I was at the game sitting at height. What I saw which did not come out on tv was Ports defensive tactic.  Many here are complaining about continuous long bombs into our forward 50, however the case is that Port defended excellently and quickly ran in numbers into our forward 50 once we had possession. Our f50 was always super crowded with Port players. Sometimes all 18 of them. They made it almost impossible to short pass. A long bomb to the top of the square was the best percentage play. 

Regardless we played better and deserved to win. Our biggest disappointment was not putting the game to bed in the 3rd when we had them on toast.  The crowd got very involved and the umpires were certainly influenced by the crowd. It is rare that umpires influence the outcome of a game, but on this day we were murdered by the maggots.  Port were continuously awarded soft free kicks in front of goal, where at the other end our players were blocked, pushed in the back, and illegally held without one free kick (from memory). The 50 meter penalty awarded to win the game for Port was disgraceful.

28 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Its lamentable that it's almost a justifiable critique that the Umps  cost us the game. They did make it akin to pushing manure uphill for sure but I'm not going to hang that above the mantle as to the how or how not of winning.

The blame lies, for mine , squarely upon a number of players who's skills seemingly deserted them for unknown reasons as well as a few playing with attributes reminding me of the Wizard of Oz...ie playing with no brain, no heart and no courage.

Had they not...and played as they could/should then we would have won.

No point blaming what we can't change when there's things we can.

ANB 4 possessions at 42% for the last 3 quarters. Give me a break. Misses from 10 metres. Handballs hard into Jones' face. Drops marks. Spargo dropped and Garlett not considered. No crumbers and no pace, yet we bomb it long all night.

Notice the little chip kicks to a loose man inside 50 by Port, after a quick short run, something we were incapable of last night.

Despite that and the umpires, we butchered the ball and cost ourselves the game.

 

The only blokes to blame for last night is the 22 blokes in Melbourne jumpers 

First half domination and stupidity with the 50m entries and we get it right in the 3rd quarter and fail to put them away

A good team would have been 7 goals up at half time with the amount of forward entries we had

2 minutes ago, Grand New Flag said:

The 50 meter penalty awarded to win the game for Port was disgraceful.

Both 50's awarded against O Mac were a joke.

Just your typical interstate home ground umpiring.

Aside from still being angry about the umpires changing the result of the game a few less cranky thoughts below.

1. Would happily play Port in a final, particularly in Melbourne.

2. Demons need to learn how to handle a flooded forward line. Bombing it to the same spot isn’t the answer. Agree with many posters on lowering eyes etc.

3. When I saw Tyson, Vince and Lewis in the team, posted it makes us too slow and unfortunately was proved right.

4. One of Garlett, Spargo or even Bugg should have been in forward line for sharking at the fall of the ball.

5. We certainly had a crack, even if a few players didn’t have great nights. Which is normal for nearly every team every week, if you studied every game. Only issue is when it’s the same 3-4 appearing in the bottom 6.

6. Our best players are still young and will get better at dealing with big games. In comparison Ports better players bar Wines will be finished in 3-4 years.

7. Did I mention the umpires, Port had 26 players, hard to beat!

9 hours ago, Winter Dan said:

This.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/power-beat-demons-in-epic-arm-wrestle-20180622-p4zn82.html

Fantastic piece.

On the umpiring when asked goodwin said since the 4 umpires have been trialed the free kick count has gone up. He did say he would speak to the AFL. Social media was all over the umpiring. 

A couple of small things that annoyed me last night. 

One was having Jetta off the ground for a few minutes and this was before he got injured and knocked around and it let Gray off the leash for a few minutes and he was involved in a goal, leaving  Dixon or Westoff ummarked so he could mark on the line, giving away a goal at the end of 1/4 time, easy misses at goals and just the bombing the forward line. 

Our last quarter. Seriously how can we only kick 2 behinds. 

Anyway I hope Tommy is ok because we cannot afford to lose him. 

Jetta you are just so underrated and are awesome. 

6 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

Both 50's awarded against O Mac were a joke.

Just your typical interstate home ground umpiring.

I recall Lewis getting tackled to the ground by Dixon from memory after a mark and nothing. 

15 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

Both 50's awarded against O Mac were a joke.

Just your typical interstate home ground umpiring.

Umpire 11 the main culprit. An Adelaide umpire, big surprise.

Curtis Deboy is an Australian rules football umpire currently officiating in the Australian Football League.

He first umpired in the Central District Junior Football League in 2004. He made his umpiring debut in the South Australian National Football League in 2009 at the age of 19 and went on to umpire 119 SANFL games, including the 2013, '14, and '15 Grand Finals. He was on the AFL umpiring rookie list for 2013 and 2014, officiating his first game, substituted on as an emergency umpire, in 2014. In 2015, he was added to the senior umpiring list, and made his debut as a non-emergency umpire in Round 4 of that year, in a match between the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide at Docklands Stadium.

On a Friday night stage, the AFL should aim to have two high performing teams play, officiated by the best umpires they have to offer. This delivers the highest quality product to the broadcasters/audience to grow the game. 

If they are the best umpires the AFL has to offer, I might just stick to the World Cup from hereon in. 9 free kicks to 1 in the last quarter was ridiculous.

Is there a reason why we cannot take a contested mark in our f50? 

We bomb it in long but only on a few rare occasions does TMac hold the mark (which is usually juggled). Hogan doesn’t compete, don’t see TSmith fly, weideman and pedo are at Casey.

Many other posters have stated the above, but why are coach content with this being the game plan?

12 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

I recall Lewis getting tackled to the ground by Dixon from memory after a mark and nothing. 

Are you sure Lewis even marked it? Apparently the bloke is finished so I'm not sure we are allowed to acknowledge anything good that he does. 

As a side note, yes, Dixon got him in the contest but it wasn't a 50 - but Oscar did essentially the same things and got pinged, so there was zero consistency on the night. 

We were nowhere near as poor as some are suggesting. Port are in great home form and we didn't have things go our way. It's a loss that hurts but I suspect it's one of those painful lessons that will hold us in good stead as the season progresses.

We controlled the game for the first three quarters and got over run in the last. Our work in the stoppages was good. Most of the play was in our forward line. Port managed to get some one on one football in the last quarter. Did we run out of steam with the crowd keeping the home team pumped as did some umpiring decisions. Our endeavour and self belief was there. Plenty to learn from this loss.
We need to get more communication happening between the players. No competition for the same ball, aware of who is in best position to take the mark, calls to each other. Staying switched on for the one percenters and helping each other be better footballers.
Seemed it was quick, straight down the guts football. Where was our switches, changing the angle of movement, kicks to advantage and varying the tempo. Schimmies and baulks, making overlaps and freeing up players. Very little creativity out there making it easy for Ports backline to respond. We couldn’t find a loose player and the ball constantly ended up in the pack. The forward line was too congested. No where to lead, couldn’t get a uncontested or contested mark. Need to be able to perform when under the pump or a least do the basics well.    
We are close to being a top four side, just not yet. It is a long season and we have some areas we can improve on.

Keep building Dees. 

10 hours ago, Skuit said:

I think you may have missed the most crucial one Gonzo. Vince contests the ball in a pack, and the back of his arm hits someone (then Wingard for goal) entering the pack on follow through. Wtf? Though - Vince: 'I don't care if he's bleeding' - made it at least a fraction amusing. Still, that was the tide there and then.  

With Ling being his typical idiot self and saying 'yeeeeeah, it was a free kick' when it so clearly wasn't.

6 minutes ago, Undeeterred said:

With Ling being his typical idiot self and saying 'yeeeeeah, it was a free kick' when it so clearly wasn't.

Ling’s commentary last night was garbage even by his standards.

Max has tweeted this morning that at least we didn’t “trash the brand” as we have done in the past. Wow, that is such a relief. I can get on with life, snap out of my anger and depression about last night and thoroughly enjoy the rest of the weekend knowing that our “brand” is secure. I absolutely love Max, but fair dinkum.......

Bottom line for me is that, if we play that sort of football for the rest of the season, then we play finals.  The overall style of play is set up perfectly for finals football and the pressure that comes with it.

If we can work on our composure and our use of the ball forward of the centre then we'll be alright.  We took it up to a side on their home turf who only a few weeks ago brushed aside the reigning premiers.  I'd much rather have won, that goes without saying, but overall it was the right response to a sub par performance on our home deck against the Pies.

8 minutes ago, P-man said:

Ling’s commentary last night was garbage even by his standards.

Spot on.  I laughed when he said the first 50 paid against Oscar was there, and then he saw the subsequent replay and realised it wasn't there and didn't know what to say.  He's an idiot.

Is it just me or did port rebound really effectively from our endless bombing into f50?

missing lever. Out Vince in petty at least. 

We could learn from the Germans about running a bombing campaign

Edited June 23, 20186 yr by timbo

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

That 50 against Oscar was ludicrous, can't blame him for competing there.

I disagree - I could see 20 metres away he was going to give it away. He was nowhere near the contest, arrived a full second late, and should have pulled out way earlier. He's just clumsy - I don't blame him necessarily but it was such a critical time to give that away.

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

That 50 against Oscar was ludicrous, can't blame him for competing there.

 

1 hour ago, Petraccattack said:

Both 50's awarded against O Mac were a joke.

Just your typical interstate home ground umpiring.

Both players expected the ball to come in higher.  It dropped short, the port player (Westoff?) stumbled forward to mark it. Oscar had jumped to spoil but got caught and pulled up but still bumped into him.  Not hard.  Not particularly late. Clearly an accident. 

1 minute ago, timbo said:

Is it just me or did port rebound really effectively from our endless bombing into f50?

missing lever. Out Vince in petty at least. 

We could learn from the Germans about running a bombing campaign

I don't think we missed him that much last night.  It would have been preferable to have him, no doubt about that, but our defense actually played pretty well.  Oscar, Jetta and Hibberd did a mountain of work, while Lewis provided the leadership and cool head in most situations as well.

The problem was us not converting our chances and Port converting theirs.  That's not down to our backline.

9 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I don't think we missed him that much last night.  It would have been preferable to have him, no doubt about that, but our defense actually played pretty well.  Oscar, Jetta and Hibberd did a mountain of work, while Lewis provided the leadership and cool head in most situations as well.

The problem was us not converting our chances and Port converting theirs.  That's not down to our backline.

True. But some intercepts and reverse the rebound against play would have been handy

plus he's classy and a leader

Now very seriously thinking about ratetheumpire starting with last nights culprits