We look exhausted, and we have since we beat the Eagles. Playing on emotion since then and it got us over the line in games, but the well is now dry.

We need an outside runner with some skill desperately. Too many contested midfielders and not enough class to deliver the ball and break line.

Our dynamic players - Hunt, Track and Garlett all look very flat. Track has had 30 hand passes and 5 kicks the last 2 weeks and has seen very little midfield minutes. I'd say he's carrying something.

 

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

Maybe I've lost my sense of humour as I get older, but I wouldn't say our play of late has been funny.  Or am I in the minority here?

We can look at this one of two ways, adc.  One is that we are still winning plenty of the footy and giving ourselves chances to score.  We aren't the side from 4-5 years ago that would have 8 inside 50s for a half.  We know how to play and we know how to get the ball forward.

On the flip side, our use of the ball going forward, our leading patterns and pressure when the ball hits the deck have all been very poor and it has cost us games of footy. 

We can fix it, but we need to do it now.

Not sure about that Wise:

Clearances:  GWS 60.  Melb 43

Tackles: 119.  Melb 86

That says effort to me, or lack of.  No excuses for that.

22 minutes ago, Return to Glory said:

Hindsight's a beautiful thing but I never thought we'd go close to winning today. Like it or not (and I don't), we just played the Premiership favourite or near to, prior to finals and got a touch up. Probably expected. They made the prelim last year and know about the pointy end of the season. For that reason alone I don't see the season as lost. We will bounce back and blokes like Jones, who had a stinker, will be much better for the run.

Miles away from a  Premiership, but we can still make an almighty charge.

That's the ticket RTG. Until its mathematically impossible , there remains    faith, or hope...or maybe delusion...

Congrats to Goody for finally giving me the sh!ts by using his fave presser line again "its not where you are now its where you are at the end of round 23". Thanks for joining the club Goody.

Pages and pages    we played poorly as a team and deservedly lost     

1 minute ago, The heart beats true said:

We look exhausted, and we have since we beat the Eagles. Playing on emotion since then and it got us over the line in games, but the well is now dry.

We need an outside runner with some skill desperately. Too many contested midfielders and not enough class to deliver the ball and break line.

Our dynamic players - Hunt, Track and Garlett all look very flat. Track has had 30 hand passes and 5 kicks the last 2 weeks and has seen very little midfield minutes. I'd say he's carrying something.

 

Didn't Trac play 90% midfield last week?

Just now, Lucifer's Hero said:

Not sure about that Wise:

Clearances:  GWS 60.  Melb 43

Tackles: 119.  Melb 86

That says effort to me, or lack of.  No excuses for that.

I can't argue the above, it was more in relation to the fact that we can get the ball inside 50 enough times each week to win games of footy.  Our problem is how we use the footy once we get it towards half forward.  It's a problem and we need to fix it up, otherwise this season will slip through our fingers.

3 minutes ago, Nasher said:

To be fair, they show 5 seconds of a 20 minute break. While I think leadership in games like this is a valid question to ask, I'd be careful about drawing conclusions from such anecdotal evidence.

That is fair comment.  But there was nothing from the leaders in the 3rd quarter that showed some life had been injected into the team at half time.

Edited August 5, 20178 yr by Lucifer's Hero

Just now, Deemented Are Go! said:

That's the ticket RTG. Until its mathematically impossible , there remains    faith, or hope...or maybe delusion...

I'm up for all three.

Practised in the third.

2 minutes ago, big_red_fire_engine said:

Congrats to Goody for finally giving me the sh!ts by using his fave presser line again "its not where you are now its where you are at the end of round 23". Thanks for joining the club Goody.

I think it's annoying you because you know he's right.

I can't think of anything worthwhile at the Mo!!!

1 minute ago, big_red_fire_engine said:

Congrats to Goody for finally giving me the sh!ts by using his fave presser line again "its not where you are now its where you are at the end of round 23". Thanks for joining the club Goody.

He's right, though. He was right when we were 5th, too. The message is no less true just because you are crabby.

Reminds me of whoever it is who always said it's never as bad or as good as it seems.

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

I think it's annoying you because you know he's right.

Maybe if we worried about where we are last week or this if we won we would have been on rather than thinking we can sort it out later.

Edited August 5, 20178 yr by big_red_fire_engine

It's depressing looking at the ladder and seeing us drop out of the 8 and see essenscum 7th

3 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

It's depressing looking at the ladder and seeing us drop out of the 8 and see essenscum 7th

Turn it 180 degrees.

We didn't learn anything new here.  We're a competitive team without anything even resembling a plan to score goals.  Until Goodwin admits that he has no idea how to structure a forward line and gets a real specialist in to sort out our structures and ball-movement we'll continue to be a competitive team without anything even resembling a plan to score goals.  We actually won the inside 50's, but only converted at 21.8%.  That's insanely poor for an AFL side.  GWS converted at 50.9% by comparison.  The only thing that kept this from being a monumental thrashing was our freakish accuracy. 

26 minutes ago, Demon77 said:

Today we got blown away by a quicker and more skilled midfield early, we had no answer for a 15 minute onslaught.

Last week hurts a lot more and for those that said last week wasn't horrible, think again. 

Exactly!! Knew this would be a tough one. Loosing to that irrelevant club last week I thought would cost us any finals hope.

Going on what we dissed up the last 2 weeks that aints may just go back to there dees bashing they are used to.

Our midfield needs to lift. Very inefficient.

Jones - rusty

Oliver - predictable

Viney - subdued

Tyson - wasteful

Maynard - encourging

14 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

It's depressing looking at the ladder and seeing us drop out of the 8 and see essenscum 7th

Can you believe the scum may play finals before us after missing for 12mths?

HTF does this happen??

 

Edited August 5, 20178 yr by Hogan2014

2 minutes ago, america de cali said:

Our midfield needs to lift. Very inefficient.

Jones - rusty

Oliver - predictable

Viney - subdued

Tyson - wasteful

Maynard - encourging

Agree with the others, but not Oliver.  The kid, in just his second season, is almost carrying our midfield.  Look at his stats again today:

32 touches, 9 tackles, 19 contested possessions and 7 clearances.  

Oliver is turning into an absolute superstar right before our eyes.  What more can he do?  

Where's the justice? The mercenary has another very good game, 3 votes from Mick Malthouse,  and will win a flag,  if not this year, then the next. The loyal player, equally talented, is ruinined by injury never to play another senior afl game.

Makes me ill.

5 minutes ago, america de cali said:

Our midfield needs to lift. Very inefficient.

Jones - rusty

Oliver - predictable

Viney - subdued

Tyson - wasteful

Maynard - encourging

Maynard was quite good on dedut. Hard at it and didn't look out of place 

As good as he's been, Oliver will be absolute A grade rolls Royce next year

I'm a absolutely gobsmacked as to how the statisticians gave Watts 2 tackles.

 

It's because I love the club that I feel so unloved right now. The loss to North hurt so much. But I stupidly thought we may sneak today. How stupid. I feel let down over and over again! The magnitude of where we sit has really hit home. I feel defeated but will be at the game next week hoping and praying I have it wrong. The off season is going to hurt like hell if we don't make finals. No matter what anyone says about improvement and injury, from where we were a fortnight ago, finals were in our hands. They still are, but only just. Win all games and we should make it. Lose one and were cooked. 

Surprise me Demons. But this time make it on the upside please.