PORT ADELAIDE senior assistant coach Michael Voss chatted to media on Monday afternoon.
Get up to date with all of the best bits from his press conference.
Voss on the improvements this off-season:
“We are at the phase now where we are starting the pretty heavy match simulation.
“As opposed to last year where we were introducing a lot of new concepts and getting around what that structure looked like.
“We are a fair bit clearer on the roles we want players to play, which gives us a chance to get into a bit more detail.
“If we can increase the depth of knowledge of our players and give some positional exposure, then this is the time of the year to do it.
“We feel well and truly advanced than this time last year.
Voss on the younger players continuing to develop:
“We are still in that stage where we have a lot developing.
“So, whether that’s got to do with the basics of contest, ball movement and understanding how we move the ball around.
“We still dedicate a fair bit of time to the simple things in the game, that will never change over 100 years of footy.
“We need to be more reliable when the pressure comes, and the guys have done a heap of work in that and dedicated a lot of time.
“We would like to see some improvement in a few of those areas.
Voss on some potential positional changes in 2020:
“The first match committee is always an interesting one.
“Where you might have thought of playing someone ends up being somewhere else. Positionally we know we want to give some players different roles and different exposure.
“Having Connor (Rozee) play more midfield. Karl (Amon) spent some more time inside midfield last year. Getting (Zak) Butters more midfield time - he played a lot at half-forward last year.
“We want to start to give exposure to these guys around the middle of the ground. This is the chance for them to understand the structure and running patterns that are required.
Voss on the fires in East Gippsland and the free clinic put on by Robbie Gray and Travis Boak:
“They’ve been through a lot in that area, and obviously have a lot of people in Australia rallying around them.
“To be able to have a couple of players that have gone down there, they can think about something other than what’s going on in their lives right now.
“They can think about footy and I think that’s what footy does best, is they rally around each other.
“Those boys doing what they did is just a real credit to them, and we are so lucky to have them as part of our club.
Voss on his personal connection to East Gippsland:
“It’s where I’m from. My old homeland in East Gippsland, and my area has had fires rip right through it.
“When you’ve got your cousins, uncles and aunties with fire on the doorstep or their surrounded in darkness with embers flying around is very scary.
“It has absolutely devastated the area.
Voss on encouraging people to help those affected by the bushfires:
“Whatever we can do to try and make that a little bit better, then I encourage people to do what they can and give what they can.
“It’s really hard sitting here to understand the total scale of what it looks like right now, but there are townships which have been affected enormously.
“They are just going to need some help to find their feet again.
