Former Roos Coach and 300 game player Dani Laidley

**Mark Duffield** (0:00)
Welcome back to the SENWA studio out here at Optus Stadium. It's chilly this morning on this Tuesday morning in Perth, but the sun is shining, it'll be warming up very, very soon.
Dani Laidley played and coached 300 AFL games, of course, at West Coast, at North Melbourne, and as a coach at North Melbourne, where she took the Kangaroos into a preliminary final in 2007 She joins us on the show now, she's a regular expert analyst for us. Welcome, Dani.

**Dani Laidley** (0:30)
Good morning, Duff, how are you?

**Mark Duffield** (0:32)
Very well, thank you. Hey, it's a massive game coming up on Thursday night at Optus Stadium. Fremantle versus Geelong, first versus third. Your thoughts ahead of the game?

**Dani Laidley** (0:44)
Really interesting.
I've got an article coming out tomorrow on this. I went back and watched the game over the last few days, and looked at the stats, and looked at why Geelong, you know, the only team that have beaten Fremantle. And it was very interesting. So really looking forward to a chance-bored game this weekend.

**Mark Duffield** (1:17)
So I had Mark Stone on the show yesterday, and obviously he's the coach of Perth, but also has been in the AFL system for an extended period of time. He made a comment, which I think he was applying it to the Perth Demons in their game against Claremont. But I think it applies in the AFL as well. He said, when you're playing good teams, you have to beat them twice. You can't just beat them once, because if you get on top of them, they will come back at you. And I got a feeling that that's what happened in round one, that Freo beat the Cats once, but they didn't beat them twice.

**Dani Laidley** (1:53)
Yeah, exactly. And what was really interesting was, apart from the opening round argument versus the round one argument, you know, Freemantle got off to a fly and they played away, which we've seen a little bit of this year, but not a week in, week out. That's that forward handball game, bang, bang. And they were at times, you know, kamikaze with the way they went about it. And it worked early.
And then, you know, Freemantle, I mean, you're right. Then Jetlong were able to kick back the clock, if you like, in this Fijeria and gain momentum through that.
But, you know, I also looked at the vulnerabilities of Freemantle's defense at that point in time. Alex Pearce, if you remember, didn't come on until halfway through the first quarter, I think it was, and was quite underdone. And he did well, but he fatigued. Oscar McDonald was okay, then he fatigued. No Brennan Cox, no Luke Ryan. Brandon Walker was his first game back for a long time. Judd McVee's first game. And it just didn't, the defensive system wasn't what we see at round 15 going into this week. So it'll be really interesting how Geelong go about it. Except on the table, they have a real crack at trying to knock a free man off and go up to zip this year and have a mental edge, if you like. Or do they just go and play the game? And see what unfolds. It's going to be really interesting.

**Mark Duffield** (3:52)
Where do you think the game will be won and lost, Dani? And are free man or further evolved, do you think, from the team you saw lose that round one clash?

**Dani Laidley** (4:01)
Oh, much further.
They have different modes, different gears now, which are all in sync back at round one. That wasn't the case. And that's been the evolution of this year. But the reality is, it starts in the midfield. And depending on, you know, what happens there last time, O'Sheen Mullen went to Calabasarong. But does he have a job on Bolton, Young, Murphy Reid, who hasn't had a tag this year? Luke Jackson was unbelievable.
Do they run Mark Brooks with him the whole game? And we know he can run and go with Jackson. So, but for me, that's where it starts and stops. And then the ability for free mounds to get the ball in there quickly, lower their eyes. You might find that Patrick Boss has a job on Tom Stewart. Yeah, so, really interesting watch, and going to be great for WA to have, you know, a game like this, you know, on the big stage.

**Mark Duffield** (5:27)
How good are the Cats, do you think? Where do they sit in the Premiership pecking order at the moment?

**Dani Laidley** (5:34)
You know, I think it's still too early. We see some, you know, I know they won on the weekend, but they lost their two games before that, to Colton and to Adelaide, in Adelaide. And before that, you were thinking, gee, they're starting, they're getting on a roll, so they've still ebbed and flowed a little bit.