Senior coach Luke Beveridge addressed the media following Saturday night’s loss to Gold Coast. Here are the key talking points.

On the result:

“I’m proud of the fightback absolutely. I think it’s really commendable – we had to fight back a few times.

“Credit to Gold Coast, I thought their pressure and physicality in the contest was first class so fighting through that all night was (a challenge).

“The turnover stuff was pretty extreme. I think we gave them over 70 points from a possession gains perspective; some of that you can absolutely give the Suns credit for, but some was just us not quite being good enough in the execution of our skill at different times. That’s a lot of score from turnover.

“We had chances here and there, trying to make things up, but they just kicked too straight at times so we couldn’t bridge the gap.

“To be 28 points down in that last quarter – under the circumstances, the conditions and I didn’t think we were playing well – to keep grinding and give ourselves a look at it, is worth acknowledging.

“(The loss) is a bit frustrating because our form line and our trajectory has been heading in the right direction.

“To take the hit – it was a pretty important game. In that sense it’s probably one that got away, but we were beaten by a pretty good team tonight.

On James O’Donnell:

“I thought James O’Donnell was unbelievable. That was one of his best key defensive games I’ve seen for a fair while.

“He had played a fair bit of cricket when he came to us, so he’s done an amazing job when you consider his Category B (rookie) status.

“Within the space of two-and-a-half years, he’s become a really promising key position player. He can go forward and give you what you need.

“As you know we’ve had to explore different looks forward – that’s why Lobby went forward tonight. We weren’t taking any marks or at times they were intercepting too many plays.

“We could do that with James, but we trusted him to play on Ben King when Lobby went forward.

“He was solid tonight.”

On the Dogs’ centre clearance work:

“We’re a strong centre-bounce clearance scoring team. I thought it was probably half and half – they maybe scored too much from centre bounce, but as the game wore on, we managed a few more.

“As I said, it’s a credit to the boys for their perseverance and for fighting through the pressure layers and the physicality of the contest.

“I’m not sure what it looked like on the broadcast, but I imagine it would’ve looked pretty willing.

“There was a lot of collision sort of situations and a lot of heart in the game, and I don’t think either side gave any quarter – hence the evenness and closeness of the scoreboard.

“I think for the footy purists it was probably a great game, but unfortunately someone’s got to wear the ‘L’.”

On Laith Vandermeer’s injury:

“He copped a knock (to his calf) which we thought was a corky, but there might be more to it.

“We needed to take the conservative approach, so we’ll take a look this week. We’re hoping it’s nothing too serious.”