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Michael Hagan Post match media Conference - Round 1
17 March 2007 Q) WAS THE SECOND HALF AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE FIRST HALF? A) Yes, and it needed to be. I thought our second half, or at least part of it was a lot better. We nearly got ourselves back in the game at one point there. A couple of errors at crucial times in decent parts of the field - they are the ones that hurts us the most I think. Q) WHAT DID YOU SAY AT HALF TIME? A) I just said that I thought the Warriors were physical, they played very fast and if we could control the tempo of the game which we did - we completed 10 out of our next 12 sets and controlled the next bit of the game and got back into the game ourselves. We just didn't sustain into, certainly for 80 minutes. We also copped a couple of injuries in all of that which made it tougher on the players. I thought they dug in well in the second half - we knew it would be a tough assignment first up over here. Q) WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THOSE INJURIES? A) Both Fui and Ben suffered knee injuries. Fui will be out for a week or two but we are hopeful Ben will be OK. Q) IN YOUR OWN COLUMN IN THE AUSTRALIAN THIS MORNING YOU WROTE OF THE NEW HALVES COMBINATIONS - WAS THAT A FACTOR FOR YOU TONIGHT? A) Yes, and I think it is going to be a factor for a number of weeks, and I think we are not functioning as well as we can and we knew that would be the case. I'm sure we will get better in due course and Brett and Tim will get the team running better in coming weeks. Timana Tahu had his first game back and he and Jarryd haven't had any time together - I think it was going to be a few weeks before we could expect the team to be at its best, obviously Nathan Hindmarsh and Eric Grothe are part of that as well. Q) WHEN ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE THOSE TWO BACK? A) Not really sure, we are hoping for next week but at worst it will be Round 3. That is something we knew and I thought the players handled that bit pretty well in Nathan's absence tonight, he is an important part of the team. I thought Nathan Cayless was outstanding in his contribution tonight - he carried the ball well, he led the team well and had to do a lot of work and I was really happy with some of the performances and that was certainly one of them - Daniel Wagon played 80 minutes first up which is fantastic, Ian Hindmarsh got through a heap of work. There were certainly some positives out there. Q) YOU PLAY THE RABBITOHS NEXT WEEK - ARE YOU EXPECTING SOMETHING SIMILAR? A) They will certainly be a good football team. It may take them a while to get going too but up front they are going to be a much better outfit. Q) WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE WARRIORS? A) They played very well. We didn't play as well as we wanted to but they also played extremely well and they are going to be a very difficult side to beat, especially here if they are playing in that sort of frame of mind http://www.parraeels.com.au/news/news1469.asp |