Paul Roos Quotations

We respect them as an opposition and they are going to have a real crack and so we need to as well.

No, I don?t think what happened last year or the year before has any bearing on this week.

If we get those three areas right, it won't be 72 years before we celebrate again.

For the sake of waiting another week, we can get in two sessions this week and next week. He has done a lot of running, his fitness is very good. He is 50/50.

He is slowly getting there. We expect him to take some time but he is now starting to focus a bit more on his footy.

I think in the past three years we've had a number of young guys who have got in early in the pre-season and played all throughout the season. Probably the main focus for tomorrow is to see how they go.

I thought that was the best we'd played for 2006, there's no doubt about it given the quality of the opposition and the pressure that they were under as well coming into the game.

I think there's also a clear understanding amongst the group now that you don't last too long within the boys' bloods system if you're not prepared to sacrifice for your team, if you're not prepared to do all the things that the boys require.

(Jared) Crouch came off with a bit of a rolled ankle (last week), but I think everyone is pretty good.

That does throw your plans a little bit. He (O'Loughlin) got through really well though which is a bonus and he looked sharp and fit so he looked further advanced than what we thought.

I thought his first-half was poor, naturally, because he barely got a touch. But I was very pleased with his second-half - he showed real leadership.

It is early in the year to be playing a game. We won't take any risks with anyone who we think might be doubtful.

Today that didn't happen, we've got to work out why?

What it means is you have to cover a bit more ground with your kicking and the ones that make a mistake coming to the (small) SCG try to change their game plan. It is very hard to change your game plan in a week. We think we've got a game plan that stands up on all grounds.

There hasn't been any evidence to suggest the umpires believe the game should be changed the way the rule makers think it should be.

We are still in the finals so we are still a chance.

There may be a little bit of interest, but I don't think it will be too great.

There's a lot of work still to go on the ground and you want to make sure that they've got a chance to prepare it for Saturday night.

It's interesting, I haven't heard a lot about the Japanese fellow but it's good for the game that he can actually get a game, I'm a bit more worried about the other 24 senior players he's got running around.

It was probably a couple of turnovers contributing to Carlton getting back into the game, but our ability to steady like we have done over the last couple of years got us over the line.

I hope that we come out this week and play with that genuine enthusiasm and play for the team and if we do that we are going to be a lot more competitive that we have been in the opening two weeks.

I look at the grand final last year: the three umpires that umpired that game were outstanding. I think on that particular day, it was a case of, 'we know what the rules are, we know what the fans want to see, we know how we want to umpire it, let's just stick to those three principles'.

Clearly we would prefer to train here, there is no question about that. That is the reason we have the sessions booked. You like to train on the venue you will play at and have a run around, but it won't affect how we play on Saturday night.

The main thing is the team that can persevere the longest and play contested footy for the longest is the team with the best chance of winning.