Melbourne notched up their 11th win of the season after defeating the Brisbane Lions by 22 points.
In a game of two halves, see what Simon Goodwin, Tom McDonald, Jake Lever and Michael Hibberd had to say following the win.
SEN - Simon Goodwin
The message to the playing group at half time
“As a group of coaches, we sit there and look at the game at half time and there isn’t one area of the game that is going well for us.
“When we broke it down, it was really about trying to change the players’ mindset, along with making a couple of little structural changes, but really just honing in on getting the game in our half of the ground and that was the key message.
“We put the heat on a few of our leaders to really step up in that space and I thought they responded extremely well.”
Triple M – Michael Hibberd
The belief of the playing group
“It started from the beginning of the year, when we figured out we were able to stick with teams that were challenging us for periods of time and we started to run over teams for a good month.
“From that, you gain a lot of belief and trust in the system we are playing, and I guess that’s probably where it stems from. Now we actually know that we can do it week in week out and it has been pretty powerful for us.”
Fox Footy – Clayton Oliver
The focus of selflessness and the buy in from the team
“Goody and I had a good chat in the off season about being a better teammate.
“I go out there and try to be the best teammate I can be and everyone in the team strives to do that. So you just be the best team mate you can be and you will probably get rewarded for it and the team gets rewarded for it, and we find success off the back of that.”
Sunday Footy Show – Tom McDonald
What has clicked from a team defence point of view
“We haven’t changed the principles too much. We were a little conservative over the last couple of years in comparison to 2018, where it was all or nothing and be aggressive at every single opportunity.
“Now it’s more about keeping Jake Lever and Steven May behind the ball and not rushing up to a contest that they don’t need to be at. The whole team buy in.
“For us forwards, it’s as soon as the ball gets kicked up the line, we have to just sprint that 50 – 60 meters to get back up and help clog up the field, where in the past we might have been inconsistent with doing that.”
