Senior Coach Luke Beveridge joined Gerrard Whateley to discuss the year ahead during SEN Membership Day.

On Hawthorn fixtures

It's one of those difficult periods on the journey where you haven't got too much perspective until you actually play someone and playing Hawthorn recently, obviously twice, I think Hawthorn will grow again this year. The thing about this time of year is that everyone's fit and strong and getting across the ground pretty well, so what we've done in recent times has been pretty encouraging. We usually build into a bit of a crescendo as far as our first big team goes and the team we put out in Launceston the Saturday just gone was a strong team. As much as the first half was bit disconcerting, to kick 15.5 in the second-half and finish the game with only playing the 22 and bringing Caleb (Daniel) on as a sub and sticking to the 75 interchange (rotations), which is a full rehearsal, was encouraging.

On team selection

I believe it is, yes, and the players handled it extremely well last week. There's some flashpoints in the year for me as far as people and player management and one of them is that week before you pick up your first big team where what we've done in the first hit out against Hawthorn, we've taken seven players out who would ordinarily you know be in that team, and for a couple of reasons and one of them was to give the guys a chance who are probably on the edge to play against Hawthorn’s better side and strut their stuff against the better Hawthorn team, and we didn't feel like the seven who came out were going to lose much from the experience and it's no easier sometimes to get a kick at state league level, and so that that's from a leadership point of view and growth opportunity was a good thing for us too.

On Ryley Sanders

He's definitely, you know, I think we've all got a sort of a twinkling in our eye around the promise of what he might do in the future. I mean the expectations around the first-year player and the influence that you might have, we've got to be careful with that and manage it. Especially when it comes to you know, the public messaging and the excitement levels around the player like Riley, but I have said recently that out of all the first few players that have come in, he's the most ready. You don't get many inside midfielder types that turn up who are 88 kilos, who can run an almost six-minute, 2km time trial has got the requisite pace who’s peripheral vision and awareness and skill and game-sense depth is quite extraordinary, and now to play against men and he hasn't really played senior football.

On Tom Liberatore

Well, there’s an intense desire on his behalf to be a leader. And as we know leadership takes on many forms, and ultimately in any, I suppose elite level sporting code the best leaders, they follow up their words with what they do performance-wise and he's consistently been quite outstanding for us, and he leads by example and I think the things that (are) integral to us are always evident in his game. He's contest and he's you know he's absolute vigour and attack on the football and the opposition is admired by his teammates and for him to now be in that space, you know he's grown over the years.

On expectations

So aspirationally, every year there’s not doubt that you think that all 18 clubs or well, most of them would be aspiring to finish in that top four, and it doesn't concern me, I mean the criticism towards me around not finishing the top four, it's not a factor for me it's. If we’re capable, we'll do it and obviously the aspirationally again this year that's where we we're aiming. I'm really looking forward to it. I believe we've prepared extremely well and I know we'll give a really strong account of ourselves against the Demons who are looking good. They were impressive the other the other night against the Blues. So more optimistic and enthusiastic towards that Round One opportunity and I know that our players have prepared well so it's gonna be a great game against a couple of clubs who have developed a little bit of rivalry now and we're really looking forward to it.

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