Are you glad to be playing Sunday given the recent events of the last seven days. Does it give you chance to get your head around what’s happening and that you’re definitely playing?

The biggest change from a football point of view is the shorter quarters and more rotations, so I think every club is probably spending the last 12 hours on what that looks like for their side, what might be a potential strength or ways to expose a shorter game time. Of course, the environment as well, how does the stadium feel and look like when you’re playing with no one in it?

Have you made a decision on who partners Nic Nat in the ruck and does that change given the shorter quarters?

Well it does a little bit. Nic has traditionally played 60 or 70 minutes, so whoever supports Nic in that role probably has a reduced game or they go forward. There’s all of those things that we’re looking at. Most of our rucks are available, so we’ll name two of them in the squad and we’ll see how they go. We’ll make the final call tomorrow.

How excited are you to be debuting Tim Kelly? I know there’s not going to be anyone there, but given there’s been so much hype about him this pre-season are you excited to see what he can do out there on game day?

It’s been a pretty smooth transition for us, but you don’t really know until he starts playing. We probably play a different style to Geelong, it’s a different home ground; Geelong … is quite skinny and long, whereas Optus is wide. Does that affect the way he plays? He’s got new teammates. But what we have seen is the same Tim we’ve seen in Geelong. Expectations are no different than are on Luke Shuey, Andrew Gaff, Dom Sheed or Jack Redden, they’re all a collective. I know there has been attention on him, rightly so, he’s a new recruit, he’s been a great acquisition for the club. But it’s not about round one, it’s not about just this year. It’s long-term for us, we’re not putting too much pressure on him in his first game.

So no question marks over those three, McGovern, Darling and Kennedy?

No, not for a few weeks. I mean they haven’t played a full pre-season. JK is carrying a little bit of an elbow, but he hasn’t missed a beat really, he’s got to walk around with a bit of a guard on but it doesn’t change the way he does his weights, trains or plays. He’s never been unavailable and Darling has missed up to three or four weeks with that fracture, but he played the intraclub last week. He trained fully today so he’s no worries, and McGovern played a half of footy against Fremantle and played a full game in our intraclub on Friday, so they’re all available and ready to go.

If Brander plays on the wing what does he bring to the team? That’s been a real positive in pre-season, Brander emerging?

He’s 6’5”, he’s one of our best runners, he’s got really good repeat speed, he’s got really good endurance, so while we recruited him as a key position player his body composition probably suits more of a role up as a high half-forward or a wing. He’s had really some good minutes pre-season doing that. He’s played three AFL games, he’s in his third season so we’re still working through what his best footy looks like but he’ll play this week, he’ll get that opportunity.

Is there any way you can prepare for any empty stadium?

We trained there today. I suppose the only thing we did a little bit different today is we normally play music all session and try to get a really good atmosphere and we trained in the silence of the stadium and tried to generate your own enthusiasm. The boys are up for it. Obviously it’s for everyone across the competition. We’re really going to miss our fans and supporters, they’re the heartbeat of our club, so trying to put on a good show for them is our goal and we appreciate all the support we’ve been getting.

Simon Goodwin said this morning that the Demons are actually quite pleased with the fact that they won’t have to face up to Optus crowd. How much of a role do you think that the home crowd actually plays in the whole home ground advantage?

I don’t know, we’ll find out in the next few weeks I suppose. One thing I won’t be talking about is the crowds when we play away. We’ll miss our crowds for the support, but hopefully we can get by without them. We know they’re all watching and supporting us from on their couches. But when we travel I won’t be talking about the crowds and how much of an advantage that might be.

Adam, I was wondering what was your reaction yesterday when it was announced the season was going ahead? Was it a sense of relief from you/. How did you react to that announcement?

I don’t think it was relief, it was probably excitement I suppose. We’ve spent the last six months preparing and to be told that it might not be on or start on time in our environment for what we do as a job, it becomes a bit of a concern. When you get the relief that the game is on; the fact that it is an opportunity to put a smile on people’s faces who might be going through some tough times with work and situations at home, I think that’s a bit of an honour for us. It’s a good chance to lead; I think our players look at it that way and I know the industry is looking at how they can help put a smile on everyone’s faces. I’m proud to be a part of that more than anything.

Just how important is football and sport in general for the community? Is that something you spoke to the players about, that there are a lot of people struggling at the moment and this is something they can look forward to each week?

Not directly. I’ll speak to them on Saturday, but there’s a balance between it’s just footy. Some people don’t particularly care about AFL and sport, but some people love it and live and breathe our industry. We acknowledge that, we acknowledge there might not be a whole lot to do at home. There s not much sport on TV. Obviously the priority is the health and safety of our players and our staff and we’re going off recommendations from government and obviously the AFL. If things change they change, but at the moment we see the risk being at a level where we can go forward. We’ll back that in and do our best.

If I could jump back to the 16-minute quarters, when you heard that change was being made did you look through other positions outside the ruck where you could use that to your advantage?

You don’t look at what is an advantage, more what does this mean? It’s 90 rotations as well, so can you play your better players longer? That’s probably what everyone’s looking at. Does Luke Shuey have to come off the ground? If a quarter goes for 30-35 minutes he might need two breaks, but if it goes for 20-25 minutes well maybe he gets to stay on a bit longer? I think that would be across the board what people will be looking at. We’ve got a few compromised athletes who can’t play every minute. What does McGovern’s game look like? What does Nic Nat’s game look like? Gaffy, does he need to come off at all? We need to look at those things and I’m sure every club is doing the same.

Do you also go through Melbourne’s list and try to anticipate what they will do?

Not yet. I would assume someone like a Max Gawn, albeit coming off an injury, might not need too much of a rest. Probably across the competition you might just see one ruckman who can punch out 100 minutes. It’s probably where it’s going, but that’s a complete guess and every club is different. We are a bit different to that, so we’ll have a different system. That’s the exciting part, the tweaks that the changes to the rules provide to strategise.

I imagine it must have been a tough match committee for you as you seem to have a lot of guys fit an pushing for certain positions. Can you share some of your toughest calls when you were picking your team this week?

No, not really. They are always tough. There’s always a decision that is debated on and there’s an argument with someone. We never fully agree on the side and this week it was no different. There are some younger players coming through that we want to give some exposure to. The form line, we haven’t been in great form in the two pre-season games. We need to elevate to another level if we are to compete this week. Whilst the talent is there and the names look great, we’ve got to get them to play at their best. It’s not just who they are, it’s what they’ve been doing and how they’re going. There are always conversations on the last two or three players.

Is there anything that you guys can do to manufacture atmosphere or anything you can do to give it that more home ground feel?

Well, they can’t silence the crowd; that goes in our favour. Not really. The players are on the ground and they’ve got a job to do. Some players, maybe they need that environment and some players might thrive without it. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen. This week we will look across the competition. I think we’re the last game of the weekend, so maybe we might pick up some things that we haven’t thought of without thinking too hard about how we are going to handle it. We trained (at Optus) today and we train there every other main session when we can and there’s no one there when we do that, so maybe that gets us in a good frame of mind?