Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast with Gary and Tim. The good oil for Cobramers State. Australia's most awarded extra virgin olive oil. Grown, harvested and first cold pressed in Northern Victoria.
We'll put to bed this tribunal situation with Jason Johnson when David Zeta joins us at 25 past seven because now people are saying he was running an auction while he was doing the tribunal. I know that's a joke, Tim, but this is what happens if you don't get some clarity.
Well, how about some clarity from Garrity then? I thought you were going to produce a clarity from Garrity today.
I didn't even know about it, so we'll find out from David Zeta. What I do know is that Andrew McGrath takes over the captaincy from Zach Merritt on the back of the off-season. and then they have four pretty tough weeks as a skipper.
Although the last two, there were signs, I'm sure, that he thought were promising, and then they come out and kick 11 of the last 13 goals and have a comprehensive victory. And I think captaining Essendon on the weekend might have been much more enjoyable than the first few games. And he joins us this morning. Go, Andy. G'day, Gary. G'day, Tim. How are you guys? Yeah, we're good.
Good to talk to you. On the back of a performance, did you see this coming? Were you building to this? It appeared that that was the case. Your back half against the Bulldogs was better than probably the numbers indicate.
Yeah, it definitely felt like we were growing. Like you guys alluded to before, the first... A couple of rounds were really disappointing. We weren't able to pressure. We weren't able to really put much of what we had trained so hard on in place, which was really disappointing internally, but forced us to go to work.
And we could feel the momentum of our game building, especially in that second half of the Bulldogs game. So we were really hopeful it would come to fruition against Melbourne. And we were able to put together a really solid performance.
Hey Andy, good morning to you. Is that the way Essendon want to play or was that just tactically the way that you played given the opposition that you had at the weekend in Melbourne?
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Chapter 2: What insights does Andrew McGrath share about Essendon's recent win?
I think our pressure around the ball and the way we were able to move the ball out of stoppage was much better. We were able to possess the ball quite well out of the back half which is Probably not exactly how we want to play, but you kind of have to use what the opposition give you at times. So Melbourne were able to...
get up pretty high on defense, but we were able to shift the ball around them and obviously that won't happen every single week. But we were happy with that control and how we could move the ball through them. It felt like we were able to own the game for periods of time, which haven't been the case in the first couple of rounds.
But yeah, it felt like across the ground we were able to get a tendency.
And that also protected the back line, would you agree?
Yeah, I think I've obviously played a lot down there in my career, and the first couple of weeks was really difficult.
With the ball coming in quite quickly and quite fast, we had a real focus from the beginning of the year, but probably more pointed after the second round in Port Adelaide on putting pressure on the footy and getting back to our pressure identity and trying to put teams under duress in there and force high balls and give our backs a chance. I think we let...
We left sort of Benny Mackay and Zach Reid out to dry on multiple occasions in the first couple of weeks. And no defender is going to stop some of the entries that we allowed. So it's been a focus of ours. And I feel like we've been able to rectify that area of our game in the last couple of weeks.
No, it was really good at the weekend. And you could see it the week before for large portions of the game against the Bulldogs as well. We're talking to Andrew McGrath, the SN captain. From a captaincy perspective, Andy, going in there and playing in the midfield, does that help you in a leadership capacity, do you think, as well?
Yeah, I think marginally. I'm sort of one of those guys that's happy to play wherever, wherever Brad puts my magnet every week. I'm more than happy to play that role, but I really enjoyed being around the ball on the weekend.
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Chapter 3: How does Andrew McGrath feel about his new role as captain?
I think you can connect with a few more guys being sort of in the central part of the ground. I thought on the weekend that our spirit and the way we celebrated each other was a highlight of the win, and I'm sure our fans saw that on the TV even before the scoreboard turned. I'm just enjoying playing my part.
I think there's so many pieces that I was so happy with and proud of for the guys on the weekend. And I played a small part in that. But yeah, I really enjoyed my time around the ball and we'll see sort of where Brad puts my magnet moving forward.
Would you like to go back and play against Matty Rowell this weekend? Do you go to Scotty and say, look, this is what I want to do. You played me, gave me an important role last week. I want to continue on?
Yeah, it's a conversation we'll have today together. We go through our main training and start to begin our prep for Gold Coast in terms of match-ups and how we want the game to look today. So Brad and I will have a chat around what my role looks like. That could be one of those scenarios. I could also play back. I'm not too sure yet, guys, but we'll find that out more today.
So, finally I get to ask a question. So there's a... It's an accountability piece when he goes to Peter Wright and says, you go and play on Max Gorn and your job on Cozzy. So I just think that sends a great message to the rest of the team to say, hey, let's be measured. Let's make no mistake. There's nowhere to hide out here. I'll be accountable for Gorn. You'll be accountable for Pickett.
And then the rest of your team then go, okay, we are going to be measured here pretty hard. Is that the thinking behind it?
I don't know the exact thinking, but it's probably pretty close. I think every player that runs out there needs absolute clarity on their roles. Obviously those two players are super players in the competition. They're going to have impact no matter what. I think they both ended up having reasonable impact from a Melbourne point of view.
But we were really respectful of their talents and how they can rip a game apart if you let them run around unmatched. And they've sort of shown that in the last few weeks. And obviously two extreme talents. And we just wanted to keep a close eye on those two.
They were still, like I said, able to have significant impact on the game, but we felt like we were able to take away a few of their strengths on the day and put them in our favour.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did Essendon implement to improve their performance?
I feel like all our draftees as well as sort of second and third year players have just come in with an appetite to learn and get better and Jacob's no different and I'm really excited to see him grow and develop into an amazing AFL player in the red and black and I'll say him but I could say multiple in that question.
Hey, does Sullivan Roby, does he remind you in any way of Luke Davies-Uniak?
Very much so. Very much so.
The way he moves. Doesn't he play like him?
Yeah. No, I noticed that a few weeks ago. He obviously was struck down with a back injury pretty early on, so I think he did one training with us. We loved what we saw, and then he was struck down for a couple of months there, but... Just seeing him move around the VFL the last couple of weeks and then bring that form into the AFL, he moves exactly like Luke. It's obviously a big compliment.
Luke's a superstar of our competition, but I think Sullivan can be right up there with the very best. His size, his physicality, and even his calmness on the weekend. He had a few moments that wouldn't have been noticed on the screen, but just showed great maturity. He was able to fit right into our system, bring the energy, and he definitely didn't look like an 18-year-old out there.
No, all the experienced players really performed at the weekend. It was good to see Sam Durham sort of get back to the form that we've seen from him over the last couple of years as well. I don't know whether or not his role changed at the weekend, but it seemed like he was playing looser and more instinctively than what we'd seen in the early part of the year.
Yeah, Sam was awesome. I'd say he was a massive part as to why we got the result. He played a slightly different role. He played a little bit more forward than he has in the last couple of weeks, but you can kind of plug Sam wherever you need him and at a given time. His ability in the contest, both in the air and on the ground, he's elite.
He's someone that you just love to run out with because you know exactly what he's going to give. He's a passionate player. He's been disappointed with us not being able to do what we wanted to out there. And as a leader of our footy club now, he wears a bit more of that responsibility. But I thought he was superb on the weekend and will build into the season nicely off the back of that.
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Chapter 5: How does Andrew McGrath view the team's progress this season?
Went back to it.
That's an interesting- Have you tried that with the orchestra?
Not with the orchestra, no. But that's interesting. That'll be like music to say, build it up, build it up, build it up.
Hold. Release. Do you say they play the orchestra or they hold you by the orchestra?
It'd be short breaths if they held you by the orchestra. We're going to take a break. We're tight today. We've got Andrew Russell coming in. We've got Tommy Green joining us out of eight, and we've got Tommy Stewart at 8.40. So we're going to have a little window for maybe questions that notice. David Zeta at 25 past to find out, was there anyone at the Tribunal who was actually there yesterday?
And I've got five late thoughts. It's a new segment I've come up with. I just came up with it right then that I haven't got to from the weekend.
Is this the text message that you sent out yesterday to your men of five? What is it?
What do you call it? The Trusted Five.
The Trusted Five?
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