In the second episode of the new podcast The Footy Phil, the co-captain talks about the club’s historic win plus his views on all the latest hot topics including Dustin Martin and the CBA.
The GIANTS launched a new podcast series with Phil Davis last week with the key defender getting his chance to share his opinion and insight on everything going on within the club and the footy world this week.
Among many other topics, this week the skipper shared his thoughts on the following:
The win over West Coast
“It was definitely in the top five wins I’ve had. Where it sits exactly I’m not sure but it would be right up there in terms of challenges. Playing West Coast in Perth I think is the hardest game you can play in terms of travel and against a side that know their ground really well. It was just amazing and I think how we played made it great as well. I know we won by eight points but I think how we played and our pressure and everything was outstanding and I think that’s the best we’ve played this year.”
Talent v Hard work
“It’s always nice when the media can change their tone a little bit around their commentary on us. I think we’ve always believed that we work really hard, I’d love to invite people up to watch us train and go about our preparation and see how hard we really do work. It’s nice to get rewarded and I think they probably back themselves into a corner saying how many injuries we have and all this talent missing but we’ve got really good depth. We had some young players who stepped up and played really well. I thought Matt Kennedy, it was the best game he’s ever played, and Harry Himmelberg came in and did a great job as well. You get a bloke like Tim Mohr who hasn’t played in a year in as well. I think it just shows that what we’re doing away from the field is building us for good moments like that where we just have to play hard.”
On the media
“You’re definitely aware of it (the media commentary), 100 per cent. You’ve just got to give it the certain weight by each comment, it depends on who it is as well about how much weight you give it. If you let people who are ill-informed cloud your own thoughts then you’re in for a long, long time. People who have got good knowledge and the set up, you can listen to those kind of things because sometimes it’s a good way to actually improve from an external set of eyes. You can’t get bogged down too much because there are people out there who have got no idea what goes on up here and they decide to sit on their arm chair and have a go.”
Dustin Martin/Josh Kelly/Free agency
“I think it’s really entertaining. Obviously I’d rather it not be involving a Josh Kelly but when you’re a good team people want your good players and that’s just how it works. Every player now has got the license to do negotiations any way they want. In particular, Dustin is a free agent so it will be really interesting to see what he does. Obviously you can tell he loves the Richmond footy club but he might decide it’s up to him to set up his life forever after football and get the most amount of money that he wants or he might chase a team that he thinks has the best chance of premiership success. It’s amazing how everyone wants him to make a decision but it’s due diligence by Dustin to suss it out and see what’s happening. I think it’s just interesting for footy. Loyalty is still a big part of our game, if loyalty wasn’t such a big part then there would be far more movement at the end of every year than there actually is. If you want to stay with your group of mates or on your journey that you think will have premiership and have success then you play for less money and there are a lot of players here at the GIANTS who do that, who play for a lot less money than they could get elsewhere to chase that success. It’s more than likely Josh will have to make that decision.”
The AFL CBA and cricket’s stalemate
“The CBA is tracking well, hopefully we get a result in the next few weeks I think. It looks like all the negotiations are in good faith and they’ll get done up. The Cricket Australia one is a really interesting one. It’s amazing watching Cricket Australia, the Board or whatever they call themselves, trying to really isolate players and make them look like the bad guys but if you actually look at what they players are saying, they’re not asking for any more money, they’re just asking for the same percentage share they’ve always had. It’s just funny that sport get run by trying to do it through the media.”
There’s plenty more in this week’s episode of The Footy Phil, including the second player in running for the Teammate of the Year award and Matt Kennedy’s hero moment at Domain Stadium.
The GIANTS take on Essendon on Saturday June 3 at 4.35pm at Spotless Stadium with Kids in Free for every game this season. Click here to get your tickets now.
