On the performance v Richmond:

"The pleasing things were the unselfishness in our front end, keeping a side to less than 40 inside 50s minimises their chances and I thought our backline held up really well and used the ball in a measured way, we haven't always done that this year.

"We left some out there. Thirteen players had a shot at goal and we would have liked to have converted a bit more accurately than what we did … that was a bit frustrating but overall the endeavour was there.

"I thought as a team, one of the things we've been doing well is defending as an 18 from their kick-ins and from some of the intercepts, and I think again we were pretty good at that, so that's a real positive. Over the last month we're one of the better teams defensively, so that's encouraging."

On the offensive approach:

"In any team you've got to make sure that your focal points aren't isolated, you need more than just one or two. We've always tried to foster that in our teams, so Aaron and Lobby have been down there as those bigger forwards and then when you get pinch-hits from the other talls like Crofty and even Marcus drifted forward and took a couple of nice marks, that's important.

"I thought Naughts was really unselfish and Westy gave a couple away. It's critical we get goals from our mids as well as our forwards. Thirteen players having shots at goals, that's what we'd like most weeks if we can.

"Naughty is definitely a concentration point for (the opposition), they're going to put their best defender on him so he'll get up the ground and create space. It's important we create from those situations and we didn't as well as we'd like (tonight) but he does create vacuum behind him and that gives others opportunities.

"We're always trying to score and that's the first time we got to a hundred in over a month I think. What we haven't been able to do is win the inside-50 battle often enough and score from turnover. We've recently become tighter - we're not giving up scores from our defensive 50 stoppages but we're still defending a lot, too many but not as many tonight.

"Last week was the first time we probably played a forward half game to win in that we kicked nine goals, 7.5 from turnover and two goals from forward 50 stoppages in a game where all the statistics were in the Gold Coast Suns' favour, so there's real efficiencies in what we're doing, (and also) defensively. Our coaches are doing an outstanding job and our players are responding. But I keep bringing it back to our growth opportunity and that's on the scoreboard for us. We have a desire to score more than we are (doing) so it's not through lack of trying."

On the half-back roles:

"Lachy Bramble was really pivotal in the first half, he was a good barrier and he used the ball pretty well and was composed. Truck was solid, he probably didn't use the ball as well as he's capable of but it's important that he's filled those boots for us in recent times.

"We sent a couple of the other young boys, Sando had a run there and Josh Dolan at the end and Doles finished the game off pretty well as a half-back. We've needed to spread the load a bit but we've also needed to look at who might be able to do it in-game if we get an injury, so we did make a few changes as the night went on and that was encouraging."

On the season to date:

"We've been buoyed by the fact that we've really been able to nail the close games and win some tough battles against good opposition.

"When you think about the equity in the draw, who we've played and the games that we've won... We finished ninth last year and we didn't get any double-ups against the bottom four so it's not something that you worry about or you focus on.

"At the moment with our ladder position we're coming up against some teams who are below us more than above us, so there's some chances as far as that goes. We've fought the good fight. We dropped four through a pretty challenging period with injury."

On the percentage gap with other teams:

"I'll never talk to the players about boosting percentage. When you think about what we left out there it would have been a good chance for it to rise a bit more.

"It's really taken a back seat, it's just more about doing our best to win every game, regardless of the margin."

On the growth in players:

"James O'Donnell having an outstanding year, Jedd Busslinger improving all the time, Michael Sellwood's having a really tremendous first AFL year, Buku's having a pretty solid year, Nick Coffield's come on and Lachie Bramble the way he played tonight. So with Bailey Dale and Connor Budarick not being available, we've needed that (backline) to be really secure.

"And our next group of influential players like Ryley Sanders, Joel Freijah, Cooper Hynes, Josh Dolan, Arty Jones, Jordan Croft, there's some real promise there and I think there's more improvement to come out of those young fellas. She's a long season … to have four more rounds (to play) we've got to keep the energy high. There's a lot to play for."

On looking ahead to Fremantle:

"No inhibitions. We go over there and take a real pot shot at the stumps and do our best to bring our highest end game against the top side. We had a good battle with them out here last time we played and they got us in the end so we'll go over there with a real determination to hopefully play our best and rock the boat a bit. They've been really impressive, they were again against the Eagles and so we know we'll have our work cut out."