Gerard Whateley

If you were Damien Hardwick, where would you have channeled your efforts this week, your energies this week in preparation for Friday night?

Well, he's got a few challenges.

He's actually got a few challenges because they look a little bit – watching him last week, they looked a little bit lost.

I mean, they looked a little bit short on answers in some ways.

They're supposed to be a bit better team than they've been and their run's not – look, their form's not that great, Gerard.

So as much as we look at them and think they've got all the right pieces, sometimes they can be the harder ones to read because the names look all great, but the collective together haven't really fired that well all season.

They've had interruptions, they've had problems.

You know, they've just got some challenges going on at the footy club.

But Damien's just got to get them this week.

This is a really, really big game for them.

Damien's got to get them this week just playing football and try to drop all the outside stuff.

And you just bunker down a bit, I would have thought.

He'd bunker down with the group and have some good conversations around, you know, how we're going to go about this.

Almost a...

you know, a collective mind to come together and say, well, what do we do here?

What should we do here?

The coach has not always got every answer, but the coach has to have an option to create the answers.

And the option would be to bring the team inside a bit closer again than he has, and if he hasn't already, which again, he's a three-time premiership coach, I'm not going to try to tell him how to do it, but my view on these situations, the closer you get to your team, the more galvanised you become with your team,

the more likely you can get an outcome.

And it'll be a tough outcome.