Q: Tell us about that, what a performance, I guess especially talking about the losing streak at the MCG to break it at the biggest time of the year, how does it feel?
Very important, we chose a good day to do these things. Good teams play at the MCG, it’s not easy to win here, we haven’t played here that often. We’ve had three tries in the last nine or 10 weeks probably helped us. ..I thought we were in a bit of trouble early on, Melbourne were all over it. Probably a little lucky they didn’t get put straight. We got going, we were in the game at half-time and gave our group some confidence. Melbourne’s second halves this year haven’t always been the best, so we were aware of that, so we gave ourselves a chance at half-time and had a brilliant second half. The Thing: Probably the highlight was the pressure of the game and Cam Rayner’s late-game scrum typified the effort and mindset of the players. It was a remarkable turnaround from two or three weeks ago, whenever they beat us by 10 goals. It just goes to show that sports are great, doesn’t it?
Q: I want to ask you about the surge and the pressure, in the beginning Melbourne had a lot of space. You were very lucky they didn’t risk it. The transformation in the levels of desperation, is a moment, you expect them to be desperate anyway. What was happening there, you think, how can you get two very different…
It’s hard to tell, obviously Melbourne threw everything at us early to try and get us off our game, which is a hallmark of the way they play against us to be honest. Sitting around a hotel all day waiting for a game. As a road team you are always a little more vulnerable in the first quarters. We settled down after that. I would love to be able to give you the answer to be able to give you the answer to why, I can’t say I know…
Q: What did you do differently in the games against Melbourne, how did you change your mindset in this game?
We learned a lot this year. We probably got a little too hung up on the verbal stuff in the previous games. That took the focus off us and before the Richmond game last week we talked really well about our mentality going into the final, not letting all that peripheral stuff interrupt our processes and I thought we could do well in last week against Richmond and then we’ll get a chance to test it against the team that blew us away, the team that shocked us the most this year. We got up well, went after the football, kept pressing them, kept our minds in the game, [we] We did not lose heart and faith when we were under the bomb. All the things you need in the finals, it’s about moments and hanging in there sometimes and we did that tonight and got rewarded.