The second instalment of a five-part series, coach Dean Laidley considers the Roos’ road from round one to the mid-season bye.

Round one saw a big loss to Essendon. How did you assess that, especially given the achievements of 2007?
It was just round one. Coming into a new season, the opposition have a new coach, they haven't beaten you for a while, it's very exciting. We came into the new season [and] we had very, very poor pre-season games.

We played the Bulldogs in Darwin which we lost by 10 points, we played Brisbane's probably fourth-ranked or fifth-ranked team the week after. They left all their guns at home.

The following week we travelled to Fremantle and they did the same thing to us. And then we came back and played Melbourne where we were at full strength, and that was the first time their best team had been put together because they had a lot of injuries in the pre-season.

So we had some very, very soft games, and I don't think that helped us going into round one.

What about the draw with the Swans in round six and the confusion in the days that followed? Do you rue what could have been or what should have been?
No, I think once a decision's made you get on with it. Did that player have an influence? Did he not have an influence? There's a lot of grey areas in it. Sure, we would have loved the points. If we were good enough, we probably should have won the game anyway.

Round 12's heavy loss to Fremantle – was that the lowlight?
No, not really. I felt we performed terribly but it was probably the youngest side that I'd ever coached in my time here. I think we had 13 blokes under 25 games or something like that and, if you had have watched Fremantle's form for the previous three or four weeks, even though they hadn't won games, they were playing pretty good footy. I always knew it was going to be tough.

We started off okay, but then the score blew out, which has probably been a little bit unlike us playing in Perth over the last few years.

It was disappointing, but the thing for the coach is to be able to stand up and tell them how disappointing it was but then be able to, in the same breath or the next day, make sure that they remain positive heading into the next week. And I'm pretty sure we had a good win the next week.

How incensed were you after the game and did Daniel Harris and the midfield wear the brunt of it?
It wasn't just Daniel or the midfield. I thought it was the whole team. The way we went about it, we dropped away significantly in some of our key areas. Every facet of the game was disappointing, so it wasn't just one thing. But I don't believe it was the low point of the year, probably St Kilda was.

How proud were you then to win against Hawthorn a week later?
It was a good win. We've had a really good run in the last probably six weeks with injury, but we've still played 37 players which I think is in the top four for the year. We've started to get consistency. We haven't copped the injuries where for a few weeks there it was three in, three out, four in, four out, that sort of stuff, which made it really difficult for the team to settle.

And all of the guys that we bring in, I think we've debuted six more this year which is probably in the top two or three in the comp. So from that aspect it's been really pleasing and now we're getting consistency with how we're playing, that's what we're after. The Hawks win was a very good win but I suppose we started to be a little bit more consistent coming into that part of the year.

You warned of failure ahead of the clash with St Kilda. Did you sense something?
No, not really. It's really interesting when you look back last year, we'd come off a pretty good patch and we had five travels in I think seven weeks. Our last travelling game, Brisbane in Brisbane, we got smashed. They were buggered. That St Kilda game was directly on par with that middle part of the year.

Even though we were in front, I thought we were really ordinary and I thought they were worse. I thought we were flat and it was just lucky we took some opportunities, but it just looked like we were out on our feet. As it was in the last 15 minutes, we got overrun and that was probably the low point of the season.

How timely then was the mid-season break and how worried were you about the side's inconsistency to that stage?
I wasn't worried because I thought there were some real valid reasons for it. Last year our back seven played pretty much the whole season, where we were chopping and changing through injury and our forwards and also a bit of form.

[This year] (Nathan) Thompson's form fluctuated, Corey Jones', Shannon Grant's fluctuated, so there were some older guys that weren't playing consistently enough as well. So it did come at a good time, but I thought I made some pretty hard, strong decisions earlier in the year that perhaps had paid off then.

But we didn't really get a rest because there were a few of the off-field things that happened which has been well documented. But I thought with all of those events, it helped us redirect the ship if you like and, on top of that, getting some consistency with our team selection, starting to get a few players back and some guys match-hardened and finding a few players. [We also saw] the maturity of (Lachlan) Hansen and (Gavin) Urquhart, Leigh Harding, so that's been pleasing.

What about the defence? Because Michael Firrito and Josh Gibson wore brickbats from the media in that time.
Yeah, they did. But defence is all over the ground. The poor old defenders cop their opponent getting multiple goals on them, but sometimes too if you played Superman on them it couldn't stop them. It depends on the pressure up the ground.

We've stuck by them and they've both ended up having pretty big years, but there was a patch there where they came into a bit of scrutiny. Some of it was perhaps their fault, some of it was probably further up the field.

Click here to read part one of Laidley Loud and Clear