Interview with Choco on 5AA

[Ford Fairlane]

Up on their website now. Goes over 15 minutes (plus some pre discussion w/o Choco about Francou's comments on Tredders = be amazed as G Cornes defends Port!). Cornes needles Mark a bit and he fires up (not a lot tho by his standards ;)).

Choc gives Rooch a bit of stick too.

http://www.5aa.com.au/site/home.aspx

[FishingRick04]

Up on their website now. Goes over 15 minutes (plus some pre discussion w/o Choco about Francou's comments on Tredders = be amazed as G Cornes defends Port!). Cornes needles Mark a bit and he fires up (not a lot tho by his standards ;)).

Choc gives Rooch a bit of stick too.

http://www.5aa.com.au/site/home.aspx

I thought his answers were good, He admitted the midfield was the issue and our forward structure is efficient.

[Natman]

I thought it was one of the most open interviews that Choco has done.

I am more convinced than ever that he needs to be there for some time yet - he is clearly the best available at the moment.

[erical]

Quite a good interview actually,Gave Rucci a bit of a bagging and not to keen on Francou's comments about Tredders either.

[hereselmo1]

Yeah a good interview, goo to hear chocco being more candid, even if he is still stubborn, lol.

I would have liked to have heard the terms hard balls gets though.

i.e. Q= why are our forward entries down.
ANS= because we dont get our hands on the pill.

[Macca19]

Still think that Francou is seriously underrating Tredreas influence when in his peak. Everything hes saying he doesnt do, he actually did do when his body was able to perform at its best...and even this year hes doing it a lot more.

Bit of a summary for those that cant be arsed downloading:

Said we will be trying some new faces but also those that have played previously just to find out where they are.

-Said the same things about Thommo again re: OP, giving rest etc. Said he got injured on the weekend and only ran laps so may not play this week.

-Mentioned White and said he wants to give him a chance in defence to see if he can make it as an AFL defender. Said they put him up for trade to every club and noone wanted him. Also said Deluca will get a chance very soon. Stewart will come back in

- Spoke about the best teams at the moment (Cats, Dogs, Hawks) and said that its taken the Cats a long time to get to the level they are now...said a lot of their stars have come from 99-01 drafts and said that it does take time for players to hit their peak and come together. Said Hawks and Dogs are a bit different as they got a number of topline players in the top 5 draft picks which has helped set them up, but again mentioned key players from both teams from 99-01 drafts.

- Spoke about why we havent won these games despite being in it with 3 minutes to go each one. Said luck to some degree, Shaun, Ebo, Chad being out, mentioned poor decision making, mentioned not being up to it mentally, not taking control of games and they all add up to why we havent won these close ones.

- Cornes queried gameplan (Not quick enough going forward, poor forward structure, not leading to right areas), Choco said forward line very efficient, got a bit angry at the criticism. Said we are a poor inside50 side but our effectiveness is amongst the best in the AFL. Said we turn it over too much, ball movement not good enough, stoppage clearances way down on last year

- Said Shaun has had a foot injury all year and playing with injections for the first 6 weeks of the season.

- Spoke about Rucci for a while.

- Said they have a group that come in after each game and give criticisms/feedback about all issues. Said all he cares about is Port Adelaide first and Port Adelaide winning and thats his number 1 priority.

- Focussed on giving youngsters an opportunity and wants himself and the players to get better at coaching, leadership etc.

- Said Chad having surgery is 50/50

- Said they wont 'tank' but is looking towards next year similar to 2000.

- Talked up Tredreas captaincy and said that all 3 of our Captains havent brought everything to the table but have all been very good. Said off field he is outstanding and that Tredrea being up forward and Matty in the Ruck and always in the play that he hasnt always had the chances to do what Matty might have done. Also had a sly dig at Francou saying 'Josh didnt spend much time in leadership anyway'.

Good interview I thought.

[hereselmo1]

Said all he cares about is Port Adelaide first and Port Adelaide winning and thats his number 1 priority.

That was my favorite bit.

[Santos L Helper]

Said all he cares about is Port Adelaide first and Port Adelaide winning and thats his number 1 priority.

That was my favorite bit.

Yeah that's great. All is forgiven.

What happened about the previous 13 weeks?

[TheFansOwnTheGame]

Up on their website now. Goes over 15 minutes (plus some pre discussion w/o Choco about Francou's comments on Tredders = be amazed as G Cornes defends Port!). Cornes needles Mark a bit and he fires up (not a lot tho by his standards ;)).

Choc gives Rooch a bit of stick too.

http://www.5aa.com.au/site/home.aspx


If only Chocco could install some of the fight he put up on the radio into his players. He is tough and was a tough player. So what is his love affair with all these outside players.

PS. Would have loved him and Francou in the same team

[wallumi]

- Cornes queried gameplan (Not quick enough going forward, poor forward structure, not leading to right areas), Choco said forward line very efficient, got a bit angry at the criticism. Said we are a poor inside50 side but our effectiveness is amongst the best in the AFL.

Ummm, what were the comparative inside 50 stats for goal scored last Saturday?

[Malibu#27]

Ummm, what were the comparative inside 50 stats for goal scored last Saturday?

Same argument as Cornes tried to use, but Choco correctly pointed out our inside 50 count is at a level that only Melbourne are below (608).

His comment was that when we get it inside 50 we are efficient (3.3 disposals which is one of the better ones). He mentions that if we want to talk about our system of getting it forward he had a point, but that our forward line is efficient (but could be improved on).

[TheFVK]

If only Chocco could install some of the fight he put up on the radio into his players. He is tough and was a tough player. So what is his love affair with all these outside players.

PS. Would have loved him and Francou in the same team

Am somewhat bemused/ disappointed by that too- compare to Matthews, Clarkson, Laidley, all gritty hard players who seem to have instilled similar virtues in their respective teams as coaches.

Could this current love affair with the "outside" player be due in part to Choco's love of the indigenous player; Pearce, Shaun and Peter, Rodan and even Motlop to a lesser extent? I love seeing these guys play but I see their names continually being brought up in this forum.

Just a thought.

[Shane_Mag]

Great interview. Looking forward to seeing what Choco is gonna do for the rest of the season with the team.

[Macca19]

Ummm, what were the comparative inside 50 stats for goal scored last Saturday?

According to ProStats weve got the 2nd worst Inside50 count in the league yet we are 8th in Goals.

In terms of Inside50s/Goals

3.11 - Bulldogs
3.20 - Hawthorn
3.22 - Richmond
3.26 - Port Adelaide
3.36 - Collingwood
3.45 - Essendon
3.46 - Geelong
3.47 - Sydney
3.62 - Adelaide
3.65 - Carlton
3.70 - Brisbane
3.71 - Kangaroos
3.73 - St Kilda
3.91 - Fremantle
3.94 - Melbourne
4.44 - West Coast

So we are right up there, weve just gotta get it in there more often.

[Killer Power]

Cheers Ford, a good listen. (A cracking epsiode of Behind Closed Doors there too for those that missed it).

Conducted himself well the coach, one thing you can say about him is that the passion is still there.

[RussellEbertHandball]

Still think that Francou is seriously underrating Tredreas influence when in his peak. Everything hes saying he doesnt do, he actually did do when his body was able to perform at its best...and even this year hes doing it a lot more.

Agree with you Macca.

Bit of a summary for those that cant be arsed downloading:

Said we will be trying some new faces but also those that have played previously just to find out where they are.
So they should. I looked up the players we had used by Rd 11 and that was 27 players and the next was 29 and that was one of the top 3 sides, everybody else had used over 30.

-Said the same things about Thommo again re: OP, giving rest etc. Said he got injured on the weekend and only ran laps so may not play this week.

The club should have explained his situation earlier especially when he was getting so much of it at SANFL level but couldn't get a game.

-Mentioned White and said he wants to give him a chance in defence to see if he can make it as an AFL defender. Said they put him up for trade to every club and noone wanted him. Also said Deluca will get a chance very soon. Stewart will come back in

White has to be given a go especially if he has no trade value. We have to find out if he is worth keeping. To me that means barring injury, Bob, Chappy and White play half a dozen games as the 3 tall backmen. Toby has to be given a rest after he recovers from his injury or play forward and Pettigrew moved forward, either 0n the HBF, wing or forward.

- Spoke about the best teams at the moment (Cats, Dogs, Hawks) and said that its taken the Cats a long time to get to the level they are now...said a lot of their stars have come from 99-01 drafts and said that it does take time for players to hit their peak and come together. Said Hawks and Dogs are a bit different as they got a number of topline players in the top 5 draft picks which has helped set them up, but again mentioned key players from both teams from 99-01 drafts.

That's true so maybe the club should have had lower expectations after last year. The likelihood of us repeating what we did last year was always going to be less but we should have broken even with the close games.

- Spoke about why we havent won these games despite being in it with 3 minutes to go each one. Said luck to some degree, Shaun, Ebo, Chad being out, mentioned poor decision making, mentioned not being up to it mentally, not taking control of games and they all add up to why we havent won these close ones.

I have no doubt that if we got over the line in one or both of the Geelong (rd 1) and Adelaide games our mental approach would have been a bit different in the other closer games post rd 3. There is no doubt that we made dumb decisions in or forward lines against Hawks and Swans in the last quarter. Yeah our nothing forward line in the 3rd quarter against Hawks was bloody annoying but we were still in winning positions against them in the last.

- Cornes queried gameplan (Not quick enough going forward, poor forward structure, not leading to right areas), Choco said forward line very efficient, got a bit angry at the criticism. Said we are a poor inside50 side but our effectiveness is amongst the best in the AFL. Said we turn it over too much, ball movement not good enough, stoppage clearances way down on last year

I agree with the fact that we are efficient inside our 50, but part of the reason we don't get more inside 50's is that we sometimes don't bloody kick in there, because we want a perfect pass and don't have the confidence to kick to a 50/50? Why? Because we don't have enough big blokes in there on a regular bases.

Macca's figures showed Choco was correct. Also I put these figure on TPFP last week and it confirms we have kicked more goals than last year after Rd 12. But we should look at changing our forward line structure to be even more efficient.

Last year the ladder after 12 rounds for Port was

Pos Team------- P W D L For -----------------Agn
8 Port Adelaide 12 7 0 5 1127 (160.167) 1130 (163.152)

Westhoff played 3 games up to that point for 9 goals 3 behinds
Ebert had 25, Motlop 9, Shaun 14, Tredders 13, Rodan 15, Chad 4, Lade 9 White 10, Gray 6. So these 10 players had kicked 117 of 160 goals.

This year
Pos Team--------- P W D L For -----------------Agn
12 Port Adelaide 12 4 0 8 1136 (167.134) 1199 (175.149)

Westhoff has played 12 games up to this point for 8 goals 11 behinds
Ebert 20, Motlop 33, Shaun 18, Tredders 23, Rodan 13, Chad 5, Lade 6, White 0 and Gray 8 for 134 of the 167 goals.

So whilst the Hoff has been inaccurate the rest of the team has improved. The other midfielders are kicking less goals. That's partly to do win our midfield being beaten so badly this year. Brogan and Lade have won the rucks all year and have some of the highest hit outs to advantage percentages in the league, but our mid field hasn't been good enough to take advantage. We won the hit outs 46-14 in Rd 1 v Gee, 49-26 in Rd 2 v Sydney, 50-27 in Rd 4 v Bris, 50-24 v Syd in Rd 9, 65-21 v Clt in Rd 10. The only side to get close was Hawthorn in Rd 8 when we won 32-28 but in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, Taylor and Campbell were excellent and hitting many taps to advantage at centre bounce downs straight after a goal.

- Said Shaun has had a foot injury all year and playing with injections for the first 6 weeks of the season.

Well that confirms what I have thought all year. He has been unable to tackle players by running them down like in the past or his opponents have twisted and he cant twist as quickly as them and they get away from him. That did happen too often in past season. I think he has had an ankle injury which the club has kept quiet. Gerard Healy's 3AW intterview with Choco around rd 3 hinded at it that Shaun had an inturupted pre season but Choco denied it.

- Spoke about Rucci for a while.

I though he summed up Rucci nicely.

- Said they have a group that come in after each game and give criticisms/feedback about all issues. Said all he cares about is Port Adelaide first and Port Adelaide winning and thats his number 1 priority.

Good to here.

- Focussed on giving youngsters an opportunity and wants himself and the players to get better at coaching, leadership etc.

Nice motherhood statement. Trying not to be cynical but actions over words are needed.

- Said Chad having surgery is 50/50
I reckon he should play for a little longer. As Choco said he trained really well on Friday and then does his calf 10 minutes into a game. Sometimes you can't win.

- Said they wont 'tank' but is looking towards next year similar to 2000.

Interesting comment that he went to his annual mid year board presentation in 2000 and said do we play for draft picks or to win games in the second half of the season. The board said listen get something out of the rest of the year, we won 6 (not 7 as Choco said) of the last 10 and made it a springboard to 2001.

Paraphrasing Choco, if we did tank and finished bottom in 2000 and got a priority pick and St Kilda didn't, we would have got picks 1 and 2 and Choco indicated we would have picked Riewoldt and Koschitzke. Makes you wonder if sometimes you should play the system or play to win.

- Talked up Tredreas captaincy and said that all 3 of our Captains havent brought everything to the table but have all been very good. Said off field he is outstanding and that Tredrea being up forward and Matty in the Ruck and always in the play that he hasnt always had the chances to do what Matty might have done. Also had a sly dig at Francou saying 'Josh didnt spend much time in leadership anyway'.

Agree with what he said. Did bracket Josh as a dinosaur I thought.;)

Good interview I thought.

Agree. Wish he would be as forthright as this more often. I guess pressers straight after a close loss are not always the best avenue to get your message out to your supporters.

[Power King]

Am somewhat bemused/ disappointed by that too- compare to Matthews, Clarkson, Laidley, all gritty hard players who seem to have instilled similar virtues in their respective teams as coaches.

Could this current love affair with the "outside" player be due in part to Choco's love of the indigenous player; Pearce, Shaun and Peter, Rodan and even Motlop to a lesser extent? I love seeing these guys play but I see their names continually being brought up in this forum.

Just a thought.

^Am I the only one who thinks he's one of our best (if only) inside midfielders this season? Always puts his head over the balls and surely is leading our clearances this year, perhaps even hard ball gets?

edit: and rodan is fijian

[RussellEbertHandball]

Maybe Choco is influenced by the fact that Pickett, Wanganeen, Senior and Junior all had big days on that one day in September. And that blackfella's have won 6 (by 5 players) of the 29 Norm Smith's awarded might also influence him a bit.

[passion_1930]

According to ProStats weve got the 2nd worst Inside50 count in the league yet we are 8th in Goals.

In terms of Inside50s/Goals

3.11 - Bulldogs
3.20 - Hawthorn
3.22 - Richmond
3.26 - Port Adelaide
3.36 - Collingwood
3.45 - Essendon
3.46 - Geelong
3.47 - Sydney
3.62 - Adelaide
3.65 - Carlton
3.70 - Brisbane
3.71 - Kangaroos
3.73 - St Kilda
3.91 - Fremantle
3.94 - Melbourne
4.44 - West Coast

So we are right up there, weve just gotta get it in there more often.

What I find amusing is that our leading inside fifty player for the last year and this..pearce is the one so many want to drop and trade. I would say we need players who can deliver into the fifty, rather than kick sideways or worse still backwards and just rack up the stats.

[Santos L Helper]

Why has it taken turmoil for williams to come out with all this stuff that appeases the supporters? It's got all the hallmarks of giving the people what they want, but actually doing just what he pleases anyway. Reminds me of when Ben Cousins used to flash that cheeky grin and Eagles supporters would think..."Aww look at him, he can't be guilty"


....then the truth came out. :)

[Eddie Woloschek]

Why has it taken turmoil for williams to come out with all this stuff that appeases the supporters? It's got all the hallmarks of giving the people what they want, but actually doing just what he pleases anyway. Reminds me of when Ben Cousins used to flash that cheeky grin and Eagles supporters would think..."Aww look at him, he can't be guilty"


....then the truth came out. :)

Not one line of Williams' interview convinces me. Inside 50s? Given the refusal to kick to a contest, the time wasting at the end of quarters, the inane interchanges, the lust for kicking to the flanks and the fact that pour key goalkickers get their possessions on the wing , I am convinced we could turn Fev or Franklin into a goal a game forward if they played for us.

[Burninglevi]

^Am I the only one who thinks he's one of our best (if only) inside midfielders this season? Always puts his head over the balls and surely is leading our clearances this year, perhaps even hard ball gets?

edit: and rodan is fijian
No. I've been saying he needs to playthe whole game in the middle for a whilenow. He started there last week but wasn't there at the start of the second half. I think we loose a hell of a lot when he isn't in the middle.