thought we were pretty good there, but we were a little scratchy early with our outside work and ability to move the football.

It probably wouldn’t have been the greatest spectacle to watch, I think, probably across the entire day, but particularly in that first quarter, but I thought we adjusted quite well, managed to hit the scoreboard and take a marginal lead into half time.

Q: You spoke about adjustments, one of the biggest adjustments would’ve been when ‘Kiwi’ (Kurt Heatherley) went down with a hamstring, how did the box react to that and what decisions were made to reset?

CN: Yeah, we were all quite flat when it happened. Obviously Kurt is a pretty important player for us. He’s a competitive beast, does everything he possibly can around the club to get himself into the best condition he can be in, he’s had a pretty good year to date, too. We’ll miss him and we don’t know what the outcome of his injury will be, hopefully its not too bad.

But having said that we had to get on with the game and try and see what match-ups fitted best with us. They weren’t overly tall with (Sam) Weideman going up, and they threw Hutchins forward late in the game which stretched us a little bit.

Our 23rd man today, Sam Parsons, was really good at being able to negate those talls from having an influence. And CJ (Changkuoth JIath) and Liam Mackie’s efforts down back were terrific too; I’ve only named a few, but they were all quite strong in our back half.

Q: the third term was outstanding – seven goals to three – but how important was it to play the game out and win the last quarter?

CN: Really important. We want to pride ourselves on playing four quarters of footy, obviously, and we knew the system that was working throughout the day so we had to try and do the same in that last quarter, but thats always a challenge against such a good side.

They took a few risks in that last quarter to get back into the game, which created a few turnover opportunities for us – they had to roll the dice a bit and we were able to capitalise on that.

I thought it was scrappy early on but our ability to kick a winning score was terrific.

Q: And lastly, what should the team take out of such an important win, what confidence should the team take out of todays result?

CN: we always take little bits and pieces out of every win, as we do with losses. We’ve certainly got some room for improvement – we’re not saying that we had it all on our terms today – so  there’s some improvement in us, which is exciting.

We’ll dissect the game and see where we can get better, but also recognise what worked for us today. The hard part is trying to sustain that and train it during the week.

We’ve got another huge challenge here next week against Geelong, who have been in just as good form as Casey, so they’ll be another test for us.