{"id":119357,"date":"2022-10-26T13:37:32","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T03:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/?p=119357"},"modified":"2022-10-26T13:37:33","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T03:37:33","slug":"coaches-corner-round-9-season-7-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2022\/10\/26\/coaches-corner-round-9-season-7-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Coaches\u2019 Corner: Round 9 Season 7 Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

IN a weekly series at Rookie Me Central<\/em>, we cast our eyes and ears around the league to gather thoughts from AFL Women\u2019s coaches, and see what they had to say post their respective matches on the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this week\u2019s edition we are heading to the northern Victorian town of Mildura to hear from Richmond coach Ryan Ferguson<\/em><\/strong> and GWS coach Cam Bernasconi<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victorious Ferguson spoke highly of the crowd in Mildura and of his team\u2019s performance to get over the line against GWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe day was fantastic,” Ferguson said. It\u2019s funny, even the pouring rain at one point couldn\u2019t dampen the spirits of the people that came out to watch us. I couldn\u2019t believe how many people in those conditions still came out, which I should be able to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They\u2019ve supported our team so well, but it was a nice, hard fought contest. Took a while to be able to break through, but we knew that was going to be the case and if we stuck at it long enough, we thought we had the quality to put the score on the board at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson spoke of how once his team broke open the game they certainly reaped the rewards from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe knew they were really strong in the contest and we\u2019d have to match them in that area and sometimes it takes a while before you get the breakthroughs, but just the ability to finds space and in a congested game take the moments to find space and get some shape and get it out to our wingers was really important today,” he said. That enabled us to get a few quality shots on goal, and even the finish, it was important to take your moments in a game like this, so to finish strong in front of goals was important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson also addressed the high tackling pressure that his team persisted with throughout the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI though our rucks, I don\u2019t know what the hit outs to advantage were or anything like that, but I thought Gab Seymour<\/a> supported by Woodsy (Jemima Woods<\/a>) were strong in the middle for us and at ground level as well, but I actually thought our tackle pressure right up to the final siren was a weapon for us, and to play out every moment, it\u2019s important to what we are, the brand of footy we\u2019re trying to create, so I love that we played out every moment until the final siren.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the vanquished Bernasconi was reflective about another big loss for his Giants side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah it was a tough day out at the office today\u201d Bernasconi said. I think just with the conditions being a bit wet, especially with some breeze, Richmond just adapted a lot faster than we did. We gave them a four goal head start and they had the breeze and took the most of the opportunities and then we had it in our front half and we had the breeze and just struggled to convert again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We\u2019ll get some really good learnings, but pretty disappointed coming out to Mildura and still only kicking a couple of goals, but it\u2019s one of these things that it\u2019s all about growth this year, and we\u2019ll review it and get a lot of learnings from it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did not explicitly say whether tackling pressure was a focus for his team heading into the game, but acknowledged it was always going to be a factor in the game considering the conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what happens when the game\u2019s scrappy,” Bernasconi said. When it\u2019s windy and wet, it turns into a lot of contests and who scraps the hardest for longer, and essentially they\u2019ve got some really good midfielders around the ball, and just a few stronger bodies and more mature aged players that could be a bit stronger over the ball and win their ground ball, but also tackle to hurt as well, and then hats off to the Tigers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think they\u2019re playing a brand of footy that\u2019s really good at the moment. They\u2019re strong inside, but they can move it from A to B really well. It\u2019s one of those things, we knew it would be a scrap and I thought we competed hard at times, but it\u2019s probably just a bit of the story for this group at the moment. We can do it for 50, 60 per cent of the game against the better sides, but we just fall away for the full four quarters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heading into their last game of the season next week against Gold Coast, Bernasconi is hoping for a strong finish to his side\u2019s season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to even today understand that we can\u2019t play finals but we still want to make sure we have a really strong foundation to finish the year off, and once again Season 7 is all about growth this year, and we\u2019ve taken some steps forward and we\u2019ve had a couple go back as well, but the whole idea of us and what we\u2019re trying to achieve is to come up with our Giants DNA that not only is going to make us a better side, but compete with the best,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At times we\u2019re aggressive with our ball movement which therefore we can get hurt the other way, and we\u2019ll keep doubling down on that. We want to have a method that can generate scores for us, but make sure we show some real character in the last game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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