Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin reviews his team’s 41-point win over the Crows at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
On their third quarter turnaround…
“Our coaching staff were outstanding. We made some moves with the ruck and also around the midfield area, and they seemed to get momentum. I thought our tackling pressure as a team just went through the roof and we willed our way back into the game by half-time.
“We had a lot of faith in our defenders. I thought Oscar McDonald and Sam Frost did a great job for us. We made a few little changes, but collectively as a team, when the challenge was laid down to them they responded. That’s happened throughout the year for us.”
On tagging Rory Sloane…
“We’ve got an enormous amount of respect for Rory Sloane. I think he’s a terrific player. Bernie (Vince), in his 200th, we thought it was a really good matchup to try and tag Rory.
“It wasn’t just to put Rory off. We gave Bernie the job, but ultimately as a team we wanted a role completed. Bernie played his part of that and the rest of the team did as well. We know he’s a really important player for them.”
On the ruck battle…
“We thought that Cam Pederson was giving us a little bit more around the ground. So, our ability to send Tom McDonald forward and play Pederson and (Jack) Watts in the ruck, it probably worked both ways. Helped us in the ruck and with Tom forward, gave us a really good target inside 50. We changed a few things up and our coaching staff were really proactive. When you get 24-points down, you need to start finding a way to get back into the game.”
On stemming the Crows' run…
“Defensively, we had to be really sound. The Crows are a high scoring team and I thought that when we got the ball in our forward 50, our pressure from our forwards and the ability for our defenders to get the ground set up the way we wanted… we had to defend extremely well. I think they ended up kicking nine goals for the game, so that was a terrific performance defensively for the team.”
