It's hard to comprehend at times.

Yeah, and I think sometimes the hard part, I reckon, at times, guys, you never become desensitised to it.

But, yeah, you have this attitude, or I have in the past, of, oh, well, it's all right, we'll win it next year, we'll give it another crack, which, of course, we will.

But the longer that you play, you know, it dawns on you that the...

the element of, I will do it next year, becomes less and less because there's certainly fewer next years that are on the calendar.

And there are no guarantees in this business.

The best and most important moment is the next one to get right, regardless of, you know, availability, injury.

So how is it? Can you block that out? Do you want to block that out? Do you get involved? Where do you sit with it?

Mm

... first and foremost, and I think his footy is really starting to- ... improve rapidly.

And, and he's such a diligent player, almost to his own detriment at times, because he, he came into our side and had trained with Tom Hawkins, who was the master architect of setting up our structure as a forward line.

And, and Shannon has seen that as, I'm going to be, you know, I'm gonna really help the forward line in that capacity.

So he puts the team almost above his- himself at, at various stages.

And I, I suppose there's been a little bit of, "Mate, you can just launch at the ball." Like, the structure can be right sometimes, it can be wrong sometimes.

Just, just attack it.

So what, what would you tell a player that receives a, a homophobic slur?

Is he a ruckman or a full back? Well, we wanted to be a bit of both,

Kenny.

I think, you know, the flexibility of players is really important for the way that we want to play because...

We won't just stick with one particular game style for an entire game.

We want to be malleable with it.

But you can only do that if you've got players that are flexible enough to change their own positioning and their influence in the game, depending on how it's going.

We want to try and maximise the influence the players have got.

Give us a picture of your midfield exposure, Paddy, how you're rationing minutes, when you're choosing with the coaching staff, when to go in and when not.

Um, and their strengths around the midfield was once very strong, but, uh, the balance you guys have with accountable players versus attacking players is, is a pretty good balance at the moment.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's always a funny one.

You, you don't wanna be, you know, uber defensive, um, but at the same time we recognize they've got some really good players in there.

So I think the fine balance of, of accountability and still reading the, that line of the ball, um, and being fluid enough to take your space.

I think sometimes the risk with running that sort of defensive formation is that you become too reactive to the opposition's positioning.

And I think one of the, the great growths of our game, and, and if I talk, you know, a specific individual, a, a guy like Oisin Mullen is really starting to develop the offensive part of his game.

Is he a ruckman or a full back?

D- are you a subscriber to the point of difference theory, it being, it being the reason you win or, or, or otherwise grand finals or prelim finals?

I-- Definitely the, to the, to the element that, you know, my view on it is, you know, September is different from rounds one to twenty-two.

I mean, at the moment, we'll, we'll talk at lengths, I think, as a footballing media around the importance of youth and the exuberance that brings.

And then it gets to September, and all of a sudden, the experience piece becomes really important.

And my time in the game, and, and this is absolutely stolen from Chris, um, but he'll often talk in the lead-up to September, there are-- there are gonna be times where we just really struggle to get the, the game on our terms, and you need to find a way to win, and you need to grind a way to win, and it's gonna come down to moments.

So that was a big one that w-we've spoken about.

And then I think the other one that probably doesn't get spoken about a huge amount now, but the missing players, it will happen at some point.

Well, why wouldn't you?

Do-- Are you a subscriber to the point of difference theory, it being, it being the reason you win or, or, or otherwise grand finals or prelim finals?

I...

Definitely the, to the, to the element that, you know, my view on it is, you know, September is different from rounds one to twenty-two.

I mean, at the moment, we'll, we'll talk at lengths, I think, as a footballing media around the importance of youth and the exuberance that brings.

And then it gets to September, and all of a sudden the experience piece becomes really important.

And my time in the game, and, and this is absolutely stolen from Chris, um, but he'll often talk in the lead-up to September, there are-- there are gonna be times where we just really struggle to get the, the game on our terms, and you need to find a way to win, and you need to grind a way to win, and it's gonna come down to moments.

So that was a big one that w-we've spoken about.

Well, why wouldn't you?