11 hours ago, Diamond said:

Does anyone remember the excitement of the 1987 and 1988 seasons where the players performed above themselves in the final few rounds and unexpectedly got deep into the finals? 

Those Northey sides also had periods every year of dropping games to lowly sides that cost us a double chance. Every finals series we were scrapping in sudden death finals because they'd dropped a series of games (talking 5 losses in a row) including to bottom teams. They were still good times to follow the club but don't glorify those years, we under achieved and faced the exact same problems we did during the Balmer, Daniher and now Goodwin years. Stupid losses costing us the double chance/finals.

5 hours ago, Diamond said:

What was different about the player group then that allowed them to play with such a sense of excitement and win all those games late in the season and so unexpectedly advance deep into September?

I believe the difference was that it was between the ears back then. They actually believed in themselves.

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Those Northey sides also had periods every year of dropping games to lowly sides that cost us a double chance. Every finals series we were scrapping in sudden death finals because they'd dropped a series of games (talking 5 losses in a row) including to bottom teams. They were still good times to follow the club but don't glorify those years, we under achieved and faced the exact same problems we did during the Balmer, Daniher and now Goodwin years. Stupid losses costing us the double chance/finals.

And the 1990 elimination final when we were touted as flag favourites and lost to WC at Waverley. That was as bad a choke as on Saturday. They blew us away in the first quarter and that was that. This was the beginning of the end for Northey.

1 hour ago, jane02 said:

I believe the difference was that it was between the ears back then. They actually believed in themselves.

Interesting point. I go one further. It was self belief and trust of your fellow players. Its a little be raw and undefined in nature but well understood.

Today EVERYTHING is drilled. There's groupthink. There the Leading Teams type of "insert phrase of choice" . Its a corporate cohesion of sorts....but not natural and organic. Its what your TOLD to do not what intuitively drives you. 

This synthetic belief falls apart because in reality...its not real. Its a practiced mantra not a 'non-negotiable' fron the player's core.

The best teams allow individuals to rise to their abilities whilst encouraging their team mates to do likewise but not in a 'one instruct' fits all manner.

I agree...very much about between the ears. 

Just a couple of special thank yous as we try and get some closure:

1) to Bernard Vince for snapping the ball out of bounds on the full with 2 seconds left despite being only about 25 mtrs out from goal.

2) to Max Gawn for that pitiful miss 30 mtrs out directly in front in the second qtr.

If these very easy goals went through, we have a percentage of 105.79 to West Coast's 105.71.

Garbage leadership by members of the leadership group.

 

7 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Interesting point. I go one further. It was self belief and trust of your fellow players. Its a little be raw and undefined in nature but well understood.

Today EVERYTHING is drilled. There's groupthink. There the Leading Teams type of "insert phrase of choice" . Its a corporate cohesion of sorts....but not natural and organic. Its what your TOLD to do not what intuitively drives you. 

This synthetic belief falls apart because in reality...its not real. Its a practiced mantra not a 'non-negotiable' fron the player's core.

The best teams allow individuals to rise to their abilities whilst encouraging their team mates to do likewise but not in a 'one instruct' fits all manner.

I agree...very much about between the ears. 

I wonder if the players realized that their form in the past 6-8 weeks has been a pale shadow of earlier in the season, partly related to injuries, probably only partially recovered, and furthermore that if they scraped into the finals it would be a debacle. Subconsciously this may have weighed heavily on them as they ran out to play Collingwood. Losing may have seemed a better option, perhaps not a deliberate act, but an almost unconscious result of the situation in which they found themselves.

Watts' hamstring was probably not fully healed, Hogan has a partially united clavicular fracture (normally this would be a longer time off type of injury) and a probable hamstring tear, on top of all his other troubles this year, Gawn has not been right since he ripped his hamstring, requiring major surgery, Garlett has had some hamstring issues, and there are most likely some players with injuries we don't even know about as well as several players down on form for unknown reasons. Looking forward they were aware that Viney's foot was probably not going to be right for some weeks. 

Diamond.  There something for sure in the idea that if you KNOW you're sub par then in the back of your mind that dread will build.  Someone else suggested the notion of Stage Fright

9 minutes ago, Diamond said:

I wonder if the players realized that their form in the past 6-8 weeks has been a pale shadow of earlier in the season, partly related to injuries, probably only partially recovered, and furthermore that if they scraped into the finals it would be a debacle. Subconsciously this may have weighed heavily on them as they ran out to play Collingwood. Losing may have seemed a better option, perhaps not a deliberate act, but an almost unconscious result of the situation in which they found themselves.

In other words chokers like last season when they chucked it in one round earlier. Where is the belief? Obstacles have to be overcome and all opportunities fought for.

7 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Interesting point. I go one further. It was self belief and trust of your fellow players. Its a little be raw and undefined in nature but well understood.

Today EVERYTHING is drilled. There's groupthink. There the Leading Teams type of "insert phrase of choice" . Its a corporate cohesion of sorts....but not natural and organic. Its what your TOLD to do not what intuitively drives you. 

This synthetic belief falls apart because in reality...its not real. Its a practiced mantra not a 'non-negotiable' fron the player's core.

The best teams allow individuals to rise to their abilities whilst encouraging their team mates to do likewise but not in a 'one instruct' fits all manner.

I agree...very much about between the ears. 

Toward the end of last year , I had dinner with a former assistant coach at Casey. He talked quite a bit about the problem of player confusion. That is, some of them found the plethora of rules, scenarios, set plays and subsequent actions all too confusing. Information overload if you like.

Instinct appears to have had its day.

14 minutes ago, america de cali said:

In other words chokers like last season when they chucked it in one round earlier. 

16 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

Toward the end of last year , I had dinner with a former assistant coach at Casey. He talked quite a bit about the problem of player confusion. That is, some of them found the plethora of rules, scenarios, set plays and subsequent actions all too confusing. Information overload if you like.

Instinct appears to have had its day.

I was more thinking about the idea that today people are taught group liason. You know ..all the groupthink HR type shlt. Building trust in fellow workmates etc etc  fart it out ya bum stuff.. As opposed to the REAL bond and trust/belief that can be born of shared experiences and respect and admiration of your fellow-whatever.

It strikes me that back in the day it was a real , an organic and tangible quality..TEAM . There was nothing really forced it evolved. Nowadays there seems to be an imported mould into which to push all incumbents  into a synthesised  ensemble of  trust and such. This is fine but the threads of this association are apt to wear quickly , indeed snap, as they are tenuous in their origin.

on the other notes..I can understand confusion about rules...I mean if the umpires cant figure it out what hope anyone else 

As to plays and such fmd.. how do they wipe their bums these folk !!

I heard David King tonight. Melbourne were last for conversions inside 50 over the last 6 weeks. Also were the most pressured team. I take that to mean the comp has worked Melbourne out. You put pressure on them and they overuse the ball and turn it over.

The coaches have a lot to answer for IMO. Didn't get the players 'up'. Couldn't get their game plan happening when we had our best team for the year on the park.

They haven't built a game plan that can withstand finals type pressure. That is a major flaw.

Goodwin has escaped scrutiny because he is a first year coach but there are real danger signs fo us.

 

1 hour ago, america de cali said:

In other words chokers like last season when they chucked it in one round earlier. Where is the belief? Obstacles have to be overcome and all opportunities fought for.

Harsh.

Be very interested to know why MFC were last for conversions inside 50? Does that mean we couldn't kick straight? Or in relation to number of times we went inside 50 we either lost possession, it went out of bounce or were penalized?

Just watched the first quarter again. I think the tackling/lack of tackling is a furphy. It didn't stand out at all.

What stood out was:

• we were constantly under the pump for space. Pies closed in on us giving us no room. Which is what they were always going to do. But why oh why did we give them so much space? They were in the clear more times than Hogan has appealed for free kicks.

• ball handling. Inability to pick it up cleanly. Inability to get it to another Demon by hand ... always seemed to be at their feet or to the worst possible disadvantage. The slight delay every time killed us. Couldn't kick to another Demon to save ourselves.

That's what it looked like at the ground and the replay only confirmed it.

It didn't look like Collingwood were all that good at it either, except we gave them so much space to do it in, they were more effective at it.

Yes they jabbed a few goals. It happens. We had our chances to jab them too but flubbed it. Letting them get in front just made the arsey goals hurt more because then it goes from catch up footy to catch up plus.

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

I heard David King tonight. Melbourne were last for conversions inside 50 over the last 6 weeks. Also were the most pressured team. I take that to mean the comp has worked Melbourne out. You put pressure on them and they overuse the ball and turn it over.

The coaches have a lot to answer for IMO. Didn't get the players 'up'. Couldn't get their game plan happening when we had our best team for the year on the park.

They haven't built a game plan that can withstand finals type pressure. That is a major flaw.

Goodwin has escaped scrutiny because he is a first year coach but there are real danger signs fo us.

 

This isn't necessarily coaching, players have to take responsibility, a coach can only do so much. Leadership and skill execution are the main issues. How many coaches are we going to go through? We would become Richomond of the late 90s.

37 minutes ago, deefella said:

This isn't necessarily coaching, players have to take responsibility, a coach can only do so much. Leadership and skill execution are the main issues. How many coaches are we going to go through? We would become Richomond of the late 90s.

Our capitulations would never happen under Clarkson or Sheedy for that matter. They wouldn't stand for it.

As for turnover, Rawlings has been there since 2012.

We also have Chaplin - a career defender who is coaching our forward line. 

Turnover of assistants can be healthy to inject fresh ideas.

1 hour ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Just watched the first quarter again. I think the tackling/lack of tackling is a furphy. It didn't stand out at all.

What stood out was:

• we were constantly under the pump for space. Pies closed in on us giving us no room. Which is what they were always going to do. But why oh why did we give them so much space? They were in the clear more times than Hogan has appealed for free kicks.

• ball handling. Inability to pick it up cleanly. Inability to get it to another Demon by hand ... always seemed to be at their feet or to the worst possible disadvantage. The slight delay every time killed us. Couldn't kick to another Demon to save ourselves.

That's what it looked like at the ground and the replay only confirmed it.

It didn't look like Collingwood were all that good at it either, except we gave them so much space to do it in, they were more effective at it.

Yes they jabbed a few goals. It happens. We had our chances to jab them too but flubbed it. Letting them get in front just made the arsey goals hurt more because then it goes from catch up footy to catch up plus.

Good to see you've calmed down mate. A couple of really good observations there.

After all the criticism we copped I also watched again with an eye to the tackling. It was a really "open" quarter. I was looking for instances where our blokes had the opportunity to tackle and failed to execute. There were bugger all. A couple pf broken tackles but that's about it. (I'd also like to know what constitutes a tackle because my count didn't match the stats being quoted). The Pies hardly tackled us into the ground either. What they did do was move the ball on quickly, denying us the opportunity to tackle. Good coaching/ gameplan. You can't tackle blokes who don't have the footy

For me, the bigger issues were (pretty much in agreement with you) :

Skills - our unforced errors and turnovers by hand and foot gifted them goals. The fumbling didn't help either

Our zone - we gave them too much leg rope in their half of the ground

Running in transition - the Daicos goal is a good example. One of our mids should have covered him 30 metres before he got the ball. Whether that's conscious effort (player fault) or not being mentally & emotionally switched on (coaching group fault) I can only guess. But I think it's rare that blokes would run out there not intending to have a crack

I've watched it a few times now and each time it looks like rather than "we didn't turn up" it's more "we completely farked up"

 Gave them far too much latitude esp the 1st qtr.

As observation s suggest we didn't lay many tackles because we weren't close enough to. Got to ask why so. There was no fwd pressure of note even when we did get it near our paint.

The Zone was a gift to them . Bucks for all his faults owned Goody here.

our reticence to get closer afforded them the very space many speak of.

All that and 'big game' fumbles gave it to them on a plate. Chances went begging. Rest is history.

Someone needs to teach the ancient art of two armed tackling. All the rage apparently

12 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Just watched the first quarter again. I think the tackling/lack of tackling is a furphy. It didn't stand out at all.

What stood out was:

• we were constantly under the pump for space. Pies closed in on us giving us no room. Which is what they were always going to do. But why oh why did we give them so much space? They were in the clear more times than Hogan has appealed for free kicks.

• ball handling. Inability to pick it up cleanly. Inability to get it to another Demon by hand ... always seemed to be at their feet or to the worst possible disadvantage. The slight delay every time killed us. Couldn't kick to another Demon to save ourselves.

That's what it looked like at the ground and the replay only confirmed it.

It didn't look like Collingwood were all that good at it either, except we gave them so much space to do it in, they were more effective at it.

Yes they jabbed a few goals. It happens. We had our chances to jab them too but flubbed it. Letting them get in front just made the arsey goals hurt more because then it goes from catch up footy to catch up plus.

Contradicted yourself. They had space because we didn't tackle or pressure them.

Splitting hairs. They turned up the pressure and we didn't. Whether it manifests as "not tackling" or "they had plenty of space".

13 hours ago, jnrmac said:

I heard David King tonight. Melbourne were last for conversions inside 50 over the last 6 weeks. Also were the most pressured team. I take that to mean the comp has worked Melbourne out. You put pressure on them and they overuse the ball and turn it over.

This.

We lack composure which is largely in part because we have a game style that involves manic running and handballing.  The problem is this style can't be sustained for four quarters, let alone a whole season. On top of this, as you say if the opposition put the slightest bit of pressure on us then we don't have the structure to adapt and withstand it.

Watch how Sydney and Hawthorn (second half of the year) play. Yes, the Bulldogs won a flag playing this way, but they only had to do it for a month.

On 31/08/2017 at 0:37 AM, Diamond said:

What was different about the player group then that allowed them to play with such a sense of excitement and win all those games late in the season and so unexpectedly advance deep into September?

That team had a red hot crack week in week out. They didn't choose when to turn up

10 hours ago, Go the Biff said:

Good to see you've calmed down mate.

Do you mean to say that some people have calmed down?

Five days after the biggest calamity since 87 prelim and people have managed to calmed down?

25 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Do you mean to say that some people have calmed down?

Five days after the biggest calamity since 87 prelim and people have managed to calmed down?

Not me. I am livid and likely to remain so.

Garry Lyon in his book says that 1990 season was the one they really rued. Even comp, no standout as evidenced by the fact a fairly ordinary Collingwood side won the flag.

Grand Finals are hard to get to and there is no saying we would have made it but 2017 looks like a similar even year and will go down as a massive missed opportunity - and the players and coaching staff have no [censored] idea what level of pressure they needed to bring to games in the second half of the season.

Like last years capitulation against Carlton and Geelong, the coaches and on field leaders have failed yet seem powerless to do anything about it. Until it is recgnised and acknowledged the same crap performances will repeat themselves.

No way Clarkson or Sheedy would allow such garbage to happen.