CTV> Guy McKenna recaps, previews, and proclaims on 'The Final Siren'

Collingwood's assistant coach, Guy McKenna, said the 31-point win over Port Adelaide last Friday night was a struggle but an important victory heading into finals.

Speaking on CTV’s weekly match review show The Final Siren, McKenna highlighted the play of a few key individuals and also outlined the main challenge ahead of his new career as the Gold Coast development coach.

“(The game was) a bit of a struggle.  We jumped (on) them early.  Obviously Port came with a bit of home team pride and they came at us pretty hard and I thought we weathered the storm pretty well,” McKenna said to CTV.

McKenna saw Dane Swan’s game as an all-around effort capped off with three goals.

“He (Swan) was fantastic.  He has probably been tagged for most of the year now and that’s something he has had to deal with.  He jumped into the midfield and was used as a tagger himself, now he is doing it so well now he is getting tagged. 

“He is learning to cope with that and he is a big strong fella and runs hard both offensively and defensively to finish off his game with three goals which he probably hasn’t done a lot of in his short career in the midfield his game was excellent.” 

McKenna was full of praise for the 27-year old, Leon Davis, who had a team high 28-possessions.

“Given his (Davis) ability to win his own footy which he has always had since he has played AFL footy; he is getting his fitness right and being more consistent.  He gets to more contests, spends more time on ball and becomes a very damaging player for us. 

“To be honest he has probably been in the system for nine years of which he has probably only spent the last 18 months in the midfield so he is a developing mid.”
Collingwood had 10 individual goal kickers on the night, a positive noted by McKenna.

“Given that we have had to restructure our forward line given the injuries to some players, to have ten individual goal kickers, all of a sudden the opposition are going, ‘who do we sit on?’.”

McKenna previewed next Saturday night’s game against Sydney at the Telstra Dome as a massive clash for both clubs.

 “We know that games against Sydney are very brutal affairs.  It’s going to be a lot of skin on skin and the one on one footy and we know that from Sydney led by Captain Kirk.  We know it’s going to be on.”

Last week McKenna was announced as the inaugural Gold Coast development coach.

“Assembling enough good talent in the Queensland region and that we can actually provide in the AFL in 2011 is going to be the biggest challenge.

“It’s (Queensland) not a football recognised state and to mould and shape those boys in (really) two years is going to take a lot of hard work but I have put my hand up and I am very happy for the opportunity to do so.”