Senior coach Luke Beveridge addressed this week’s big talking points on Thursday morning at VU Whitten Oval.

Preparation for this week…
It’s brilliant that we’ve got ourselves in this position where we’re in control of our own destiny. Obviously, the focus is on winning the game, as it is every week.

Tim English…
Tim will play.

Finding form…
If we win this weekend, that’ll be eight of our last eleven, that’s a pretty good form line and something that I’m really proud of the boys for.
Our inside mid brigade has just been prolific. The three mainstays in there in Marcus (Bontempelli), Jack Macrae and Josh Dunkley, the improvement out of all three of those players as well as the support acts in Pat Lipinski and Bailey Smith, it’s extremely encouraging.
This week’s extremely important in the scheme of the year, but now we feel like we have a foundation we can take forward and sustainability is an absolute focus.

Lewis Young…
He played extremely well and that’s a tough ask to take the phone call on the Sunday morning and be told that you’re definitely playing. He jumped on a plane pretty quickly and performed an absolutely critical role for us in a huge game. I thought he was outstanding.
He had a couple of moments in the first quarter where there were open plays and it was a welcome back to AFL footy, because he hasn’t played a lot this year.
After that, he settled extremely well. It’d be very tough to take him out of the side.

The Crows…
You just need to prepare for their best. They are a mature side. I don’t know what the weight profile would be, but I can imagine with their physical maturity they’d probably have a little bit of an advantage there. We’ll need to be nimble; we’ll need to be as dour and tenacious as we have been in the contest.
We’ll be well prepared.

Back to Mars…
It might be similar to when we played in Adelaide against Port Adelaide last time where it was a bit of a territory type game. Dealing with the wind is always an interesting one…when we played Brisbane there earlier in the year it was reasonably windy, I think it’s going to be a similar day, so we’ve had a rehearsal.
The ground is in great nick. It might be a little bit soft under foot, but we’ll be ready for it.