"No, I think it's one loss for us because it all starts fresh this year. It's a long work in progress and it's not just going to happen overnight. I think a lot of people out there think that it's probably going to happen and that we're going to come out and win games straightaway."

"Everyone's worked pretty hard and we went in confident we would run the game out and so we were pretty disappointed that didn't happen."

"They got inside and won the hard ball more than anything and in the end they got us on the outside as well. We let them back in late in that second quarter, which really killed a bit of momentum, just in the time-on period we let them have too many goals."

"They really beat us in the heat of the game, which was loose-ball and hard-ball gets. In the hard-ball gets they smashed us, it was something like 41 to 26 and that's where we really got touched up."

"It is round one and we knew this journey wouldn't be smooth sailing all the way. It was a disappointing performance but we have got nine days to redeem ourselves as a club and the individuals who played. I think we are moving in the right direction and it wasn't all going to happen overnight. The tide is turning for us."

"Just to get through the game healthy, after what I went through last season, meant a lot to me. We played some good footy in the last month of last season and then we've worked further at it over the pre-season, and hopefully, it will stand us in good stead for this year. We're off to a good start but we do have a long way to go."

"It's been a long pre-season, it's been a long time coming, this round one, and it was just so important to get off to a good start. It could build a fair bit of confidence. We were obviously down and rallied together, had a good win and ran out the last quarter well."

"As a forward, you need inside 50s and we gained some dominance in the last 40 minutes of the game in the middle. We had plenty of opportunities and then it's up to us to do the job, as a forward you just want one-out chances and we got plenty of those tonight."

"It was pretty disappointing, the first two shots; the third one, I nearly buggered it up but it went through, so I probably gained a bit of confidence out of that. I was able to kick the ones in the last half, which probably counted more."

"We have to put it in perspective. It was 15th versus 16th from last year so we are not getting carried away with the result by any stretch of the imagination. We did what we came here to do, albeit in a hard way at times."

"It is one win, really. The nature of this game is all it does is keep the wolves at bay for seven days or so. I do find it strange at times that decisions are made before people are going to go and what is going to happen before we have actually bounced the ball."

"We were never in a situation where we panicked on or off the ground. We thought we were competing all right at that stage of the game but we weren't using the ball very well. At halftime, that was my basic message. If we keep doing what we know we need to do, it will turn around OK for us."

"With Matthew, the technical aspect of his kicking is always going to be a little flawed. But if we give him enough supply, he's going to hurt teams."