David Teague spoke to the media ahead of their clash with Geelong this Saturday. 

Here is what Teague covered in this morning's press conference:

09:37

Teague on Patrick Cripps:

He’ll get named and he should be right to play. He’s really confident that he’ll play. We’ve got a few boys that will only have light days today, he’ll be one of those but at this stage he’s planning on playing.

No structural damage at all, it’s just bruising and being able to handle that. There was a little  bit of swelling earlier in the week but its dropped really quickly and I was just sitting in there looking at some stoppages with him and he’s really confident.

You want your best players out there but if he wasn’t available then the next guy would step up and we’re comfortable with that. We’ve played without him before and won. We love having him out there, he’s a great leader, even on the weekend at three-quarter time he grabbed the boys in and had a chat to them. He’s been a great leader for a long time and we look forward to him continuing doing that.

Teague on Charlie Curnow:

He’s getting close. It won’t be this week, but it will be in the next couple of weeks. He’s training well, I know he would probably put his hand up for this week if he could, but we’ll stick to the plan. Probably not this week but in the coming weeks after that.

We’ll go on form once he’s playing. I don’t think so watching him train, he’s been awesome on the training track. I think he’ll blow up a little bit, there’s training and then there’s actually doing it for 20 minutes straight in games for each quarter. But once his form is right, we’ll back him in, we’ll get him back out there but it will come down to a form selection once he’s declared fit. I think his first games will probably be limited minutes, but once he’s available for full games then it will be on form.

If you know Charlie you know he’s always up and about, even when things aren’t going well he seems to find a way. He’s a beautiful person when it comes to that, he’s a carer, lover and he loves people so he’s up and about. I’ve got no doubt he’ll be a little bit anxious once he gets that final chance to play but if you’re watching him train, he’s pushing it, he wants to bring it forward every week, he wants to start playing now. He’s been great, I think what he has done is grown his leadership during this period where he’s been able to sit back, take the emotion of the game out and then help his mates and that’s something I think we’ll hopefully get the benefit of when he’s back out there. 

Teague on Geelong opposition analysis:

I thought the Bombers were really good early, I thought Geelong were very strong in the contest and they sort of control the ball out their back half and move it forward. But then the week before we looked at some of the Brisbane game. So good learnings from both those games, at the end of the day we’ve got to play our way and we played well against them last year down at Kardinia Park, so we’ll look at some of the learnings we got out of that game, but importantly we need to play our best footy and the areas we can control and get it into our forwards and give them a chance as much as we can and pin them down as much as we can in our half and that’s our style.

Teague on midfield mix:

Our mids at the moment, we’ve probably got a couple more going through there with Kennedy and Dow coming into the side, so they all need to be able to play half forward, a little bit on the wing and mainly through the midfield. Sam will mainly play midfield, but he will spend little bits of time in those positions as well along with Ed Curnow, Kennedy and Dow as well. We’ve got a few options now which is great, they’re sharing the load and that’s what I love. In the past we’ve probably relied on one or two, but at the moment they’re starting to share the load a little bit more and that’s when we’re at our best.