AFL SENIOR Coach Michael Voss speaks on the Round 1 win against Richmond.

On how the game played out:

“We were hanging on, and doing it for most of the second half. Richmond kept pressing, they owned territory on the field. You get criticised for last week not being able to put together a third quarter, you go away and you reflect on that and it’s clearly something we’ve got to get better at.

“What I did ask our boys to do was to fight. When teams surge, your ability to be able to hold - it went longer than I would’ve liked, but there was some reinforcement there.

“When you’re looking at -16 inside 50s, when you’re looking at 17 forward of centres for us, we couldn’t keep the ball in our front half. We had 30 back-of-centre turnovers, they were able to live in our half and it meant we had our backs to the wall. All we could do was fight. You’ve got to begin somewhere, so that’s where we begin.”

On his summation of the second half:

“We’ll quantify it later and go back over it. Clearly, we don’t execute for long enough: that’s what it comes down to. Our mode over the last couple of weeks, you’ve seen a definite style of play. You’re watching a definite style of play, you can see that.

“But our ability to be able to keep doing that for a longer period is something that has questions being asked of us right now. When we needed to shift modes, we did and when we needed to hold, we did. That’s something to celebrate.”

On the discussion around contested versus uncontested possessions:

“If you look at the contested number, we were -15 or so in the third quarter and we were +6 in the last quarter - but we were still up against it. I think that’s a shift in the right direction and why it gave us a chance to win.

“We were losing way too many contests, LDLs [long down the lines] we were losing, stoppages we were losing and we couldn’t win field position. When we did, it came out too quick. There’s a few things to go away with.

“When we talk about expectations and getting wins, we’re going to celebrate them. We’ll acknowledge it and get the four points, and now we’ve got two weeks before our next game.”

On the similarities between third quarters in Opening Round and Round 1:

“Field dominance was, we were losing inside 50s and there were a lot of goals kicked [last week]. We take stock, but I don’t want to take away that we were able to win.

“Rivalries are hard, it doesn’t matter where you are. These games - whether it’s Collingwood, Richmond - they’re hard-fought wins. It’s Round 1. The competition hasn’t settled. To be able to get these wins will be important in the bigger scope of the season.

“Tonight was a little bit about our Club. We’ve been targeted throughout the whole week, both inside and out, and we get away with the win. I’m pleased our supporters walk away with a win and a smile on their face and have their scarves around their neck. We want to keep bringing that and hopefully there are more opportunities to be able to do that.”

On whether he’s ‘pleased’ or ‘relieved’:

“I’m pleased, I’m not sitting in the relief basket. When there’s four minutes to go and you’ve got no control over what happens next, that’s always the difficult part. It’s over to the players, we ask them to execute.

“You can judge for yourself whether that was a free kick late or not, I’ll let you go to work on that. In terms of being able to activate what we needed to late in the game, we activated pretty well and able to get the win.”

On comparisons to last year’s Round 1:

“I can’t stress enough that the old is the old and the new is the news. It’s 12 months ago about what happened last year, keep having the conversation - but don’t have it in here with me. It’s all about now and moving forward.

“That’s what we’ll continue to reference. We’ll treat this game as this game, and take the lessons out of this game to help us get better - both from a game style point of view and being able to take our moments when we have them.”

On Jagga Smith’s performance:

“Looking at the guy on the other side [Sam Lalor] was pretty impressive as well, they’re going be two very good players for their respective teams. We’re a huge fan of Jagga. To think he’s still got things he’s got to work on in his game and as he gets intensity in AFL football, he’s going to be some sort of player for us.

“We’re really pleased. Even with Harry [Dean] as well, we’re almost asking him to play beyond his years as a key position player. He keeps showing up and he’s got that Dean competitive gene. He’s such a great-mannered person and a real competitor. Having those two guys in our team is going to help us moving forward, no doubt.”

On switching Mitch McGovern and Zac Williams late:

“We talked a little bit pre-game as coaches about trying to find that opportunity when we do that. We felt like late in the game with the ball going in long and high, having ‘Gov’ back would help us a bit while finding that little bit of spark from Zac which he does.

“He took the mark and kicked the goal, what a clutch goal he kicked. It turned out well: they don’t always turn out the way you want, but on this occasion he was able to take the mark and kick the goal. It suited both ends at that particular time.”

On not listening to the outside noise:

“What we want to create is moments inside the four walls. We want to continue to celebrate our people and all those moments. We want to bring everyone on the journey with us, we’re a really fortunate club that we energise stadiums, we’ve got a really passionate supporter base, we want to play for them. We look forward to every time we come out and play that we get the opportunity to play in front of our supporters.

“I feel like this one was for our Club, I really do. It was hard-fought. It wasn’t exactly the way we wanted it, there was no bow on it. We had to work for it, and we got it. I’m pleased for our Club that we were able to do it.”

On moving forward:

“I can’t stress enough that we spend a lot of time within our group ensuring that we value what is happening on the inside. We see what’s happening on the inside, we’ve seen the shift in that energy. This meant a lot to our players to get the job done.

“But we’re not looking at it through rose-coloured glasses either. There’s some realness in where we are, we accept we’re not the finished product, we have work to do.

“What we won’t do is not celebrate when we need to. You work very hard for those moments to sing the song, to have those moments in the locker room together and doing something like that together. We will celebrate it, and we won’t be taking our eyes off that - no matter what anyone says.”