Voss on Xavier Duursma having a quieter training session today:
“He’s fine. The guys have had a full load to this point in time, so it’s as much about managing the load than anything else.
“We are starting to move into that period where most of those guys will get a rest throughout the year and we tend to look at the program first before we look at any other options.
“With all of these things it’s better to be pre-emptive rather than reactive, so we tend to look at it that way rather than wait for something to happen and see signs that they are tipping over.
“The ground he’s covering in games has been monumental. He’s one of our highest runners in terms of output.
“He’s taken on a pretty big workload, so we are keeping all of those factors in mind and just making sure he’s ready to go.”
Voss on team selection:
“We aren’t expecting any changes I wouldn’t have thought.
“We look at last week, we had a loss, but you look at form over time as well.
“If you’ve got players who have played two or three weeks well in a row and then there’s one game where they are a little bit off, it would be silly of us not to consider the previous few weeks.
“If you look back on the season and you have 15 or 16 good games then that is a really good year, so within that you are going to expect six or seven that aren’t that great.
“We put that in a melting pot and weigh up all those factors.”
Voss on Robbie Gray and Rockliff:
“They did what they had to do today and it’s progressing as planned.”
Voss on preparing for the Tigers:
“When they have their star players missing, if you’ve got a preference, clearly, you’d like them not there but that doesn’t change our planning.
“We don’t now sit in the background and highlight the four players that aren’t there.
“What we are going to face in a Richmond jumper that has been a pretty impressive football club, not just a team, for quite a while now.
“Their brand has been built on pressure and if we’re not ready for that and can absorb it then we will succumb to it.
“We will go about our planning as normal.
“We want to put a style of play in where we have focused a lot on ourselves in the first part of the season, so that won’t change for us.”
Voss on the new dynamic in the coaches’ box:
“It’s pretty good. What I will say, it’s quieter because when you can’t send the runner out, it’s having an impact.
“Whatever control we felt we had previously, which was probably none, it’s definitely been taken away now.
“It’s a lot quieter. A lot of good discussions up there though.
“You always hope the coaches are proactive in tight situations. You want to be composed yourself because we have to communicate that down to the players.
“Our focus over the pre-season is to try and get the players as independent as possible out on the field.
“To be able to make calls, lead those decisions and back those decisions in throughout the whole game.
“The game is heading that way where they are trying to remove the influence of what we can do.
“So, it is largely player-driven, as it always should be, so it puts more onus on your leaders and as a collective group to get it done.
Voss on the new rules:
“There’s been a lot of talk around the rules and interpretations and I think there have been some fantastic initiatives that have been introduced.
“If you look at the rules and what they’ve introduced I reckon there’s been some real positives in our game and they will continue to evolve.
