CTV> Michael Malthouse's press conference after the gameCOLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse says his side was feeling the effects of a traumatic month when its season came to a crashing halt at the hands of St Kilda at the MCG on Saturday night.
The Magpies suspended two of their best players and then spent a significant amount of time on the road before facing the Saints.
Malthouse was at pains to point out that it was a contributing reason for the loss, not an excuse.
"It's been a long year for a lot of those players – I just sensed, even at quarter time, that we had opportunities to be a better score than what we did, but I just sensed that almost every element of our indicators were down," he said after the game.
"We just didn't seem to have that energy, and it's been a pretty arduous last month or so – we've been on the road three of the last five weeks.
"It does catch up with you, I think anyway, probably in the second week, if you've been away a few times.
"It doesn't matter how far you've travelled – you still get on a plane, you've still got to do all the preparation.
"It's no excuse, I think it's a reasonable reason that a lot of the players – particularly younger players – just lacked some of the things they gave us over the last month.
"So I can hardly be critical of young players, and I thought three or four of our senior players just never got near their best."
Malthouse pointed out that in finals, it didn't take much for a side to fall away too far to be competitive.
"You come into a finals series, you're playing the best. Two sides have already dropped out, so you're playing one of the six that remain, and if you're off marginally, the scoreline is what it was."
The coach had warned during the week that skipper Scott Burns – who declared himself "100 per cent" after Friday training – and defender Simon Prestigiacomo might not come up, and that was exactly what happened, with both being late withdrawals.
"Well, Presti was probably always going to struggle, quite frankly – we gave him right to the end.
"Scott, as I indicated during the week, hadn't convinced me, and it was his call in the end.
"The way we do things here is the medical staff clear the player – they cleared Scott to play.
"Then the player's got to feel comfortable, and he wasn't, so therefore it really doesn't get to the point three – point three is our selection process.
"So if he's not comfortable, then it doesn't really get through to us.
"You can't play a player who doesn't feel as if he's going to get through the game."
