Bucks was joined by Brett Newman for Thursday's weekly press conference. Newman is a part of the Collingwood Wheelchair Football team and also served in the army for 13 years. A premiership player in 2013, and with ANZAC day in front of us it’s important to the club that we continue to reflect on why this weekend’s match is so significant.
Here are some of the key takeaways from Bucks’ presser:
Darcy Moore to continue up forward. The Moore Forward experiment will continue this weekend against the Bombers as Bucks and his coaching team look to find the right balance up forward.
- “I feel we made the determination off the first month of footy that we needed to change our mix in front of the ball…a key part of that has been Darcy going forward and we need to explore that more.”
- “If we can afford to keep Darcy forward, we’ll do that.”
- “Darcy has been down back for the last 18 moths, and established himself down back. There was a query as to whether he should be forward or back from the beginning…he’s been pivotal for us there, there’s no doubt about that.”
After playing forward for the first time since early in his career last week against the Eagles, Bucks assured the media that his move up forward is not the thing the team is doing to help improve scoring efficiency.
- “He’s not the total solution but certainly something that can help us.”
- “He’s not going to be the knight in shining armour to save us. We put players on pedestals that have talent…we compare them to players who have been guns in the past, some guys melt when that happens, some guys thrive.”
- “‘Darce’ has always had belief in his ability, he’s really motivated and he wants to do well.”
Unfortunately, the Pies walked away from the round five clash against the Eagles with several injuries. Bucks provided updates on a variety of players who won’t be available for ANZAC day.
- “Chris Mayne had a knock and wasn’t able to complete training today, there’s a question mark on him.”
- “Brody Mihocek trained well and he’s fine”
- “Jordan De Goey is concussed and obviously won’t be able to play this week…he still has symptoms. His ‘snoz’ [nose] is looking ‘more Buckley like’”.
Asked about his position as coach with no contract past 2021, Bucks spoke to where he sees the longer term aspirations of the team.
- “We’re not sitting down about 2022 at this point. My job is to manage the coaching panel and to have the players in the best shape as possible to perform on a weekend.”
- “If there’s contending on one end, and rebuilding at the other, there’s plenty of stages in between. The fact is we still believe that we can do some damage this season. We feel as though we have the elements to be a difficult side to beat…at the same time we believe we have enough growth in us to consider being better in the next 2-3 years as well.”
- “We’ve come off 3 years of finals, we want to be a threat this year.”
In off-field news, Pies fans will already be aware of the appointment of a new president; Mark Korda. Bucks provided his opinion during the presser.
- “In the end, I’m not reading a lot as such, but the only thing I was aware of was that the board was going through a process not only to appoint a new president but also new directors as well. Mark’s been a really strong advocate on the board for a number of years, he has great passion for the football club and now has a chance to help us progress off the field.”
- “The board is a board of governance, they play a really important role in terms of how we set up the football club. He’s been a hands on board member and I’d expect the same thing from his presidency.”
The AFL has sanctioned the club after players were caught breaching phone use regulations on Friday night in Perth.
- “We didn’t follow regulations, the phone box should be locked and packed away.”
- “We’ve copped our whack and you won’t see us on the wrong side of it again.”
