What were the main findings of your mid-season review?
Offensively and defensively we've improved. We've maintained our ability to score which we've probably had at the club for a long period now … that's never been a problem, but to be able to reduce the opposition's impact on the scoreboard has been a plus for us.

You can probably see that through our percentage. In the last six or seven years we've never had a percentage close to 100, let alone over it. Your percentage always tells you whether you're getting a lot of things right.

We've lost six games with four of those by under 10 points and that's the thing that hurts a bit. We've given ourselves the opportunity to be in games, but not been able to finalise the deal.

Our concentration level through games has been a little bit of a factor for us in that it has slipped at certain points.

What's been the highlight of the year so far for you?
The growth of some of our younger players. Some have been in our system for two or three years now and have really taken a step forward.

Paul Bower's season has been outstanding and to watch Aaron Joseph from where he's come has been great.

His story is that as a 16-year-old he went from Strahan down to Hobart to live by himself Monday to Friday and then his mum would come down on the weekends to help him with his footy.

If you had have said last year that he'll come out and do what he's done you would have said, 'That's a big step up', but he's done a fantastic job.

He's exceeded even his own goals that he set pre-season and has been rewarded with a Rising Star nomination. Did you think he had it in him?
He's got a big tank with his running ability and he's got genuine pace as well, so those two factors combined make you a modern day player whether you're small or tall. I've just been really pleased with his appetite to compete against bigger names.

I think the (Gary) Ablett pre-season game was the one that actually gave him the confidence and us [as a match committee] confidence in him. [It] made us sit up and say, 'This kid's actually going better than we think'.

He can play some [negating] roles for us, but I get a little disappointed when I hear in the media that he's just a tagger and he's only scrapping and fighting. He played on Stephen Milne and kept him to seven possessions and he had 19 himself. If you're just a tagger you don't do that.

He can go and get the ball, but just in the infancy of his career he had to go and do a negating job just to learn that part of the game. Maybe, as he gets some credits in the bank, someone else can fill that role and he'll be let off the leash a bit more.

What about a lowlight of the season so far?
[It] was probably our first quarter against Adelaide. We were kicking with a three-goal breeze, got scored against heavily and our structure was completely wrong.

You could say the four close losses were lowlights as well. There were some highlights during those games where I thought our effort was fantastic, but then to concede the win after being in a winning position was disappointing.

Is Juddy leading your best and fairest at this point?
I only know how I vote, but if I was a betting man I'd say he would be. You hear players and coaches talk about it, but having a full pre-season has helped him enormously.

He started from the very first session and he was right to go for the first practice match. They’re the type of things that we mapped out for him. He was able to get his body right, he got a lot of confidence from that and you can see that he's got the power back in his game.

Is there a player in your side who doesn't get the plaudits outside the club, but plays a very team-oriented role each week?
If you had to name our best team man, even though he hasn't played a lot this year, it would be Andrew Carrazzo. He would be one of the ultimate team players. He can still win the ball, but if it's his turn to do a team role he'll do it and he's very selfless in that regard.

He has a real balance because he's a bit older and he can read the play. He knows how much hinges on his role and what he does for the team.

Along the same lines, is there a player at the club that isn't well known in the wider football community, but will be in 18 months' time?
That's a hard one because you see some things in an hour-long training session where a player might be up and going and you think he's looking alright. Then you don't see him for the next 50 because he sort of goes away.

Aaron Joseph was a bit like that in that he could do it in games for a quarter or so and you'd go, 'Geez, he looks good' and then you won't see him again.

With Rhys O'Keefe – he's a beautiful kick and he's great sized for a player – I see some of that in his game, but again the question is can he translate that potential into next year?

It's tough for the kids in their first year. Some of them miss pre-season or start so much further behind than the others that it's hard for them to have an impact. I don't know whether it's just the industry or everyone out there, but there seems to be a real impatience with the kids.

You hear, 'This draft pick is better than this one'. Even last year with Luke Ball, Luke Hodge and Chris Judd they were still comparing them. With Hodge's great back half of the year and his grand final they were saying that Hodge might be better than Judd, but now it's gone back the other way.

Some kids are more developed and some are projects. Let them have four seasons and start to have an opinion then, when they've all had the pre-seasons.

That difference you speak of would appear to be evident in the comparison between Chris Yarran and Jeff Garlett. Do you think Chris is wearing the expectations of being a first-rounder a bit tough?
Not really. Chris knows where he fits in at our football club and knows what he has to do. Don't forget Jeff's a little bit older too, about two-and-a-half years I think, so maybe that helps him a bit at the moment.

Jeff was maybe a bit fitter than what Chris was when he came to the club as well. Chris had a few injuries last year and then we had to manage him through the early part of his time at the club.

How have you seen Brendan Fevola's year purely from a football perspective?
What I see is how much more team-oriented he is: how he handballs off to (Marc) Murphy or he taps that nice one to (Shaun) Grigg against the Saints. He's working really hard, not just on his chase and tackle, but also the side of his game where he can assist others.

Everyone says, 'Geez, he's not kicking as many goals' but he's actually the No. 1 goal kicker in the competition. Have all the power forwards dried up a bit? Maybe.

Maybe there has been a bit more focus on stopping the key forward in the team, but the pleasing thing for us is that we're still getting a spread of goalkickers.

He does polarise opinion on and off the field, but do you just take that as part of the package? If you had the magic switch would you tone him down in some areas?
In any team you've probably got a role model or someone that you would say is the perfect example of how to go about it, but what Brendan brings to our team is that extroverted nature.

We've done emotional intelligence testing on all of our players and we've got a lot of introverts. Brendan is one of the few extroverts at our club, along with Mitch Robinson, so we do need some balance overall and I think Brendan brings that.

There are always aspects, even with Mitch, that you could probably tone down to a certain level, but that's their personality and how we can enhance that for the group's benefit is something that we work on continuously.

Do you think Fev's the sort of player who can play into his thirties?
The speed factor will be the key for him. You look at the Alastair Lynch types who could actually wrestle in the one-on-ones, but he still had really good speed. If he keeps that speed and that power I think he'll be right, but if that becomes a problem [he probably won't].

How are the club's stocks in terms of bigger forwards who can develop around Fev?
You look at the models that are having success at the moment and you see (Cameron) Mooney at Geelong with (Tom) Hawkins and the occasional ruck down there when (Brad) Ottens is playing. Then you look at St Kilda with Kosi (Justin Koschitzke) and (Nick) Riewoldt and then occasionally they'll throw (Michael) Gardiner down there just to change the dynamics a little bit.

We think that when Robbie Warnock comes back that will really help us because (Matthew) Kreuzer can play a bit up forward or the two of them can split the ruck 50-50.

Where does (Shaun) Hampson sit in there? His speed and athleticism is just growing along with him as a player. Maybe in two to three years he might be one that actually could just play out of the square.

He's quicker than Brendan over 20 metres and, as you can see, his athleticism is amazing for a big fella. He can run and jump, but to get that consistent level of AFL performance is the challenge for him.

Assuming you've got all your big lads to choose from, how do you see your rucks working going into a possible finals series?
We'll need to determine just how fit Robbie is. He's a fantastic athlete, I think he runs a 14-plus beep test, and it'll just be interesting to see how quickly his fitness comes to hand. He might be a ruckman that we just need to play for the rest of the year at 50 per cent [game time] just to get him into the senior side and let him go.

What is the latest on Warnock's return from that heel injury?
He's going well. We've tried to put a fair bit of time into his opposition analysis, so he's gone to a lot of games of football. I spoke to him earlier on, not knowing exactly when he would get back, and I said to him that it will probably be about seven weeks and it looks like it will fall exactly on that mark (round 15).

I told him he could actually become the x-factor or create excitement like we had from Andrew Walker in a similar situation last year. You sometimes see teams that do get a bit tired as the season rolls on and the line-up doesn't change too much. Sometimes if you can put someone new into the team with good ability who's very motivated and has a lot of enthusiasm, that can create the bubble factor for everyone.

So Walks has put those shoulder concerns behind him?
It looks like probably round 15 for him as well, but we've just got to wait until the end of next week to get the all-clear to determine which round it is.

How long do you foresee having to get those two up to speed in the VFL?
Walker ran the park by himself the other day in a time of 10:26 – I asked him whose car he was driving. If you run it in a group it drags you around a bit quicker so to run that time yourself is amazing. Juddy won a time trial [last November] in 10:33, so he's beaten that by himself.

So you could nearly play him for one maybe two weeks and say, 'In you come'.

Warnock might need three or four weeks under him so you could then give him a month at senior level.

I spoke to Walker a couple of months back and he seemed in great spirits. He told the story of how the surgeon assured him he'd need a tractor to pull the shoulder out again.
I really commented on his attitude when he came back and it has been unbelievable. He's come back a really different kid and he seems really pleased with the shoulder – it's the first time it hasn't felt sloppy.

He feels in a really good state with his football education as well. With Robbie and others, he's actually gone to a lot more games and has become a lot more proactive … he seems so switched on.

We've had a lot of talks and, because he's gifted, he could actually just play on instinct alone in the past. Even when he had a bit of a downer, he could still get away with an OK performance because he's fit enough to go and get the ball another four or five times to take a poor performance of 10 possessions up to 15.

The game's gone beyond that now and if you don't play to what we want you to do – it doesn't matter how quick you run – I think he understands you just can't play on instinct anymore.

Is Setanta O'hAiplin playing himself into a new contract?
He's playing very well at the moment. I think his confidence is up and I think he feels that his body is in really good shape.

That was the most frustrating thing for him in the pre-season which is probably why we saw that incident with Cameron (Cloke). He couldn't do a lot of the pre-season, he was trying to catch up whereas Cam had done the pre-season and was a lot fitter than him in repeat effort running.

He probably just thought, 'I'll muscle him up a bit' and it went a bit further. The frustration came out then that his body wasn't right at AFL level.

Now he's actually got himself into really good shape, he's running along the deck, he's winning the footy and I thought we saw a player on the weekend who played in a very natural 'see ball, get ball' way.

Sometimes that's when he plays his best. You don't over-complicate it and you have small things that you put in place for him and allow him just to play.

I know it's early on in the process, but what's the early prognosis for Jarrad Waite's recovery and how is his mindset at the moment?
His mindset's pretty good, but he's just that type of kid – he's quite positive in most aspects. He's got about another five weeks at the club and then he'll go on a break for about three or four weeks just to think about everything and do whatever he wants to do.

That allows him to come back and attack his rehab with some real vigour.

In terms of the knee itself, there are no signs of infection. We'll make sure the movement's right, the swelling's down and so forth and make sure that he knows what sort of recovery things, like stretching and icing, he has to do.

Apart from Juddy was he the player you could least afford to lose?
I don't know. I think Brendan would be a loss too. Could you afford to lose Chris Judd? No. Could you afford to lose Brendan, Waite, (Michael) Jamison? No, but it's funny because in times of adversity the challenge gets thrown to others and how others actually stand up is sometimes where your biggest growth comes from.

To take someone out and put someone else in their place creates a domino effect and everyone has to march up the pecking order.

I don't want to lose any of them, but that's just part of the game.

What sort of influence has Robert Harvey had around the club?
The biggest thing from my point of view is his passion for the game. He's very strong on his behavioural traits that he lived and died by. He was very big on that as a player just to get the most out of himself.

He's been really good in helping Bomber (Mark) Riley and myself. He's become fanatical about going through game tapes looking at the stoppages and looking at behind-the-goals footage to make sure that we get it right.

He instills that into our development group so that when we say to Steven Browne, 'Come on up' after six weeks at VFL level we can look at him and say, 'How good is that?' He's going to the right spots and to have guys be able to come in and do that has been great.

We go back a fair way and I reckon he's got a good balance at the moment. I'd like him to take the next step and become an assistant coach and be part of the senior team even more, but he still has a big input.

I have to ask you about 'They Know We're Coming'. Have you felt that has been a millstone around your neck at any point?
It's challenging for a football team to take that on board. Where our team sits it does put the pressure on, there's no doubt about it, but the bigger aspect is that we haven't played finals. We do need to take the next step and be in the top 50 per cent of the competition.

It might be one of the greatest membership drive slogans of all time. A lot of clubs are envious of how good it's been and the commotion it's created. Do you know any other club's catch-cry?