Ahead of a Thursday night clash at the MCG, senior coach Dean Cox appeared in a press conference at Captain's Run. He discussed the team's injury list, game style and facing Hawthorn under lights.
On the challenge of two star midfielders out
"I think most teams at some stage will deal with some setbacks that they have through injury or personnel, and we're no different this week. But having said that, we're a lot different team than what we were last year... but if you talk about Logan, Joel, Paps, Callum, a lot of these players didn't play a lot of footy last year. So, yeah, we're confident with the players that come in."
On personnel
"We'll do some different things with some personnel that we put through there. We get a chance for a couple of younger players, Caiden Cleary and Corey Warner and the like to come into the footy team because they've been in really good form through the summer and had a great pre-season. So, yeah, it's just try and cope with players wherever we need them and they understand their role to do that."
On the change to the game style
"I think the way we attack was always something that we tried towards the back end of last year. Sort of said to the players once we couldn't make finals, you never waste an opportunity and the opportunity was to try some different things and, you know, we've done that at times throughout the game. The thing I've been most pleased about is the way we've defended the ground.
I think a lot of people will look at the attack that our players have been on but, you know, to restrict sides moving the ball we've been really good at and we're going to have to step up again tomorrow night."
On the Hawthorn's game against Essendon
"I think what they do off turnover is exceptional. I think they've shown that for a long period of time. It's about, obviously, their contested possession post-clearance which means they get over an outnumber and support as much as they possibly can for that turnover game and they've been really strong in that for a long time.
So, it's an area we've improved at but, you know, we're under no illusion that this is a prelim final team on their home deck that are an outstanding football team. So, yeah, we need to rise again."
On the difference between the SCG and MCG
"the players will have a look at it today. Most of the guys have played a bit of footy here. We need to make sure that we can control the ground as well as we possibly can and what Hawthorn do with the way they move their ball we've spoken about throughout the week. So, yeah, the dimensions change. The approach won't though."
