Brad Scott talked with the media at Arden Street on Thursday. Below is the full transcript of the chat
Q: Brad, obviously a winless start to the year. How do you front up to your players throughout the week to instil the confidence that things are going to turn?
Scott: There’s a huge difference between some winless starts to the year and when you’re being blown off the park, not competitive and the players feel a sense of helplessness.
As a coach you’re trying to show them the way forward and the way out. But to be perfectly honest the players are really buoyant. When the losses do keep mounting up the morale is an important factor.
But I think the competitive nature of the way we’ve played and we felt that we’ve lost some close games, they shouldn’t have been close at all. We should have put the result far beyond doubt and we let the opposition come back.
Morale’s not an issue, but if the losses keep mounting up they will be. So we’ve got to do something about it.
Q: Have the leaders stood up in meetings this week to address exactly what you’re doing wrong in these close games?
Scott: Not any more than they would normally. They’ve been fantastic in terms of their leadership. Jack Ziebell’s doing an outstanding job and his leadership group are leading from the front not just with their performances, but the way they’re keeping the young guys up.
I’ve spoken to all of our players this week and I haven’t had to do anything out of the ordinary to try and keep their morale up.
Q: Further to that, have you done any extra situational training around those close losses?
Scott: We’ve had a lot of turnover of our list and so we’ve got a lot of different players in there learning what we would think is some pretty fundamental and simple things for the way we want to play.
Those things are just so easy to fix and so quick to fix, but they’re magnified because they’re the difference between winning and losing.
Q: What have you made of Gold Coast’s start to the year? Some big wins, and some big losses as well.
Scott: They’re a talented side and when they get the game on their terms they’re really effective. We’ve seen probably both sides of that where they’ve had the run of play going against them and when they’re able to get the momentum going their way they’re a pretty formidable force.
In a way, their results suggest they’re unpredictable but I think when you analyse a bit deeper they are pretty predictable in the way they play because they’ve got some serious talent around the ball.
Q: You haven’t played them (the Suns) since April last year. Does that make it a bit trickier?
Scott: It wouldn’t matter really if we played them Round 23 last year, both sides are very different.
As I said at the start, we turned over our list by 25 per cent. We’ve played 30 players already this year and there’s a chance we’ll play more this week.
The teams are just completely different.
Q: Interesting TV interview (Footy Classified) with you on Tuesday night. What have you made of the reaction to that?
Scott: Which reaction is that?
Q: David King thought it was a bit weird, last night he said – and there’s been other commentators – who thought it was quite openly honest.
Scott: So I’m getting criticised for being honest? (laughing)
Q: The comments that were about reviewing with the club at the end of the year moving forward, given you’re already contracted for next year, I guess was what David King was responding to.
Scott: Let me be unequivocal. My commitment to North Melbourne has never wavered. Ever. It’s not wavering now. What I clearly said is that I’ll always do what’s in the best interests of North Melbourne.
Like I do with players when you pick the team each week and you take part in list management, you do what’s best for the football club. That’s something we’re always analysing, and if you’re not doing that you probably should be.
Q: Can you understand why there might have been some confusion from fans given you said you would analyse it at the end of the year and review it?
Scott: What I said was that my commitment to North has never wavered and what we should do at the end of each year is analyse what’s best for the football club.
When you have coaches and players who put their personal interests ahead of the club then you’re going to be in trouble. What I’m clearly saying is that I’ll always put the football club’s interests first. While I think that I’m the best person to coach the football club, and they (the board) want me to coach the football club, that’s what will be happening.
Q: Do you think the reaction to your comments has been overblown then?
Scott: To be honest, I’m not avoiding your question, I just don’t know what reaction you’re talking about.
Q: Tom Lynch is obviously a massive task for probably Robbie Tarrant or your defensive six as a whole. Does Robbie get that job on him?
Scott: Certainly for fair parts of the game he’ll probably play on him, but we’ve got pretty flexible tall defenders. We’ll weigh that up and see how they structure up, but we’re pretty flexible in the way we’ll go about it from quarter to quarter.
Q: A couple of guys named as tests in your injury list from Tuesday, Shaun Higgins and Todd Goldstein. Where are they at?
Scott: I think Higgo will be right. He trained pretty well on Tuesday. The boys who played pulled up a little bit sore after the game, should be ok but again I don’t want to make any statements.
We’ll see how they pull up tomorrow but we’re optimistic.
Q: What about Braydon Preuss?
Scott: Preussy is available.
Q: On Ziebell and Brown, also listed as tests. Similar position with those?
Scott: They’re exactly the same, they’ll do a little bit today, probably not as much as the rest of the group.
We expect them to be available but we’ll wait and see how they pull up tomorrow.
Q: Five rounds into the year, is Andrew Swallow still in your best 22?
Scott: We know what Andrew is capable of at his best, he’s got to look to recapture his best form.
He’s a fierce competitor, former captain, a real hard nut and professional in the way he goes about it.
We’ll always support Andrew and work at getting him back to his best. We’ll just have to analyse the best 22 each week.
Q: How far away is Jarrad Waite?
Scott: Possibly a week. He wants to play this week but he’s not quite ready for that, although he’s training well.
He’s just not quite at the level we need him to be at right at the minute.
Majak Daw is the other one who won’t play this week. He’s been battling a little bit of a quad which he’s been able to play with but he can’t reproduce what we expect of him.
We’ll take him out this week and try and get him fully fit so that we can get him in the senior side as soon as possible.
