On the SCG surface

"One thing as a football club we've always tried to do is accommodate the best way we can, to make sure the surface is in as safe and as best nick as possible. By all reports, I haven't heard anything different [on the venue]. I'll prepare and the players will prepare for Sunday afternoon on the SCG."

On the Western Bulldogs game

"It was obviously a disappointing result. It wasn't a disappointing performance. I think one thing we need to make sure we know is when we play our best footy, it's good enough against any team in the competition. The Bulldogs are in very, very good form... So we've got to make sure that we can produce that on a consistent basis."

On improving contested ball

"The players and certainly Benny Matthews have done a heap of work around contested ball, around the stoppage stuff. Collectively across the group, we've wanted to improve our contested ball in all contested ball metrics and also all over the ground. I think previously we've been really poor ahead of the ball. We've evened that up now. So to our players' credits, that's what they've worked extremely hard on, focused on.

We need to, again, obviously the ascendancy that Fremantle can get through their midfield and have a very dangerous forward line. They play talls there, they've got dynamic smalls, so we've got to try and restrict that opportunity as much as possible."

On practicing set shots

"Yeah, that's obviously something to just continually speak about. [The players] come out and train it and try and just go through their routines. So they'll make sure their routines are down-pat, they don't deviate from that and put the time in and that's what they've done."

On Brodie Grundy's form

"He's been an unbelievable form. I think he's been a catalyst between us turning our form around and the ascendancy that he can give our midfield group. They have great confidence in him and he's going to have to be this weekend again.

"He's got two different ruckmen [from Fremantle] that can dominate him in different ways for the footy club. Like always, he'll do his homework on them, he'll spend time trying to come up with a plan about how to execute his role and I've got no doubt he'll do it again."

On Logan McDonald

"He's still a little bit away. He had a decent deload so we'll increase his training loads as they go. There's no specific round yet but it's not in the short term."

On Joel Amartey

"Joel, unfortunately, we couldn't take the risk late in the week. He trained fully, he's done everything he needs to do so he'll play Sunday, which is good."

On Robbie Fox

"He's progressing, which is good. I think as soon as they go into [concussion] protocols there's always timing between, are there still symptoms to restart the protocols. That's what we had to do with Robbie. He's progressing now, but like anything we'll be really cautious with that as well."

On replacing Dane Rampe this week

Obviously Tom has played a number of roles for us. So has Riley, so has Matt Roberts as well. The ability to be able to bring them in or to shuffle who we play where, they mix up their forward line and like I mentioned before, have some dangerous forwards and some really dynamic smalls."

On Tom McCartin

"Tommy's good. Unfortunately, I missed him last week. But yeah, he's fully trained and ready to go."