VFL Senior Coach Damian Truslove praised his side’s selfless performance following the Blues’ impressive Round 7 win over the Casey Demons.

Here is what he had to say.

Thoughts on the outcome of the Casey game?

“It was so pleasing. I think we've been close for a couple of weeks now to have a good four-quarter performance, and [Saturday] was that.

“To win down at Casey, it's always tough. But what I was so pleased about was how selfless our boys were, and how they continued to buy into their role for the whole game.

“We looked dangerous early and I thought we had the game on our terms, but we just couldn't finish off centre forward. There was a couple of skill errors and a couple of poor decisions by foot.

“But I felt as though if we tidied that up going forward, we were going to be hard to beat - the boys got that right just before half time.”

Has scoring off half back been a real focus this year?

“Yeah, it has. Even through pre-season, we wanted to be more daring out of our back half, and the AFL squad and the VFL squad have worked really hard on ball movement, knowing when to go fast and knowing when we can slow it up. I thought we did that and got the balance right [against Casey].”

What pleased you most with the outcome?

“Our pressure, plus our ability to come forward and defend hard. That created turnovers, and then we scored on the back of it. I thought everyone bought into our defence and our pressure, it was very pleasing.”

Was pressure the motto pre-game?

“The whole club had a strong focus on defence this week: we felt as though we were in pretty good form, but if we get our contest and defence right, that would give us an opportunity when we go forward.

“There was a huge focus going into the game to put them under as much pressure as possible, and the boys did that well.”

Who stood out in a great team performance?

“There were several good performers. I just looked around the room, and I felt that everyone had their time: they performed really well.

“I thought Liam Reidy in the ruck really set the scene with getting us territory early, and he was outstanding all day. But on the back of that, there's probably eight or 10 other guys that were in our best.”

What’s the focus shift to now against the Dogs?

“We'll enjoy this win and then we'll move on Monday to the next game: we know how hard they are to beat.

“They're such a powerful list, VFL and AFL, and they beat us in a practice game. We're going to have to keep getting better to match them, but we look forward to the challenge.”

Bailey Walsh is a student at La Trobe University, undergoing his Bachelor of Media and Communications (Journalism and Marketing). He is currently undertaking an internship at the Carlton Football Club as part of its partnership with La Trobe University.