Just touch on that for a little bit, Hangas.

Yeah, definitely.

Um, you know, we, we've had a few debutants this year and, um, especially the local talent.

We've got blokes like Scotty Tuia, uh, LJ Hewitt, um, obviously the captain Jack Sears, who's still relatively young in his career, um, you know, Corey Treguenza.

So there, there's a real good core of, um, young players coming through who are starting to build those 30 to 50 games and, um, a few of those boys, um, played in the 2024 slag as well.

So, um, they know what it takes, and they've got a lot of talent, and that's obviously helped us probably the last three or four years for sure.

[laughs]

Um, it was obviously a challenge throughout that, uh, you know, 10-month period after surgery.

How challenging has that been and how are you feeling right now? Obviously, good enough to be in a grand final and playing good footy, but how challenging was that rehabilitation?

Yeah, super challenging.

Obviously, I was out for the whole year, pretty much last year.

Did a good number to my knee.

I guess if you're going to do it, do it right, I suppose.

It was obviously a challenge throughout that.

you know 10 month period after surgery I was on crutches and in a brace for eight weeks non-weight bearing with a one and a half year old toddler running around so that was pretty challenging personally but I always had the goal of getting back for round one this year and thanks to Meg Fraser and the great team we've got down at Peel I was able to to complete my rehab and get back to the goal I achieved and yeah I played every game this year for the first time in four or five years.

What is it with Claremont? I would look at your line-up and their line-up and think there's some free-spirited, free, high-scoring teams here, but not according to the score sheet.

Now, of course, two losses in a row going toward the finals, not really ideal, but do you see that as a bit of a silver lining, you know, to get your side, you know, back on the right track for the finals? Because finals is obviously a different kettle of fish here compared to 20 rounds of home and away competition.

Yeah, I suppose so.

It probably gives us a little bit of a wake-up call.

We're off by 5%, 10%.

You know, teams are going to pounce and, you know, the waffle competition is so even that, drop on the day you know any team can win on any given day so I guess sort of not ideal going in with two losses but we sort of had I guess as a player in the back of your mind we sort of had that top spot almost secured two weeks out so to get it on that last game you know we're still in both games we only lost by I think it was four points to nine points so even though we didn't play the way we wanted to we gave ourselves every opportunity to win those games we just Yeah, just didn't get it done on the day.

It was one point, wasn't it? One point, yeah.

Yeah, Blair Bell kicked the goal with, I think, 20 seconds left to put us up by two points or one point or whatever it was.

And then, obviously, this year was a two-goal margin early on and then with a kick-up to the sign, we win it only a few weeks ago.

Ben, what about you? How do you approach those, um, plans, uh, for those kids?

I think, you know, schools have got a, a really, w- we've got a far better understanding of the complexity of student lea- sorry, s- than we probably ever have now, and we know that there's, there's a lot more of it out in the community.

So it's just being responsive and adaptive, as Brooke's been saying.

It's knowing the learner and their family and their situation.

You know, it's not about lowering expectations or anything like that.

You know, we, we set high expectations.

We have, but we have realistic steps, um, that, and, you know, they're not opposites, but we want them to be able to have, to s- you know, to get those wins, to get, see success.

Mm.

So what do you put your form down to?

Yeah, firstly, just a touch on the alignment.

It comes up every year, but the funny thing is when we're losing games, no one really talks about it.

So it only seems to be when we start winning that everyone starts to have their say.

But we just go about our footy and go about our business.

But yeah, as you said, we've recruited really well over the off-season.

Sammy Skinner and Adam Reid did a super job on getting a few key players over to fill a few spots.

Who's been the biggest influence on, on your footy career?

So what do you put your form down to?

Yeah, firstly, just a touch on the alignment.

You know, it comes up every year, but the funny thing is when we're losing games, no one really talks about it, so...

And it only seems to be when we start winning that everyone starts to have their say.

But we just go about our footy and go about our business.

But, yeah, as you said, we've recruited really well over the off-season.

Sammy Skinner and Adam Reid did a super job on getting a few key players over to fill a few spots.

Who's been the biggest influence on, on your footy career?

Ben, are you finding them better?

Oh, they're not too bad.

Like, we, we took a bit of a proactive approach.

When we've got a really good tight bunch of schools here in Taupo, so when we have any new, um, requirements and that came out, we did some principal meet sessions on them.

But we also, we built a shared understanding about what they look like in, across town.

And just so, you know, we unpack them with ourselves so we had a good, you know, understanding to take back to our school, but then it was a consistent message within the community.

Um, and we even branched out from there a little bit further with the, um, you know, the, the, there is some flexibility, as, uh, Angus is saying, with the coding still.

Mm