On the winning performance

The Eagles made us fight for it. I was pretty impressed with their pressure, their will and their commitment. I was grateful for the boys to really dig in, especially when we were down in that third quarter on the scoreboard. Another grinding, close game and really proud of the boys' efforts.

Almost our whole draft hand from two years ago played today, Lachie Jaques is the only one who didn’t so we've got boys who are trying to find their way. They're not all having outstanding performances. Hynesy's been good in recent times and Lukey Kennedy and Josh Dolan and Sam Davidson and these boys, they're getting some great exposure.

Today we tried to spread the load through that midfield more. We had some responsibilities that hadn't been given out historically. We can't keep going as we have been and expect that we're going to challenge at the end of the year. We need evolution, we need change. Did we get it today? Not necessarily. We did save some of Libba's juice in the first half I'd say. Cody and Westy went through that midfield more, in particular Westy's centre bounce stuff was quite good and we had others up around the ball at different times.

So we're searching for a blend that's going to help us win more games at the back end than we probably feel like we could if we stayed the same. So that's an important thing. Everyone's expecting us to win just by a huge margin, well they're not looking at our outputs, they're just looking at our win-loss because we want to improve in a lot of areas and the spirit mostly and what they're doing together is winning us games.

As coaches I think we're really proud of the boys for that but there's still a significant way to go and another huge challenge coming up against the Suns.

On the contribution from the team's leaders

They were critical goals and he's done that from time to time hasn't he? I thought our player leaders - our captain and our vice-captains in Naughts and Richo were exemplary in their performances and they had a real say in the end on the outcome.

(Naughty) just fought hard all game. It didn't always drop his way and he stayed on a bit longer than we'd like at different times. But he was really influential in the end. If it was Marcus in that third quarter it was Naughts late and they were beacons for their teammates. So he should sleep well tonight knowing the influence he had on the game.

On the ruck battle

Really rapt with Lobby's commitment to it. I thought Bailey Williams was pretty good. Lobby had his moments and we got what we needed from (him), we really did. And I thought Matt Kennedy's pinch-hits around the ground were important for us and Crofty competed okay at centre bounce. So in the scheme of things I'm content that worked out okay.

Lobby against Melbourne … he went up against Max Gawn in that role and did what he could so he's been a great team man for us.

On ladder position

They all are (big games). As you can tell there's a bit of a logjam but our percentage is … like we're a game less isn't it when you consider our score differential so that's something that you don't write off. You'd love a big margin to even it up a bit but that's our lot. We've got to keep winning to give ourselves a sniff. And we haven't beaten the Suns for a while so we go up there with intent.

On injuries

Bailey Dale's got a bit of a shoulder knock but he hopefully should be okay. Other than that I think we came out of the game pretty healthy. Some other clubs have obviously been… there's been a little bit of carnage here and there so we're probably on the luckier end coming out of the weekend I think.

Hopefully (Tim English) will be available for selection (next week). We'll work through that during the week and you'd think that he should be a chance. He hasn't got a chronic back problem but it's something that … when you have something like that it's just debilitating, it's not a position you can play too well if you've got something wrong with your back so hopefully we can get him through the training load and present up north. We'll see what happens.