Sam Mitchell on the road to finals 🔊

Sam still feeling like just another game or um I've kind of been we were talking about it uh who's feeling the nerves yet and um I feel like I should be nervous but I'm not yet I think once once tomorrow night rolls around and you see another game happen and it's likely to escalate over the next 48 hours what about the players you starting to detect a little nerve Spike with them um I mean some we we had a chat about it today who's feeling something yet um I think it's a lot of the peripheral um staff and people there's a level of excitement around September and um it's not necessarily the players who feel it first I think that gets closer to game game day but you know whether it's Partners or parents or fans and I think there's a there's a level of expectation and excitement in the air now that you've qualified when did you start discussing finals internally um oh in 2002 22 I suppose um I mean you're always it's always something that you you know is in your future and something that you want to achieve is not just to play finals but to to win Grand finals so that's been the aim and we break the we break that down into seasons of course but we knew that we wanted to to play a level of foot that would win finals and win Grand finals so we at that level yet we're we're not out of that race but we haven't proven that we can we can win a grand final with the the stage we're at right now but that's the aim and it has been the aim since since I started and we've been really clear about that how quickly we could get there no speed limit but we suspected it would take a little bit of time and uh we now have an opportunity which who knows how quickly we can take it as far as talking about finals recently we I guess it was probably a couple of months ago where we knew um if we kept winning we're a chance and probably six weeks ago we knew we could maybe afford to lose one game which we did and we got a little bit lucky with a couple of other um couple of other results went our away which gives us an opportunity we played in front of some big 300 Dusty do you think that's going to be beneficial for the players atmosphere yeah I mean I think it gives us a little bit of confidence I think on um you know I suspect it'll be 90,000 or thereabouts at the game and the fact that we've done that before it's it's one less unknown it'll be a different crowd completely different crowd to the to the dusty 300th um but we've played in front of some big Crowds Are we as experienced as as some of the other clubs um obviously not and a lot of Premiership players in the Bulldog side so are we as experienced as them no but do we go into the game confident that we've been here before we've played in front of 9,000 plus yes so we have some level of confidence but um I mean we're all we're all trying to come up with the story of something that might happen it'll be much easier to tell that story after the result won't it do you use it g or from last year or other people in the building like this week to just share some experience with what September's last yeah I mean I think across the the playing group we sort of say who's been here before who's experienced it who's got some tips who knows how they've handled something well or handled something poorly in in Years Gone by and um I think in a football club there's so many experiences from so many people um that we do our best to share those things but um we also have to bring it back to it's still a game of footy it's at the MCG um there'll be a lot of peripheral things happening but when the ball bounces it's still just a game selection you got CJ is going to be putting his hand up obviously day Etc so what are what are your thoughts I know you might say exactly what's on your mind but generally how you thinking yeah I mean I think we have we have a full match committee this afternoon um and and finalize the finalize the team today there's still we probably still have a couple of question marks I would say maybe 20 players be locked in and there's still I think there's probably still three that we're considering you know what how to go with that last group a little bit of it might play into the weather a little bit of it might be um some matchups a little bit of training practice a couple things today and um you know there's still a couple of decisions to make but for the most part it's done did CJ show enough on Saturday that he bringing you for a final after this in the last three games com season I mean it was really important that he played I think he wouldn't have played for over a month now if he hadn't played in that game so important that he got the Run he got through the game physically and you know he's available for selection so he's one of the guys who you know we're making a decision about what's the best way to win this game I think in Years Gone by when you get towards the end of the year you think about okay what's the best development mode for us who needs this game who can afford to not play and what can we do to develop whereas obviously you're picking this purely to beat this team uh who can play our system the best who can help us beat the Bulldogs the best and um CJ's given him himself a chance which is fantastic because he's going to be an important player for us and um he's put his hand up for for selection for this week there's some wonderful finals Cinderella St your opposition in 2016 the baby buers do you 2008 the mighty BS do you dare a dream what what do you s bring the L back a and think what might be possible over the next month uh I I haven't I it's not been strategic that I haven't I just haven't felt the need to think further ahead and it as cliched as this sounds it's an elimination final if we don't win this there's no point dreaming any further than that so we know that the Bulldogs are a fantastic side we know we're going to have to play really well to be able to compete with them and um if we give it our give it our best we we put it all out there and we can play close to our best footy then we think we're a chance so that's that's our focus and what happens after that will be handled after that if you progress do you expect to have will dayback next week uh unsure I think we'll make try and make a decision um reasonably quickly though I don't don't think we need the Cloak and Dagger stuff which we've avoided for this game and we knew he was not going to be available so we let you guys know pretty quickly and um just for him as much as anyone so he's not getting asked to about all the time but he certainly hasn't been ruled out for anything after this week Nash go to the bont is that an easy call for you um yeah I mean Bond and P um obviously liba has been enormous for them for a generation real Le for laws all australi this year so they've got a lot of a lot of talented players what we do with with nashy is whether he starts on someone or whether we use him as a as a bit of a go-to if things get out of hand we've we've done a bit of both this year um so I'll let I'll leave that in David Hal's hands and he'll make the call so you're thinking tror gets up not sure we don't no point guessing what they're doing I think they um you know they're going to obviously play him if he's available and we suspect that he'll play but unknown you5 at the start of this year and you've had your own massive issues off the track over the last couple of years it's documented what has this club got that other clubs free man k love to I am far I'm far from getting I'm far away from getting involved in that I I would say that Hawthorne has historically been a a successful you know lot of documentation we've won a a Premiership in every decade since the 60s and it is a set the bar high and I hope for the best and um you know it's it's a it's a club that's built off premierships not off you know finals so that's every club's a little bit different in what they call success but but certainly for this club if we don't win the Grand Final this year we're not going to sit back and say what a success that was you know we we know that this club's built on premierships and we want to continue that Legacy I hope it's this year but if it's not then that'll be our Focus going forward how important is Lloyd this week com up against team English that very deep in terms of the Midfield no day how important will the role be that yeah I mean I think the rock is one of the really pure matchups in AFL you know mostly midfielders play on everyone fullbacks and full forwards move around a lot but the rcks are still you measure them against each other at the end of a game and the English versus Meek matchup is going to be um one that'll dictate a lot of the game and Mickey Mickey knows that um he brings some strengths to the table that we're really really happy with and he's obviously not got quite the the height that English has but his his mobility and physical followup we think is going to be important and if he can if he can play well then that'll go a fair way to helping us win the Midfield battle and if we win the Midfield battle it goes way Fair way to helping us in the game Luke Hodge just spoke on radio about your transformation and said he's been most surprised and kind of suggested he's proud of what you've been able to do I guess to embrace all these kids and selfies and hot ball and everything else has it taken a bit of Courage on your part to to do that um h i saw hji texting say he was keeping Gunners and puggy in line I had to have a chuckle um at at at those things I think I think when you when you have a group of players who are willing to take the Reign themselves that makes a coach's job really easy and our players from round you know from round five that post the the goal Coast loss I thought the players really said okay this is we need to drive this ourselves this needs to be our club we need to take control here and that makes it really easy for a coach to say okay you got you've got this um and so they've really taken control of the club themselves and that's what every Club that's what every club and every coach hopes for um so it's the players who deserve the credit for for D like certainly wasn't me who came up with hwk ball I'm still not exactly sure what that means um so that's been driven by a narrative from from outside the coaching and I think the players deserve the credit for creating the environment that they have what about letting them be themselves though and and not um you know cutting that out of their their performance the celebrations and and bringing the crowd along and the Tik Tok and everything else yeah probably not natural I don't have Tik Tok myself so I don't follow it too closely but um I think I think everyone can perform their best in any role whether that's as a footballer or in in any in any job if you can perform it the way that you would like to do it and if that's part of a team and it fits into the team structure then everyone performs better when they're they're acting as the their natural self so if we was trying to make Jack Gunston celebrate goals he probably wouldn't like that too much and if you're trying to get um the wizard to not celebrate goals you probably wouldn't like that too much either so allowing people to be themselves and express themselves in whatever way they are comfortable with is I mean it's pretty basic human nature that that will help you perform at your best