Sam Mitchell interview | Fox Footy AFL 360 | 2024

Arian titmas and the time that she spent with you and and you spent with her what what would what would your major takeaway be from from of an Olympian um I mean the thing that I took away from it is um despite the facade um underneath was a genuine competitor um you know she her training ethic and how they go about it in their sport in general but her demeanor and mentality around you know she talked to us about how she prepared for Heats how she prepared for domestic events where she knew she would win um you know compared to how she compared to her first 400 where she was hopeful and then one when she was you know the sweetheart who had to win um the the mentality at 24 years of age was pretty impressive you a roll for her the next I think she's hopefully the next month for you I think she's a bit busy she gave us enough gold in that interview to uh to last for uh plenty plenty of time all right let's do the nitty-gritty first is what do you know about will days in um yeah it's been a it's been an interesting 24 hours so we get the initial prognosis no break so you say oh that's good news and most of the boys rang him and said you should have come back on uh but we you know had further scans today and you he had a partial dislocation so partial dislocation of sort of a joint around his middle of his chest or his collar bone and um we've seen one one specialist who's know surgery and hopefully the other one will say the same thing tomorrow um and then it's just about how quickly we can get it to settle down he certainly won't play this this week and unless we win um that's going to be the end of our season most likely anyway so um if we do happen to get further than that then we'll hopeful that he'd be available but we don't have enough information just yet so surgery would finish him for the year yeah if he if he needed surgery but the first specialist says that that's not an option so um we're hopeful so is it you might know this yet but how much would be pain management and how much would be sort of the function of the the collone shoulder I wouldn't know I think it's more pain management at the moment they said he's not available this week just cuz it just won't be anywhere near um he'll be so sore that he won't be able to uh to and when he when he said to me I spoke to him after the game and he goes oh I can't believe how sore it is and he is one you genuinely tough tough athlete so when he said that I knew there was probably something happening okay and Jack scrimshaw what do you know well he popped his finger and the reason it's a bit worse um so it came out of the skin so wasn't too great for anyone that was sitting around the bench at the time it didn't look great um but he had a bit of a clean out operation not a not under general anesthetic or anything so we we're hopeful he'll be available for this weekend is your group relishing these opportunities that they've opened up for themselves uh they're a hard group to read for um you know I'm I'm 41 years old I got no idea what they're talking about half the time they're practicing their celebrations at training but the thing that I focus on is the parts of the game that matter to my generation you know are we still tackling are we still training hard are we still bringing energy for defensive drills are we still doing those things and if they do them then all the freedom to them about what they do and how they celebrate a tackle or a goal um but I think the players have enjoyed um you know some aspects of the way we're playing and and getting some reward on the scoreboard how do you how you R reign in or encourage the flare and the speed and the Dare while still trying to play the manner in which you want to play which is basically the fundamentals of football how have you been able to successfully at this stage sort of manage both the fundamentals versus the flare I don't really get too involved in the flare other than say like you every player gets drafted for a reason every player gets a game in the AFL side for a reason and promoting those things making those things as big a part of your game as possible is what we all want as coaches um and then from a fundamental team point of view I think one of my most said quotes is do the simple things well so if you do the simple things well sometimes it can look amazing as a collective but most of the individual actions aren't amazing every now and then there'll be something fantastic but mostly good bits of play are from multiple simple things done cleanly and consistently through passages of play are you the kind of Coach to talk about winning premierships or you or you just let that I'm not let them think about that themselves in their own heads I'm not sure just yet I think I think we are very much one step at a time and sort of made myself the every time you ask me about too much about further ahead every game for us has been an elimination final and when we play this week we won't know whether we have to win or not so we have to win this week otherwise uh we might not be there so um the the task right in front of us is the one that we're very focused on and um but we know and the players are smart enough to know what we're playing for and Kel shadir he'll be in here tomorrow night he's got the rising star nom from what the prospects were coming into his first year to what he's delivered what's the coach's view of where he's found himself uh he's made he's made me question how I analyze talent because when when we watched him he's a very raw kid and um you know he did the odd pretty special thing but he had a bit of an unorthodox kicking style and um you know he despite having Paul deer as a father he didn't like love footy or know a lot about footy so quite often that goes down a bit of I wonder if he's passionate enough um but from when he's walked in the amount of learning that he's been willing to do and and the competitiveness of him I think you look at some um tools and they might not be as competitive and you know that they're going to have the athletic um attributes and you back that in over time which is the traditional model but certainly he's made me challenge that thinking that competitiveness will get you there quicker and how high his ceiling is I think is going to be really interesting not just for me but I think everyone's going to look at him and think um you know potentially we've been judging some things harshly and overvaluing them and maybe some things we've been undervaluing he's