WESTERN Bulldogs Coach Brendan McCartney has confirmed that AFL Rising Star nominee Mitch Wallis was rested on Saturday night after showing signs of fatigue and illness.
When the Bulldogs announced that Wallis had been omitted - along with Ayce Cordy and Mark Austin - for the clash with Essendon, there was much confusion in the football world.
Watch Coach Brendan McCartney's full press conference on the media player above.
After all, 19-year-old Wallis had been a revelation, averaging 26 disposals from rounds seven to 12 before being one of many flat Dogs in the round 13 loss to the Brisbane Lions.
McCartney confirmed post-match that Wallis had in fact been rested rather than omitted, which only added to the confusion with many fans asking why Wallis needed a break just three weeks after a bye.
At Whitten Oval on Tuesday, the Bulldogs coach left no one in any doubt about the truth of Wallis' selection situation.
"Like most clubs we have a recovery monitoring system and, as a young player, [Wallis] was reporting significant soreness in muscles that, when they break, it's three or four weeks out, and early signs of some illness," McCartney explained.
"This isn't the first time we've done it and it won't be the last because young people just can't play a full season, unfortunately.
"Some young players, no matter how well we monitor and document it, [in] seven days they just don't recover [because] they're still recovering from the stress of the previous week.
"I think we get it right most of the time…
"Sometimes you get it wrong by a week. I think we had a couple out there on Saturday night that looked a lot slower than they tested at the draft camp. They're not actually as slow as they looked."
He said it was likely that Wallis, Cordy and Austin would return to face Fremantle in Perth on Sunday.
With his side losing three of its past four games by an average of 78 points, McCartney has drawn on his decade-long experience as an assistant coach at Geelong to light the path for the battling Bulldogs.
"Having lived through the development of some of the game's greatest players in the last 10 or 12 years, it just takes time. You have to be patient as a coach, and we are very united on that," he said.
"I remember games in 2002-03-04 where we'd be OK for a quarter then get smashed, or we'd be in front and get run over.
"Some of [Geelong's] greatest ever players didn't play much AFL footy in their first two or three years, and most of what they [produced] was just the basic contribution. Over time they were well coached, well prepared, well looked after, and that's what we're doing here."
McCartney bristled at a suggestion he'd said his players had given up against the Bombers.
"At no stage did I say we gave up. I would never ever accuse our players of doing that," he said. "There were some efforts at times that could have been stronger. Sometimes your head will do that to you when you look up at the scoreboard and it smells, and you haven't had a great day, and you think 'It's probably time for this game to end'. We've all been there."
The dirtier the day, the simpler the messages need to be for the players, McCartney said.
"If I was a supporter and I watched us on the weekend, I'd walk away and you could sit down and in two minutes write a list of 10 or 15 things to fix up straight away," he said.
"Does that help our players? Probably not.
"Just two or three strong, simple things that we can show and then practice and reinforce, that's where I think we can help our players."
