ON HOW THE GAME PLAYED OUT

There was a fair bit of green (in the Bulldogs' favour) on the stat sheet, but we know Collingwood just keep coming and it was a pretty ballistic game in the end.

The heart's settled down but when there's any lead changes late in the game and you're torn between where your numbers should be, it's difficult to get your calculations right.

Some of those late centre clearances were crucial. And obviously (Aaron Naughton) and (Arty Jones) were pretty clutch at the end there, just being able to put us back in front twice.

You never felt comfortable, and ultimately both teams made mistakes, but we probably left a few out there to give ourselves a bit more of a margin early in the game and Collingwood normally make you pay.

So a bit relieved obviously, but as I just said to the players, if we hadn't have won I would have been enormously proud of what they did tonight.

We've seen the improvement come out of all of them, lads who haven't played a lot of AFL football, and we always knew that we were going to need it to even get to here.

So it's really encouraging for us. And now it's important that we don't get too carried away. I think they're all in a little state of disrepair to a degree, because they left it all out there. But we'll freshen up.

Obviously, we lose Matty Kennedy for the next one. He'll go into (concussion) protocols, I think. But at the moment, I feel like everyone else has got through in reasonable health.

I mean look, we won a wildcard game, so we can't get too carried away. It's such a great night, and now we've got a bit of wind in our sails to think about the next one.

ON THE FRONT HALF GAME

It hasn't been the hallmark of our game, the front-half pressure game, and we knew coming here tonight, if we didn't match Collingwood's pressure game… I said before the game in the differential of pressure and being pressured and ball security they're number one. And we're equal 17th with Richmond.

So it's been an area that, all year, we've (had) players acclimatising to the level in different configurations and trying to work through it tactically, where we've needed growth in the pressure game, and we did see some quite critical tackles and boys keeping the ball in our forward line at least to get some forward 50 stoppages.

It's important, and we just need to keep improving on it. But, yeah, the stoppage situation was reasonably secure, but gee they can shoot out of their half-back line, can't they? They can really put you under pressure in the offensive paddock.

ON CLOSING OUT THE GAME

I don't think we played the last minute and a half, two minutes too well. We had a held ball that we kicked to the centre square. We didn't need to kick a point near the end there.

We just needed to cool our jets a fraction when we got the ball in our hands. So we gave them another look at it and then we weren't able to defend the aerials in the last quarter.

They were quite strong, weren't they? They really came to life their bigger fellas inside their 50.

So, as much as we won the game, I don't think we executed it too well other than centre bounce. There was a really good bit of play with... Lachie Bramble running off the back of the square, intercepting their ball, giving us a clearance. It was quite telling, providing that layer.

But there'll be a bit to learn again. And yeah we just couldn't ice the clock, and it's partly to do with the risk-taking of the Collingwood football club, and we just didn't manage it too well.

In the front half, we kicked it back to them when we didn't need to. One of the things we did really well the week before against Melbourne was use our shorts and our diagonals. We straight lined a few (tonight) and brought a few of their interceptors into the game in that period of time. So I didn't feel like we were on top of that part of our game.

ON THE LAST KICK

I was on the bench at the time, and the only indication that it wasn't (a goal) was just the celebration of our players near the goal line. I thought it was actually through. 

I was watching (Tim Membrey's) body language and him trying to steer it back. So yeah, it's always nice to get a little bit of luck.

Mind you, the clock had run out beforehand so technically, it should have been play on before the siren went. But it wasn't called. So that was an interesting thing at the end there. I don't know what happened there, but it's a pretty obvious one to call play on, isn't it?

ON THE RUCK APPROACH

(Tim English has) missed a bit of footy. I thought he was really influential in the ruck. You could see that in the second half, the turnover game was frenetic. I thought (Ryan Gardner) came on and really gave us something.

And we were able to keep (Rory Lobb) forward for a bit, so he was providing more contests because Ryan was giving him a chop out in the ruck. So I think it worked out alright. I thought Darcy Cameron was pretty good at the end of the game though.

Tactically you can use a player like that, you can bring them on and off whenever you want, which is great. We don't do it very often. But because they've minimised the interchange to 75, and we're pretty deep in a year, a lot of games, you need to give players rest.

So your key playmakers need to come on and off a little bit more, which means you can save a few if you keep someone off the ground for a period of time and Ryan's such a great team player that he was always ready.

And it's probably the first time we've done it like that, in this game, but we thought he really helped us last week Gardy, and I thought he was exceptional when he went on and competed in the ruck for us and at one point took an intercept mark, so we'll work out what we do coming up to the next one. It might depend who we're up against. We've got a lot of run in the side so we don't necessarily need to play another runner.

ON ARTY JONES

Yeah, he was awesome, he really was. He was coming on and off at different times and he was okay with that.

He always had the ability and it's a bit of maturity. Early days he was working through what his game was going to look like, the pressures of the higher level is something that's difficult to contend with, with young guys. He was pretty light when he first got here, he's a heavier young man now, so he can handle the physicality.

But the other critical thing, he's got through injury-wise. He's just had a clean run at it. He was in and out of our main program so often in the early years, he had soft tissue injuries every sort of eight weeks.

He'd come back, he played two or three and because he hadn't established himself, he'd usually play reserves footy. So now he has continuity, he's worked really hard with our strength and conditioning and medical crew and he's been more durable, and that's given him a chance to produce the kind of form that we've seen.

ON YOUNGER PLAYERS' CONTRIBUTION

I think those small forwards, they were probably the main brigade a month ago that we just needed to see a bit more of a big role.

So between (Jones), Cody Weightman coming into a little bit of form, Rhylee West, the spark in his game now, and the kids in Luke Kennedy and Josh Dolan, bit of Sammy Davidson, bit of wing bit of forward, they've been critical.

I think the third-year boys in (Ryley Sanders) and Joel Freijah playing through those areas, Hynesy on the wing, their maturity (has) been expedited. It's a real credit to them and everyone, all our people who work with them.

All those younger guys need to contribute and hold their end up, but, you know, between (Ed Richards), (Marcus Bontempelli), Matty Kennedy and Joel Frazier, the core group who are holding up their end, they need the boys to be stable around them and chip in and be in the centre bounces.

I think Westy had a couple of big plays out of centre bounce, so we've got to spread that load, and share the commitment at the coalface. It's really important for us.

ON THEMES AND TOOTH 'N' NAIL

What happens when you get to a Finals Series is you can leverage your whole year, your own storyline. You can really hone in on the inspirational moments and people within your ranks and what motivates you, so that's a special thing for a coach to get to this point and it hasn't all gone to waste.

We've had some of the best storylines going and some enthusiasm towards them but we haven't made finals series here and there and you can't finish them off and you start again the following year.

This year, the 'Tooth 'N' Nail' side of it was a really important part of the start of our journey, what we wanted to stand for, what we wanted to see, who we wanted to be as a team. So the song has been important, but the lyrics to the song have been important for us as well.

Tonight (the theme) was an angle from way back when we started and who knows if it resonates or not? It might go in one ear and the other. But the way the boys are playing, there's a spirit. There's an emotional connection, and we're seeing, as I said last week, our scope to score a little bit more off a pretty solid defensive platform.

So there's encouragement for us and hopefully we can keep going.