West Perth coach Bill Monaghan sings the club song with his players after their win over South Fremantle in the preliminary final.
Camera IconWest Perth coach Bill Monaghan sings the club song with his players after their win over South Fremantle in the preliminary final. Credit: Supplied/Matt Beilken

WAFL grand final 2018: West Perth coach Bill Monaghan lays groundwork for Optus Stadium clash with Subiaco

Bill MonaghanJoondalup Times

THIS week is pretty much a week as normal.

We did our recovery and review of the South game on Tuesday night.

Wednesday night was our main training session and Friday night we’ll do our last training session leading into Sunday’s game.

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The challenge for the players is that it is an exciting time of the year; everyone wants to talk footy.

But they just have to stay calm and do what they normally do. Enjoy the moment but not get carried away and overthink it and play the game before they get there on Sunday.

That will be the messaging. We just need to be our very best. We’ve shown over the past couple of weeks that our very best is good. Hopefully it will be a great game and we can come out on top.

n Last week (for training) we got the ground brought in a bit at Joondalup Arena in preparation for South Fremantle.

Fremantle Oval is about 10m narrower than the arena and only three or four metres shorter, so we just brought it in to give the players a feel for the oval.

But my take on Optus Stadium is it is about the same as the arena, so we won’t be doing anything with that (at training).

Unfortunately with the Eagles playing there this week, there is no access to the players prior to Sunday.

So some of the guys will be seeing the ground for the very first time and definitely the very first time for being out there.

It’s a wonderful opportunity, a wonderful stadium. I’m sure they’ll be excited.

We would have loved to have got on the ground for a walk around.

It’s going to be a quick deck.

There will be a little bit of rain forecast in the morning but should be a fine day and there is plenty of open space there.

So we’re looking forward to it; it’s very similar to Joondalup Arena.