Port Adelaide assistant coach Luke Webster said the game review this week was largely player-led, to allow the playing group to delve deeply into the areas for improvement ahead of the second half of the season. 

Following a disappointing loss at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night against Carlton, the bye comes at an opportune time to refresh and reset for Round 14 and beyond. 

Webster spoke with the Adelaide media on Monday to review the Blues game, talk about the season so far, and look at the upcoming mid-season draft. 

Webster on the game review 
“We had a good review just then with the players. As Carry (Josh Carr) mentioned after the game, we really wanted to try and give our players an opportunity to delve into the reasons why, so we gave them some stats around each area – offence, defence, stoppage, contest - and got them to digest the numbers, and then start talking to their groups around, what does that mean to them? What vision do they need to see that complements that, where we broke down? And I thought the players worked through it really well.  

“Probably the big area was that we missed a lot of tackles in and around the contest and allowed Carlton to get through us in that space. And then there's probably an offence part where we got stuck in our back half a lot, and that's probably been a strength of ours in that period, where we were going really well. We were able to get out and get full ground transition. We got pinned at our back half, and then there's the other part of when we entered inside 50, we couldn't stop it there enough. So there's probably three phases around our defence of our front half, our offence out of our back half, and around the contest.” 

Webster on missed tackles 
“There's probably a technique side of things that we talked about in that review, around how you come in and how you approach a tackler, but then the opportunities for our players to be able to keep stepping in. And because we kept missing tackles, it draws you closer and closer into the contest, and that's how sides get you on the outside. So we've got to continue to buy into the system that we have.”  

Webster on Ollie Wines limited game time on Saturday 
“A bit of it was that every week we've had someone on that (reduced game time), and Ollie, when he first came into the team was on that, and we just saw him as a player that we thought could have the limited game time and have better impact in the game. That didn't work out for obviously Ollie and us on the weekends, but again, across the board, we had a number of players that didn't perform at the level that we would have liked, and Ollie was a part of that, but we had probably four or five in each line, which again we got the result we got.” 

Webster on the midfield mix 
“We put Joey Richards in there a little bit on the weekend, which was really good, and you know he can continue to build his game. Moraes has had some goes in there, Watto’s (Jack Watkins) had some opportunities. You know, Jase Burgoyne, we ended up putting Butters to half back and putting Jase on ball. Logan Evans is building some really good confidence and craft as a defender, but he's another guy that we could potentially throw there. So we do need to continue to help those other guys, but again, our frontline guys are going to continue to keep weighing into the roles that we want them to play, and how can they be really structured in and around that, and then confident with other guys around it.” 

Webster on Zak Butters’ shifting to half back on Saturday night 
“It was good. He gave us some energy. He certainly gave us some energy, and we talked about that. We talked about it all year with different guys going back there, and it gave us an opportunity on the weekend just to give Carlton something different. We needed to change the game, and putting him to half back was about energising the back half ball movement for us. We were getting stuck there, and I thought when he went back there, he did a really good job of that.  

“Selfishly as a backline coach, I'd love to have him back there, but again, we’ve got to keep continuing to build guys in their best positions, but also we got to keep looking at ways of changing the game when it's not working for us, and that was the reason why we did that.” 

Webster on the mid-season draft 
“We’ve got a meeting after this to delve into that a little bit deeper. I know Cripper (list manager Jason Cripps) and the list management team have been working hard behind the scenes of what's going to be the best for our group. Obviously we’ve got at the moment two guys that are talls, that are on our long term injury list, so potentially we may look at one tall. We’ve got to look at all the different phases of our game and what players are potentially going to be available at those picks we’ve got. If there's guys that are available that we think can complement any line, then our group will go after those guys. 

Webster on Josh Sinn moving to the inactive list 
“Sinny’s done a good job to get himself to this point right now, and there was hopefully an opportunity that we were going to get him back to play some sort of footy this year, and he put himself in that best position. But obviously, as the year has worn on, it's got to a point where it's like, are we going to get much out of him? How many games is he actually going to play? Do we start to look to set him up for his best opportunity to play his best footy year next year? And that's the path we've gone down.” 

Webster on resetting for the second half of the season 
“Part of that was in that team review just then, but it was more about reviewing that game, and as a coaching staff, we're going to sit down this afternoon and work our way through the foundations of our game and really give some clear clarity to our players around where we see it at, and where we need to continue to keep chasing elements of our game to keep improving as a group. And we'll give them some clarity around that obviously on Wednesday and then when we get back after that four days (off), hopefully the players get a great opportunity to reset and refresh. It's been a big front half of the year, so hopefully they come back refreshed and ready to go.” 

Webster on the year so far 
“Look, we're not happy with the games that we lost, we want to win as many games of footy as we can. But if you do look at it from where we started the year to that middle part when we started to play some of our best footy, and yeah, we dropped off on the weekend, and that's going to be the challenge for our group, continuing to keep buying in if potentially we aren't getting the wins that we would like, but buying into the way that we want to play and the systems that we want to produce. That's where we’ve got to give clarity to our players and keep them going into that space. If I walk away from the mid part of the year, yeah, we'd like some more wins, 100% but there's a lot of numbers and a lot of foundations within our game that we set that will hold us in good stead to be able to win those games, now we’ve just got to really finish off that work for us.” 

Webster on Todd Marshall moving into the forward line 
“I think (spending time in the backline has) helped him develop a little bit more of a skill set that he didn't have before. We know purely about his offence, he's very good at seeing the space, he's very good at seeing options that other guys don't see. Certainly, there's some defensive craft stuff that he still needs to continue to get better at, but again, it's only going to help him more if he is going forward for the rest of the year. He can take some of the stuff that he's learned as a defender of what worked against him. And how can he apply that to his forward line craft. 

“With anyone, you want to try and give him the best chance to perform really well, and we’ve got to settle him in that spot. And similar to the conversation we had with Bergs (Miles Bergman) around, he'd sort of been here, there, and everywhere, and settling him down back. We were trying to give him some confidence and build him back into the one position. And certainly, the game on the weekend didn't allow a lot of our forwards to have any sort of dominance in the game. As he built into the game, he got better, which was good, and he's going to be better the next week when he rolls out.” 

Webster on Josh Lai’s development  
“It's been really pleasing. There was a lot of conversation around the role that we gave him on the Wizard against the Hawks, and from that game, he's taken those learnings, and I'm so glad we gave him that opportunity to have a go at that type of player. He’s only gone far and ahead of where I thought he would be. His learnings, and his ability to adapt his game to what the AFL stage is right now. We're seeing the benefits of that, and all credit to him around taking his learnings, how he's structured his week, how he's gone about his training, how he's learned, and then applying it, is a true credit to himself.”