The Demons went tantalisingly close to a premiership in Gestier’s first year in charge, going down by a goal to Leeton-Whitton.

Gestier learnt a number of lessons from his first season at Crossroads Oval and is confident he has the Demons better positioned to get the job done against Griffith on Saturday.

“Hindsight’s a great thing, looking back last year I sat here again and said we’re in great shape, we’re better placed, all this, all that but definitely this year I feel we are,” Gestier said.

“Obviously going through what we went through last year, we’ve had a few changes, eight or nine guys rotated through the group, we’ve had a different approach, were hungrier at pre-season.

“Me being in my second year, you become a bit more accustomed to everything, your surroundings, so I think we are better placed. Whether that equates to us winning on Saturday, I’m unsure, but I’m very happy where we sit right now.”

Gestier explained that it was not so much grand final day, but the result and then reviewing the season as a whole that helped him prepare the Demons differently for their 2018 campaign.

“Last year, it was no secret, if you looked over the whole year we were probably the best side spanning across the year and then Leeton just came with their run later towards the year and they got us,” he said.

“And to be honest, I thought we played a lot of our best footy early. So it was about tinkering and how we could do things better and seeing blokes in different positions and this and that.

“Whereas last year we had a formula and we stuck to it through thick and thin and at the end of the day it didn’t get us there, so this year a big focus was to have guys that could play a variety of roles. Tom Keogh, for instance, was probably the best centre-half-back going around last year, he’s now found himself in a variety of roles this year, the ruck, half-forward. I never thought that would have happened but it has.”

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