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Crunch Time

Round 12 - GWS Assistant Ben Hart (31.05.26)

31 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 16.908 Liam Pickering

Looking forward to this one. Liam Pickering and Josh Jenkins, because we're not too far away. Probably 90-odd minutes away. A little more at the Alice as we see the Dees and the Giants go at it. And the assistant coach of the Giants, one of them, and he's the backline coach, is Ben Hart from the Giants, has been good enough to join us. Ben, welcome back to SEN.

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17.609 - 21.653 Ben Hart

Yeah, thanks, gents. Thanks for having me. Beautiful day up here. Sums out and ready to roll.

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Chapter 2: What insights does Ben Hart share about the upcoming game against the Dees?

22.094 - 28.08 Liam Pickering

I've only mentioned it about 15 times, but when Sam Taylor's name is officially back in, it must give you a little bit of a smile.

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28.364 - 44.842 Ben Hart

makes any guys looking after the back line up here, feel a little bit more comfortable about things, but look, he's done a power work to get back and he probably ruled himself out last week. He felt like he wasn't ready, but look to have him back. He's a, He's a star, and hopefully he just falls back into the form that we know he can produce.

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45.143 - 60.003 Liam Pickering

When you mention the conditions, and great to hear they're good, but it's a unique playing situation with not a huge amount of AFL games and even less times of which you would visit there. Do you do anything different to prepare the team for playing in a place you don't necessarily see a lot?

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61.064 - 74.717 Ben Hart

Oh, not really. There's not a great deal you can do. I mean, the Oval is a very similar size to what we play at in Canberra. Yep. You know, the heat, we're probably lucky, I guess, in a way, because we train in a fair bit of heat ourselves, even at this time of year.

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Chapter 3: How does the return of Sam Taylor impact the Giants' backline?

74.757 - 87.812 Ben Hart

So that probably won't faze us. But it's more about trying to keep it as the routine, the same as you can, I guess. But, yeah, clearly it's a little bit harder. But Our boys are pretty switched on with all that, and they understand the significance of the game.

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88.232 - 99.33 Josh Jenkins

So, Ben, good luck this afternoon. Half-time last week. It's a six-point lead. You're against the Lions. It looks like it's going to be an arm wrestle. What the hell happened at half-time? Because you came out in the third quarter. I didn't see anything like it.

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100.191 - 117.083 Ben Hart

Oh, if we could find out what was said or what was done, then we'd be doing that every single time. I don't know, to be fair. Look, we were pretty relaxed in the rooms at half-time. We knew that Our game was in reasonable shape. But you never expect to come out and do what happened there. And, you know, 14 goals is unbelievable.

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117.123 - 123.981 Ben Hart

But it was one of those quarters, I think, where you get on a roll and things go your way. Opposition head drop a little bit and you take advantage. So...

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Chapter 4: What unique challenges does playing in Alice Springs present for the team?

124.366 - 128.652 Ben Hart

Look, I'm not saying we'll have that today, but it'd be nice if we could flick that switch.

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128.672 - 147.46 Josh Jenkins

It's funny. We were chatting with Jase McCartney before the game, and he sounded quite confident. We stack up well. We match up well against Brisbane. We've got a good record against Brisbane. And it looked like the players believed that as well. I saw the way that Toby was carrying himself and the Snake, Jake Stringer. They just look like they're, oh, we've got these guys.

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148.461 - 168.092 Ben Hart

Yeah, it's an interesting one because there's sort of, We understand that our game, if played the right way against Brisbane, seems to stack up and it has over the last few years. But I think as long as we were able to match them in the contest, that was our sort of thought going into the start of the game. Then eventually our run might come to fruition. And then look, it did.

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168.633 - 174.54 Ben Hart

To that level, we didn't expect, but certainly did. So the boys knew that they could get going if allowed.

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Chapter 5: How does the team prepare for playing in unfamiliar conditions?

174.58 - 177.103 Ben Hart

And certainly it was a great result for us.

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177.472 - 195.56 Unknown

Benny, Josh Jenkins here. Hope you're well and good luck to Savo. It feels like now Brent Daniels is back. Have you won that battle to get Lockie Ash back in your back seven? Because you lost him to the midfield for a couple of weeks. But, I mean, he's a spectacular running defender alongside Lockie Whitfield.

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195.62 - 200.988 Unknown

And you might have one in Joe Fonte who might be on that same level in about 12, 24 months' time.

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201.749 - 220.122 Ben Hart

Yeah, Josh, good to speak to you, Reid. Look, well, I have won the battle for now. It doesn't mean that I won't lose him again. But, yeah, look, Ashley's a fantastic player with ball in hand or reading the play and then being able to set us up with his speed and ball use. So I'm glad to have him back. And, Joe, Fonte, I think you're right.

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220.142 - 233.719 Ben Hart

I think at the moment he's going into that transition of potentially looking after some pretty dangerous forwards for the opposition. But, yeah, his next level, I think, with the speed that he has and he'll get a bit more experience, he can certainly add to that mix for sure.

234.577 - 256.652 Unknown

Yeah, head coach has already... I don't know if it was the double bluff or the throw-off or it was just getting inside the head of the opposition. He suggested Bedford was likely to go to his former teammate in Keziah Pickett. Can we confirm that? Is it going to be Bedford v Pickett for the Arvo? Because, I mean, we know what Pickett can do. He can take the game away from any opposition.

257.392 - 260.857 Ben Hart

Yeah, I can confirm that at some stage he'll run past him.

260.877 - 262.439 Unknown

No doubt about that. Oh, great. Thanks for that.

263.761 - 271.571 Ben Hart

Look, I think we'll put some time into him. And it depends on where he's playing. If he spends time as a forward, we might have someone to try and look after him there.

Chapter 6: What strategies does Ben Hart discuss for tackling the Lions?

271.611 - 281.745 Ben Hart

And if he's through the midfield, then potentially he might go a little bit head-to-head to start. But we'll have plans pretty quickly to try and clamp him if we can, if that's possible.

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282.586 - 295.059 Unknown

I didn't know whether he'd be able to give you much. I'm sure you brought him in as depth because you've got an amazing one-two punch with your key backs when they're healthy in Taylor and Buckley. But, gee, Jadon Laverde has been very, very handy for you guys.

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296.02 - 312.357 Ben Hart

Yeah, he's been a great pickup for us. He's come in and he's sort of learning a little bit of a different system as well. So, I think he'll actually probably, well, I hope, play better footy in the second half of the year as well. But, look, he's very strong. He's a good one-on-one player. He's a good communicator. Like, he's played a lot of footy. So...

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312.573 - 319.363 Ben Hart

He's fitted into the system pretty well and really pleased with the performance he's been able to put out and hopefully he can keep going because we've needed him.

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319.563 - 325.973 Josh Jenkins

You mentioned the weather, Ben, the beautiful conditions up there. Tell us about the trick of playing at the Alice.

327.796 - 348.477 Ben Hart

Yeah, well, I've played or been involved in teams who have played here probably four or five times. Three of them, it was torrential rain. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, horrible, in fact. So hard to play. So up here, we're glad it's now... Sun's out, it'll suit our game a little bit, we think, with a bit of speed. So I guess the trick is that you try not to deviate too much from how you play.

348.918 - 361.133 Ben Hart

Yeah, we understand the setting is different, but this is going to be really old school, but there's four posts at either end and a square in the middle. So just go about how you do it and hopefully things will plan out.

361.734 - 370.305 Unknown

Benny, you mentioned the times you've been up there, three in torrential rain. The fourth wasn't when you were looking after the Crows forward line and we got beaten by 90, was it?

370.741 - 388.098 Ben Hart

Yeah, I think I was looking after the back line at that stage. So either way, not a good result. But yeah, look, I've had some mixed results up here, but last time we played, I think we kicked a, or Josh Kelly kicked a goal from 60 out in the pouring rain to win the game. So hopefully it's not that close.

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