Gerard Whateley

You know, if you're a power forward who goes a little bit on ball, you need the team to be playing well.

You need the team to be having the ball in their hands more often than the opposition's hands.

And you need to be a really confident, freely flowing team for a player like him to play well.

I think, was it his first game of the year this year, he kicked four?

Yep.

I think against the Cats up there when the Cats seemed to be on by, I think, at that stage.

But...

He played really well in that game and, you know, he managed to get that done.

So he's got top intel.

Everyone knows that.

But at the moment, the coach's task is to allow him some freedom to feel okay and to go out there and play.

Because game day is their happy day.

That's the day when they're most happy.

But understand, you know, if we just use the term of Monday to Friday –

There's not going to be a lot of fun going on, I wouldn't have thought, for him the way he's thinking and being behaving.

And, you know, it just looks from an outside, and I don't know, but from an outside point of view, with all the stuff that's going on, his desire maybe is to be back in Victoria.

But the reality is AFL football says you play where you get drafted and you have to honour contracts and all those sorts of things for the best of your ability.

So Damien's not going to give up on him.

He needs him and wants him.

He's a very, very important part of their future.