Crows midfielder Matt Crouch faced the media at West Lakes on Thursday...

On his 2019 goals...

I want to play finals footy again. 

I think after last year, it was obviously a disappointing year so I want to be back playing finals footy and hopefully make top four.

It's pretty tough (watching September from the sidelines). I think that's when you wanna be playing your footy for finals time. That's our aim this year. I think it hurt the boys last year the season we had. We're pretty pumped up to go there this year and play some good footy.

I think we are (still capable of challenging). I think our best footy's good enough. I'm confident that if we can get back to that footy that we played a few years ago we can.

On why the Club is a happier place in 2019...

Just training and the vibe is probably the main thing. Last year there's a lot of distractions with outside things, so we've put that behind us and I think we've stopped the team meeting before training. That's been a really big one. That can drain a few guys where you sit around before training then get out there. So I'm a big fan of that one.

It's an easy thing to say fun, but we're in a serious environment. So when you train you're still gotta be a bit serious. But it's probably when you can have the down time to chill out and probably put footy to the aside a little bit when you have the opportunity to do that.

On the impact of the new 6-6-6 rule being introduced...

It's obviously hard to say. We've trained it a little bit throughout the pre-season but until you've come up against the opposition you're not gonna really know, so I think, yeah, speed might help in there (the midfield) cause there's so much space but I think it's still gonna be a fair contest. You contest the ball it's virtually 4 v 4. So it'll be interesting to see.

On how brother Brad is progressing...

He's fully fit now. He'll play, I think, a couple practice matches he might even play our Under-23 game depending on how he's feeling. And then, hopefully plays both the JLTs as well.

We played the year before last a fair few games together. Just good to play with him again. Obviously it's not great when you miss a fair few games with injury and his confidence levels probably took a bit of a hit. But I think he's got that back through his preseason.

(Right now) he's pretty positive. He's a lot more positive than last year. He just wants to play and get fully fit and play footy, so that's where he's at.

On current injuries...

I think there's a few guys sort of coming back. Hughy Greenwood has done a fair bit of training now. Tals (Daniel Talia) has done a lot, and Browny (Luke Brown) as well. So I think they're around the mark to play, either both of them games or just one of them. I think they'll play some minutes at some stage.

(Brown) is just being modified. I seen him out there today, he ran a fair few laps. And I think he still should be right to play come Round One.

(Kyle Hartigan) trained fully today. He's going well. He's obviously had a bit of a few setbacks this pre-season, but he trained well today.

On changes to the program based on 2018 injuries...

A few modifications but nothing too drastic. We're backing the guys to get ourselves right. I think last year what probably put us on the back foot was coming back late and then trying to get a lot of training into us. Where this year we've had a bit more time and guys can train more consistently throughout the pre-season.

On the biggest lesson learned from 2018...

It's probably just to simplify things. And get back to the things we know we do well. I think we probably try to find that little edge that will try to win us a flag. But I think do the simple things well. That's probably the main lesson.