The key talking points from Luke Beveridge’s weekly press conference ahead of round seven against Essendon.

Player availability

Laith Vandermeer will be available, and Mitch Wallis should be available. Obviously the tragedy can never be totally offset by the birth of a child, but the joy in that is overwhelming. Mitch is desperate to play football now – he’ll definitely be playing either at AFL or state-league level this week

Anthony Scott will be out with the health and safety protocols – we just found out this morning – so he’ll be one that won’t be available. As far as mingling – we’re testing everyday, and everyone else has tested negative this morning so hopefully (it doesn’t spread). Scotty is the only one under the protocols at the moment.

We’ll give Robbie McComb another chance this week. Robbie works extremely hard, and he had his opportunities with the footy that we believe over time he’ll make the most of, but he’ll definitely play again this week.

Injury updates

It’s going to be a slow one for Mitch Hannan– the indefinite status lingers with him. He seems to be coming along okay, and he’s definitely doing more training-wise, but I can’t tell you exactly when he’ll be available at this stage.

We’ve got Tim English on paper as 1-2 weeks away, so it might be tight for the Friday game against Port Adelaide but we’ll wait and see. We don’t anticipate he’ll miss any more beyond that game.

It was Sam Darcy’s first real main training session with the group the other day, and Josh Bruce was involved in that as well. Our staff are saying that Sam (will probably be ready) post-bye, but talking to Sam this morning, he’s keen to bring that a bit further forward. We think he might even be able to play some state-league footy before the bye, which would be fantastic to get him out there. These foot injuries are a bit temperamental and can be nasty – we feel like we’ve got him in a pretty good position now after his rehab. Now we’ve just got to build, build, build – he’s just a young pup, but it’d be good for him to play some minutes for Footscray before the bye.

Lessons from round six

We let ourselves down with execution with how and where we kicked it, and how well we competed ahead of it. We’ve got to improve in that area this week, and take more control of it so Essendon don’t have the intercept opportunities that Adelaide had last week.

Regardless of the ins and outs, and casualties along the way, we still believe we’re capable of winning every week. I know I’m always the supreme optimist and I always talk that way, but I think there are small margins in terms of gains and losses – rather than wins and losses – in each game, and we just haven’t been on the better side of the ledger.

Our playing group is enormously steadfast in what they’re doing, and in our style as what we’ve always approached as being the best game-style to ultimately test teams out whenever that may be. We just know that we’ve got to tidy up these small gains that we can make. Everyone knows we’ve turned it around as far as the win-loss ledger historically at different times, but you can’t wait for that. We’ve got to force it.

One point last week seems like a diabolical outcome to go 2-4, but ultimately we feel like Adelaide are going pretty well and we weren’t far away. We still remain upbeat – this week presents as another opportunity to strive to get up the ladder.

Vision in rooms

It’s a challenge because of the broadcast and what (media) want. I suppose the intimacy and privacy of it has to be a consideration. Those cameras in the rooms – I don’t know whether there can be any discretion around those situations, but I believe you always have to consider what the individual is going through at the time, and whether you’d have normally have access to that, especially when it is a medical thing. I don’t want to make any big statements about it, but we’ve probably got to work together as clubs and broadcast to find whether there is a fine line that shouldn’t be crossed.

Centre bounce/ruck contests

It's the most confronting thing in the game – two ruckmen running at each other and sticking their knees up. There’s no two ways about it. Obviously it has been embedded in our game since its history so I haven’t got a firm belief whether it should change or not, but I think we’ve all got to acknowledge that its confronting. I don’t really have a firm statement on it.

Mix of midfield/forward minutes

It’s a critical consideration for a player with Marcus Bontempelli’s influence. Last week he started forward again but we just couldn’t get the ball to him, which doesn’t help. I think the most important thing for Marcus is that we strike a really good balance to keep him in the game and keep the momentum in his game.

Our midfielders in general – there is some malleability there. They move in and out forward and inside-mid roles, but it’s a discussion that Marcus and I are having regularly, and he’s having with our coaching group. He definitely has a license to be in there and out of there at different times, but we usually go in with an agreed approach to that. That’ll be no different this week.