Power coach Mark Williams was thrilled with the club’s tough hard fought win against St Kilda. Here’s what he had to say in his post-match media conference.

We’re thrilled to be able to win against a quality side, and keep their score down pretty well. Coming back from Perth with a lot of people thinking that that was going to have a big affect on us and that St Kilda would run over us in the last quarter, I think we got a lot of confidence out of that. Really well done to our fitness people and the medical staff to get people up to play.

Was the style of play exactly what you expected tonight?

There was a lot of tough clinches and they tried to surround our stoppages. I thought we handled it pretty well and played pretty tough.

Was it your most consistent four quarter effort for the season so far?

I’m not sure, I don’t do the statistics but I would think so. There were a couple of periods of time where they won the stoppages – just before half time and just after half time – but if you add the scores at the end of the quarters it probably says it was pretty consistent. St Kilda are a quality side, they’ve got brilliant players and a fantastic forward line and the fact is that we had to play for the whole time. It was never going to be a complete domination of time when we had the ball, they were going to get it, and they were going to score .

We just heard before that Chad Cornes could have surgery in the next day or so. How courageous an effort to continue to play for three quarters after hurting his finger?

It was right up there. When you go down a man early on it’s really a big concern for a club with the rotations as they are at the moment. For Chad to put up his hand and be able to mark the ball (unfortunately he couldn’t guide the ball down with his hand when he was shooting for goal so he missed a few), he was really important to our win, fantastic. I said in the room (to the players after the game), most people were unaware of exactly what had happened to him, but given the traits of the Badcoe Medal, Chad would have been a worthy winner as well, certainly under adversity he fought on and really led from the front. I’m sure that Kane will let him wear it now and again.

Kane Cornes: He’s already got one.

Yes, he has already got one, so they’re matching. Good on the Cornses. I know it means a lot to both Chad and Kane, given the fact that their dad served in Vietnam. We had him come and speak to our players a few years back prior to a (Anzac Round) game and that worked really well, and I’m sure Graham is very proud of his boys.

Just for the fans driving home, can you give us an update on exactly what is wrong with Chad’s finger?

I’ve got no idea. He has a broken finger. He has to have surgery and he will be out for a few weeks. He will miss that round after next week (Hall of Fame game weekend), so at least he’s not missing another game (for the Power) there. Hopefully he’s a quick healer.

The results of the past two weeks, how much does it say for the way you stuck solid both in selections but also in the way you want to play?

We’re not here to gloat. We’re here to believe in ourselves and believe in our players. They get a lot of confidence out of that. And we’re certainly not head strong to think that there aren’t things that we can’t improve on. As we’ve stated before, every time we lose and every time we win I guarantee we’ll find things we can improve on and that’s what we’re always looking for. Everyone else analyses us how they want and that’s their job.

Do you think tonight might have been a springboard for Tredrea’s season?

He played well didn’t he. I thought it was his best game for a long long time. Again I said after the game (to the players), when you want the captain to nail a goal, he did that tonight. That was really settling for us and that was a real big tick in his box.

Travis Boak, for a young player, you must sit up there in the box sometimes and just smile at some of the things he does?

He’s been a wonderful selection and certainly all credit to our recruiting people. He’s coming along quite nicely. I know that he’s got so much improvement in him and probably he’s right up there with the best we’ve had in regard to openness to listen and work hard. He will get to where he’s supposed to get to, don’t worry about that!

How did you handle three-quarter time considering it was coming back from Perth, the wind not helping you, plus all the others that have built up in the past few weeks?

I was delighted to think that the leaders took the players over the other side. It wasn’t me that took them over. They were pulling me over there. They wanted to respond to our group and be encouraged to our group and just not let the opportunity pass them by. They’re a very proud group of players where they really they want to be involved in the finals, they want to say ‘we’re not satisfied with sitting and watching everybody else go around’.

They kept it interesting for all of our supporters. It was terrific crowd that came here today. When I was driving here from down at the Bay with some of our supporters – and I know there are many Power supporters down that way – it was pouring with rain, so it was fantastic to see the crowd come out and support us on a night with such inclement weather and with Fox TV live.

Mark you’ve said before you like to pride yourselves on being able to string game together. Do you think you’ve got genuine momentum now?

We’ll take one game at a time, that’s all you can do is just prepare and get ready for the next one. It’s Essendon, they won’t be all that happy but they played a couple of days ago so they’ll be quite sharp and we’re playing at their home ground, so it has all those aspects to it. They’ll have a huge crowd there, so we have to be on our best game to beat them.

The work at the back, did that look a lot better to you tonight?

Adam Kingsley is a young coach, he’s on a very big learning curve coming straight from being a player. We were really confident that Adam would be able to work really closely with the players, and I thought he did a wonderful job sticking with them and understanding it’s such an inexperienced backline, with even Peter and Toby older players but really not having played there much. I was really delighted with the backs, I thought they were fantastic and we hope that the backs can stick together for a long long time. That was a great result for them.

Danyle Pearce was a late inclusion, how did you rate his game tonight?

It was okay. It wasn’t great. We were disappointed Krakour didn’t play. He came off the training track on Wednesday and he was a bit sore, but Friday he was okay and then we were thinking, ‘what are we going to do?’ But if you can imagine he was sore, then as happened Chad got injured, you really get yourself in strife if you bank on people that might get through, so I thought it was a sound decision. Nathan will probably be up for selection next week.

It’s the first time you go to Melbourne since that even last year, does that…?

We played in a practice game against Collingwood and did very very well.

I mean first game for premiership points. Does it (hold fears for you)…?

We’re not playing Geelong at the MCG I’ll guarantee it. No. No. Honestly, no, not at all. I love Melbourne, it’s the home of my wonderful wife and one of my children. We just look forward to it. I think half of our players come from Victoria. We’ve got no concerns going there at all.