McKenna sizes up interstate success
Guy McKenna believes the win in Adelaide was worth "six or eight" premiership points.
Collingwood senior assistant coach Guy McKenna believes the win in Adelaide was worth "six or eight" premiership points.
Speaking to CTV in the weekly edition of 'The Weekend That Was', where a key Collingwood football staff member discusses the previous weekend's game accompanied by match highlights, McKenna was glowing of the Magpies' ability win in the hostile AAMI Stadium environment.
"Any interstate trip, to come away with a win, it's six or eight points, because not a lot of sides travel interstate and win, so to come away with a win like we did was fantastic," McKenna said at the Lexus Centre on Monday.
McKenna, in his fourth season at the Lexus Centre, also said the way the side is playing tough, accountable football is indicative of the way senior coach Mick Malthouse likes his teams to perform, but also it reflects extremely well on the players' ability to heed instructions.
"I think the way Mick likes to play and likes his sides to play is that accountable one-on-one footy, and he's done that, I would think, for 25 years of coaching.
"Again it's just the degree of which the players carry out those instructions, and certainly up to this stage of the season it's been the case thatplayers have been able to carry that out, from a collective point of view, but more importantly from an individual point of view, that players who haverepresented the club have followed those instructions to a letter."
"You look at all the stats, and the form, and the history of the game, and that (tough, accountable football) is what's winning games of football."
While acknowledging there is plenty of hard work to do, and a huge match against traditional rivals Carlton to come on Saturday afternoon at the MCG, McKenna was honest in evaulating the Magpies' position after six rounds.
"If you said we'd be four (wins) and two (losses) up to this point, would you take it given our draw? Yes you would.
"We know there are a lot of areas to improve on, that's a good thing. We're 4-2 with some areas we need to get better at."
"Our defensive work's good. We're certainly passing in a lot of the areas, but there are certainly areas we need to improve on if we're going to seriously threaten later in the season, but as they always say, it's a week-by-week proposition at this stage."
During his interview with CTV, McKenna also discusses the performances of Rhyce Shaw, Dane Swan, Chris Bryan and Josh Fraser against Adelaide, with highlights of each player accompanying the analysis, so don't miss this fascinating insight by clicking on the link above.