Today is another step for me in an unchangeable trajectory.

I can remember during the Brisbane game earlier this year that I had a go at a few posters for being overly negative. I would like to apologize to those posters and say that I was wrong.

I am now genuinely of the opinion that performances such as those yesterday can never be judged as satisfactory. If we keep thinking of ourselves as the poor cousin, we will continue playing as we are and will continue to be treated likewise. There is a reason Eddie, Dwayne Russell et. al. are disrespectful and condescending towards us. It's because we don't respect ourselves. We (the club and some of it's supporters) consign ourselves to defeat against the big boys before we even turn out to play. This attitude is hardly one that engenders awe in the opposition.

Against the Swannies, the effort was there. Yet, I was far from happy. We need to win. I am not saying we burn AAMI park down, dump chicken poo on the front door step of the MCG or send cows' hearts to Peter Jackson. I am saying we will never be respected as a club if we just resign ourselves to defeat.

Today is another step for me in an unchangeable trajectory.

I can remember during the Brisbane game earlier this year that I had a go at a few posters for being overly negative. I would like to apologize to those posters and say that I was wrong.

I am now genuinely of the opinion that performances such as those yesterday can never be judged as satisfactory. If we keep thinking of ourselves as the poor cousin, we will continue playing as we are and will continue to be treated likewise. There is a reason Eddie, Dwayne Russell et. al. are disrespectful and condescending towards us. It's because we don't respect ourselves. We (the club and some of it's supporters) consign ourselves to defeat against the big boys before we even turn out to play. This attitude is hardly one that engenders awe in the opposition.

Against the Swannies, the effort was there. Yet, I was far from happy. We need to win. I am not saying we burn AAMI park down, dump chicken poo on the front door step of the MCG or send cows' hearts to Peter Jackson. I am saying we will never be respected as a club if we just resign ourselves to defeat.

I don't know if it's unchangeable, but there is a perfect word in the English language that captures the tone, mindset and culture of this club......MEEK.

Yesterday, the players were meek against the Cats. I normally like watching Geelong, but Kelly and Johnson had no respect for their opponents yesterday.

That, I found, was disappointing.

If the roles had been reversed and Nathan Jones had "kneed" Steve Johnson the Footy Show panel would be calling for a three week suspension. Instead there is "nothing in it".

Stevie J = Protected species - both on and off field.

gezz we had over 100 tackles gezz if we could just make them stick we would of had 200 tackles

Given the heavy conditions did not allow free flowing running you would expect a very high tackle count. At one stage Steve J ducked and broke 3 tackles of which probably 2 out of 3 would have normally resulted in a free kick to him for around the neck. Too many of our players were brushed aside when tackling, initiated tackles that went high, or ended up in the backs of the geelong players when they buckled their knees. The umpires cut us a lot of slack in the tackling department for bad tackles, unfortunately they also cut Geelong a lot of slack in the correct disposal department.

If the roles had been reversed and Nathan Jones had "kneed" Steve Johnson the Footy Show panel would be calling for a three week suspension. Instead there is "nothing in it".

Stevie J = Protected species - both on and off field.

With his recent record you can't claim that!

He's not Luke Hodge or Sam Mitchell!

He put his knees into Jones's sternum and put his weight into it he didn't drop like an Embley. It's move on for mine.

Watching the replay now.

Observations to mid point second quarter:

Toumpas is going to be something special, is starting to find his feet.

Matt Jones is better and braver than I have realised.

Nicholson is confirming that he is simply not good enough - he lacks sufficient skill and he makes poor decisions.

so 2 out of 3.

And the effort is there. There's no giving up here - just difficult wet weather football which probably favoured the home side.

Been saying this all season on here, and all season many D'landers have been howling me down and calling me crazy.

As each game passes more change their tune. I'm sorry Nicholson, i'm sure you are a fantastic bloke and you are really fit but you are just not of AFL standard and are a liability in the side.

Been saying this all season on here, and all season many D'landers have been howling me down and calling me crazy.

As each game passes more change their tune. I'm sorry Nicholson, i'm sure you are a fantastic bloke and you are really fit but you are just not of AFL standard and are a liability in the side.

I dont think you'll find many if any howling you down now or before. He has been played as a tagger three weeks in a row and his opponent has had 30+ touches each week.

Edited July 14, 201312 yr by big_red_fire_engine

I dont think you'll find many if any howling you down now or before. He has been played as a tagger three weeks in a row and his opponent has had 30+ touches each week.

Hope Mackenzie gets through the match today. It's time to bring him back. At least he can actually shut down his opponent, and win clearances. Even if he can't run like Nicholson.

And bring back Strauss FFS, sick of having so many [censored] kickers in our team.

If the roles had been reversed and Nathan Jones had "kneed" Steve Johnson the Footy Show panel would be calling for a three week suspension. Instead there is "nothing in it".

Stevie J = Protected species - both on and off field.

And why couldn't our boys give Johnson a bit back? Why didn't Jonsey get up and remonstrate?

Another facet of our game that needs to improve. Get pumped all over the ground and still take cheap shots from fig jams like Stevie J.

I don't know if it's unchangeable, but there is a perfect word in the English language that captures the tone, mindset and culture of this club......MEEK.

Yesterday, the players were meek against the Cats. I normally like watching Geelong, but Kelly and Johnson had no respect for their opponents yesterday.

That, I found, was disappointing.

I guess I was talking on a personal level. There was a time I believed in an 'honorable loss'. I now am of the opinion we either go out there to win or we don't turn up at all. I used to forgive losses like the one against Brisbane, Richmond or Sydney. Now, to me they are just losses and another time we have failed.

I guess I was talking on a personal level. There was a time I believed in an 'honorable loss'. I now am of the opinion we either go out there to win or we don't turn up at all. I used to forgive losses like the one against Brisbane, Richmond or Sydney. Now, to me they are just losses and another time we have failed.

19 inside 50's in 2 hours of football is a disgrace against any team.

Pathetic effort from a fully professional sporting team.

The Red & Blueprint: how to be a complete failure.

Edited July 14, 201312 yr by why you little

19 inside 50's in 2 hours of football is a disgrace against any team.

Pathetic effort from a fully professional sporting team.

The Red & Blueprint: how to be a complete failure.

Pretty sure Schwab wasn't involved yesterday mate, get over it.

I recall when Daniher was our coach that we hadn't won once in the previous 19 years down there and we'd played them every year, so you can only assume that we've now played them for at least the last 30 years down in Geelong with a handful of games at the G as well.

I doubt that in any code, in any other Country in the World, that there would be a more lop sided disadvantage given to any team.

It must stop. We are not their freebee and shouldn't have to be, the games must be shared more equitably.

We play em at the G and lose about $70k. They play us at the Cattery and make $500k. That in a nutshell is why the AFL has stuffed this comp.

Pretty sure Schwab wasn't involved yesterday mate, get over it.

Get over yourself Stuie & stop following people around this site like a lap dog

The stain of the past still remains

My opinion is different to yours

We play em at the G and lose about $70k. They play us at the Cattery and make $500k. That in a nutshell is why the AFL has stuffed this comp.

What a load of BS.

We've made our bed by playing woeful football and that's why we don't fill the MCG and make a profit. When our performances improve and we're a top 8 side the P&L will change.

What a load of BS.

We've made our bed by playing woeful football and that's why we don't fill the MCG and make a profit. When our performances improve and we're a top 8 side the P&L will change.

I think you might find that because of the very reasons you suggest that the results are those of jnrmac . They arent mutually exclusive. Just an observation

we are not a mentally strong side.

Many will argue this as a furphy but more often than not , as a result of the attitudes of some of our side, the game is lost before the first bounce. Some have the right spirit, but are dragged through the mire because of the anchoring effect of the rest of the team.

You see this in who chases, who applies the second efforts, who do the 1%'s . There are not a lot of members to that select group.

Teams who are "up" can smell 'resignation" and feed off of it.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but IF Mitch Clark were playing and saw Johnson knee Jones in the face, there would have been melee fines and a real shift in the psyche of some of our players.

On a happier note, watching the Swan v GWS game (1st quarter only) I noticed Scully running hard and making space and no-one passed it to him!!!

Not great sharers are the boys from GWS.

What a load of BS.

We've made our bed by playing woeful football and that's why we don't fill the MCG and make a profit. When our performances improve and we're a top 8 side the P&L will change.

But this is all about making money for the Cats and gifting them a game every year; irrespective of the outcome of the financial side of the equation, there has to be an element of fairness in the fixture.

We play them there every year, they win, we lose, and they make a [censored] load of money on the way through, we don't get the opportunity of making even a small profit from our game against them or at least evening up the contest a bit because we simply don't get the chance to play them at our home ground.

Now we hear the richer clubs [censored] and moan if we get any sort of hand out, but this is the most blatant handout of all and the rest of the fixture is not far behind. We all know how hard it is to win down there, but other club's supporters don't because they never go there. In the last 30 years we have virtually conceded nearly as many games because of the rigging of the fixture.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a game against them in Melbourne instead of down there, and playing in front of a crowd of maybe 30,000 plus, half of which are ours and not having to make the trip down there later on in the year.

I went yesterday (yes I recognise the madness in doing so).

What an utterly miserable day at the football. When we are a good side and playing good footy regularly and the footy becomes enjoyable once again, I will cast my mind back to games such as these, which will help me realise just how much we should enjoy and appreciate the good times.

The rain started teaming down from about halfway down the highway to Geelong and did not stop until Sunday. Even better I had a seat in the open and didn't take my poncho. The beauty of going down to Geelong is that if you're sitting in the open or standing and it starts raining you have absolutely nowhere to go. So it was just a case of sit in the open, put the hood on and suck it up while my jeans became so saturated with water that you could have filled a 2 litre bottle if you wrung them dry.

Worst of all not only were we playing one of the best teams of all time at their fortress of all fortresses of a home ground, but probably the best wet weather team I've seen. The rain also meant that the only area we could possibly exploit them in (tall forwards) was completely neutralised.

Now I know some will say that in dry weather they would have won by 100 points, but I disagree completely with this. We would have been more competitive on a dry day and the rain only served to exacerbate the skill and midfield differential between the sides. A wet game is all about your midfield and any deficiencies in this area are further exposed in such games.

I thought we had a dip but we just could not compete with a far, far, far superior side at their home ground and on their favoured track. Perhaps in better conditions we could have moved the ball out of defence with some fluency and attacked off half back with more success, but Geelong basically smashed us out of the middle, drove the ball forward and in the conditions we just could not get it out and into our forward line. This was due to a combination of not being good enough, failing to adjust to the conditions and playing a side that just set up so well behind the ball that any pressured or bombed kicks forward (which is the norm on wet days) just get picked off at will.

In general I thought the effort was there but the one thing that annoyed me was the number of times our players stood 5m behind their opponents which resulted in easy marks to Geelong.

For those having a go at our tall forwards, I really question your understanding of football. I can't remember a game we've played with rain falling as steadily and as constantly as that (perhaps there have been but I've been under cover and not out in the elements!). 19 inside 50s on a wet day is a recipe for disaster for a tall forward - it gives them absolutely no hope.

I get that four goals is unacceptable, but let's not forget these Cats had conceded only 4 goals against the best attacking side in the competition (Hawthorn) last week up until midway through the last term in pretty good conditions at the MCG. These were diabolical conditions at Kardinia Park against third rate opposition.

This does not excuse the performance, which was far from good enough, but it does put some context around our opponent and just how damn good they are.

It also does not take anything away from what was just a miserable, depressing day at the footy. You get a fair indication of the game when you see Geelong supporters leaving at half time just to get out of the unrelenting rain. The result was always inevitable, the game was a slog, we hardly went forward and I sat there getting wetter and colder by the minute.

The only positive is that I didn't catch pneumonia.

The conditions leant to it but did I see we had 100+ tackles. That positive and I still think our tackling effort was ok but in terms of technique has a lot of improvement left.

I went yesterday (yes I recognise the madness in doing so).

What an utterly miserable day at the football. When we are a good side and playing good footy regularly and the footy becomes enjoyable once again, I will cast my mind back to games such as these, which will help me realise just how much we should enjoy and appreciate the good times.

The rain started teaming down from about halfway down the highway to Geelong and did not stop until Sunday. Even better I had a seat in the open and didn't take my poncho. The beauty of going down to Geelong is that if you're sitting in the open or standing and it starts raining you have absolutely nowhere to go. So it was just a case of sit in the open, put the hood on and suck it up while my jeans became so saturated with water that you could have filled a 2 litre bottle if you wrung them dry.

Worst of all not only were we playing one of the best teams of all time at their fortress of all fortresses of a home ground, but probably the best wet weather team I've seen. The rain also meant that the only area we could possibly exploit them in (tall forwards) was completely neutralised.

Now I know some will say that in dry weather they would have won by 100 points, but I disagree completely with this. We would have been more competitive on a dry day and the rain only served to exacerbate the skill and midfield differential between the sides. A wet game is all about your midfield and any deficiencies in this area are further exposed in such games.

I thought we had a dip but we just could not compete with a far, far, far superior side at their home ground and on their favoured track. Perhaps in better conditions we could have moved the ball out of defence with some fluency and attacked off half back with more success, but Geelong basically smashed us out of the middle, drove the ball forward and in the conditions we just could not get it out and into our forward line. This was due to a combination of not being good enough, failing to adjust to the conditions and playing a side that just set up so well behind the ball that any pressured or bombed kicks forward (which is the norm on wet days) just get picked off at will.

In general I thought the effort was there but the one thing that annoyed me was the number of times our players stood 5m behind their opponents which resulted in easy marks to Geelong.

For those having a go at our tall forwards, I really question your understanding of football. I can't remember a game we've played with rain falling as steadily and as constantly as that (perhaps there have been but I've been under cover and not out in the elements!). 19 inside 50s on a wet day is a recipe for disaster for a tall forward - it gives them absolutely no hope.

I get that four goals is unacceptable, but let's not forget these Cats had conceded only 4 goals against the best attacking side in the competition (Hawthorn) last week up until midway through the last term in pretty good conditions at the MCG. These were diabolical conditions at Kardinia Park against third rate opposition.

This does not excuse the performance, which was far from good enough, but it does put some context around our opponent and just how damn good they are.

It also does not take anything away from what was just a miserable, depressing day at the footy. You get a fair indication of the game when you see Geelong supporters leaving at half time just to get out of the unrelenting rain. The result was always inevitable, the game was a slog, we hardly went forward and I sat there getting wetter and colder by the minute.

The only positive is that I didn't catch pneumonia.

Good post. Gutsy effort by your good self in those conditions.

I watched the replay and I believe it was a terrible result! We were never, ever, competitive.

We were squashed, squished, trodden on, brushed aside, spat out and humiliated. Terrible selections, too many unskilled players and not enough grunt.

I hope that we draft players with the biggest effin mongrel in them this year. I don't give a flying you know what if they've been thrown out of a night club or they've punched on at the Beef n Bourbon bar - if they can play footy, get the pill and they love a contest, make them ours!!

I went yesterday (yes I recognise the madness in doing so).

What an utterly miserable day at the football. When we are a good side and playing good footy regularly and the footy becomes enjoyable once again, I will cast my mind back to games such as these, which will help me realise just how much we should enjoy and appreciate the good times.

The rain started teaming down from about halfway down the highway to Geelong and did not stop until Sunday. Even better I had a seat in the open and didn't take my poncho. The beauty of going down to Geelong is that if you're sitting in the open or standing and it starts raining you have absolutely nowhere to go. So it was just a case of sit in the open, put the hood on and suck it up while my jeans became so saturated with water that you could have filled a 2 litre bottle if you wrung them dry.

Worst of all not only were we playing one of the best teams of all time at their fortress of all fortresses of a home ground, but probably the best wet weather team I've seen. The rain also meant that the only area we could possibly exploit them in (tall forwards) was completely neutralised.

Now I know some will say that in dry weather they would have won by 100 points, but I disagree completely with this. We would have been more competitive on a dry day and the rain only served to exacerbate the skill and midfield differential between the sides. A wet game is all about your midfield and any deficiencies in this area are further exposed in such games.

I thought we had a dip but we just could not compete with a far, far, far superior side at their home ground and on their favoured track. Perhaps in better conditions we could have moved the ball out of defence with some fluency and attacked off half back with more success, but Geelong basically smashed us out of the middle, drove the ball forward and in the conditions we just could not get it out and into our forward line. This was due to a combination of not being good enough, failing to adjust to the conditions and playing a side that just set up so well behind the ball that any pressured or bombed kicks forward (which is the norm on wet days) just get picked off at will.

In general I thought the effort was there but the one thing that annoyed me was the number of times our players stood 5m behind their opponents which resulted in easy marks to Geelong.

For those having a go at our tall forwards, I really question your understanding of football. I can't remember a game we've played with rain falling as steadily and as constantly as that (perhaps there have been but I've been under cover and not out in the elements!). 19 inside 50s on a wet day is a recipe for disaster for a tall forward - it gives them absolutely no hope.

I get that four goals is unacceptable, but let's not forget these Cats had conceded only 4 goals against the best attacking side in the competition (Hawthorn) last week up until midway through the last term in pretty good conditions at the MCG. These were diabolical conditions at Kardinia Park against third rate opposition.

This does not excuse the performance, which was far from good enough, but it does put some context around our opponent and just how damn good they are.

It also does not take anything away from what was just a miserable, depressing day at the footy. You get a fair indication of the game when you see Geelong supporters leaving at half time just to get out of the unrelenting rain. The result was always inevitable, the game was a slog, we hardly went forward and I sat there getting wetter and colder by the minute.

The only positive is that I didn't catch pneumonia.

SJ u are a made bugger.

I applaud your commitment to the Dees mate well done and thanks for the report.

It's good to get feedback from someone who was at the ground.

Respect SJ. That's dedication.

SJ. well played son.