Scott on the Collingwood challenge

Like all teams that are towards the top of the ladder these days, you can't have too many flaws.

It is easy to highlight their strengths but more to the point now, if you are really strong in one area but maybe because of their evolution in their list build they can be weak in another, that makes them vulnerable.

The good teams have good attack, good defence, good contest, good system, that is more the way I look at Collingwood.

The midfielders get the plaudits but at both ends, their collective has been really solid and their experienced players are playing well. 

Scott on Tom Stewart

The Tom Stewart decision was made probably pre-training yesterday.

It maybe snuck up on us a little bit, he was obviously sore from early in the game against Carlton and battled on to get through. But he just didn't recover as well as we would have liked.

It is not a purely precautionary thing, but more and more the way we think about these things is evolving. It is moving more towards instead of thinking could this guy play, maybe the right question is more should he play in the context of where he is at in his career and where we are at in the season.

If you start pushing him to get up for Collingwood, then you play GWS the next week or Port Adelaide over in Adelaide, trying to prioritise individual games doesn't make much sense. 

Scott on Mitch Duncan's return

I reckon we would have found a spot for Mitch this week either way.

As you know we are not huge believers in the six-day break thing, we came off Brisbane with two six-day breaks in a row and Gather Round in there as well, and we played really well in some of those games.

Having said that, there has been a little bit of thought given to how we are going to use Mitch through this period.

It was in the back of our minds that this was a possibility, the Stewart thing probably helped it a little bit but I suspect that we would have done it anyway. 

Scott on the takeaways from Round 7

We feel like we have had a good week, off the back of the way we allowed the game to be played against Carlton.

Everyone is really disappointed you lose but it is funny, you can get a little bit of a pep in your step later the following week.

You think if things like that didn't happen, maybe we would have been a little more passive on trying to adjust for the next game.

We think that we are better prepared from the loss. 

Scott on George Stevens

He is close.

It is always a good indication when you are the carry over emergency because it means that if something happens, we would be happy for him to play.

He is in the squad again and is right in the fame, so he is doing a good job.