40 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

If we play them at "home" it's likely to be in Darwin or the Alice unfortunately.

That sucks if true.

6 hours ago, america de cali said:

A theory I am entertaining is that the players were spooked by the Collingwood/Richmond game. 

I was going to post something similar ... not just spooked so much by the result, but coming up against the reality of "we're playing off for a place in the GF". The hype and general hugeness around the Pies/Tiges match and the aftermath ... perhaps not the greatest thing to have watched the night before?

There is one aspect that stands out to me about 2019 and beyond that holds us in good stead.

If you consider that players don't really begin to peak until their mid 20s, we have a large amount of the current senior side who have plenty of improvement still to come.

Petracca, Hogan, Lever, Oliver, Brayshaw, Oscar, Harmes, ANB, Salem, Viney, Spargo etc are all still young and, through hard work, can improve even further.  It's not as if we have an aging list that just had their last hurrah.  This is only the beginning.

Outside of Jones and Lewis, our oldest player was Hibberd at 28.  Melksham, Frost, Tom Mac, Gawn etc are all in their mid 20s and have lots of good footy left in them.

Also, we have others like Fritsch, Hunt, Petty and Keilty who still have plenty to offer going forward too.

The loss was tough, but the future looks terrific.  Don't let one performance in hostile territory cloud that over the summer.

5 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Rubbish.

We won two games in front of 90,000+ as the favourites both times.

You can't say we're weak under pressure every time we lose. 

Took my young bloke for a haircut this morning.
Sitting there waiting for the completed job and eavesdropping on another hairdressers conversation with her cuttee.

"Did ya watch the footy yesterday?"
"I reckon Melbourne choked."
"I feel sorry for their supporters."

There was no "But their 1st 2 wins were good."

Massive game, everyone watching.
And we carped ourselves again.
Bigtime.
This is what people remember.

 

Edited September 23, 20186 yr by Fork 'em

5 hours ago, america de cali said:

You don’t think the players watched Friday nights game and some of them might have exclaimed “[censored]” or “holy shyte? The job suddenly became too hard. 

No

19 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

Took my young bloke for a haircut this morning.
Sitting there waiting for the completed job and eavesdropping on another hairdressers conversation with her cuttee.

"Did ya watch the footy yesterday?"
"I reckon Melbourne choked."
"I feel sorry for their supporters."

There was no "But their 1st 2 wins were good."

Massive game, everyone watching.
And we carped ourselves again.
Bigtime.

 

“You are only as good as your last performance...” 

or

”Nobody reads yesterday’s papers...”

These were our 2 motto’s in the Editing Dept of ABC TV back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. 

It was all about what you do in the moment....

25 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

Took my young bloke for a haircut this morning.
Sitting there waiting for the completed job and eavesdropping on another hairdressers conversation with her cuttee.

"Did ya watch the footy yesterday?"
"I reckon Melbourne choked."
"I feel sorry for their supporters."

There was no "But their 1st 2 wins were good."

Massive game, everyone watching.
And we carped ourselves again.
Bigtime.
This what people remember.

 

She wouldn't be far from the mark.... sadly

Nathan Jones 5 possessions to halftime no tackles!  We all know his value to the club but that was a stinker on the big stage.  We need better leadership than this to improve.  I wonder where he is at and should he remain skipper.

6 hours ago, ProDee said:

Under pressure Frost and McDonald's skills, or lack thereof, were exposed.  I don't want both in the same backline.

I prefer (depending on matchups) to play two key defenders plus Lever, but not those two.  We got through two finals with them, but I don't think you want to try and go all the way with both.

Definitely think the FD is in agreement since we have met with May. We need a strong experienced defender. Since we lost Frawley our backline has been lacking quality talls. I think Oscar has a lot of potential. He is a decent user of the ball and is calm under pressure and usually makes good decisions. Frost is too hit and miss. I would love a starting backline in 2019 of May, Oscar, Lever, Jetta, Salem and hopefully a fit and in form Hunt.

This will free Fritsch to play wing which I think is where he will excel with another AFL pre season under his belt. 

We need to really invest in Stretch as well. He has a lot of attributes to make him a modern day wingman. He just needs continuity and to settle into a single role. I also don’t mind Vanders. I thought he was one of our best yesterday when he was on the wings. Could be another option. 

If we can’t get Gaff I would save our cash and go hard for Kelly next year. 

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

I was going to post something similar ... not just spooked so much by the result, but coming up against the reality of "we're playing off for a place in the GF". The hype and general hugeness around the Pies/Tiges match and the aftermath ... perhaps not the greatest thing to have watched the night before?

I am sure there were mental scars  from our past two Collingwood drubbings persisting. Seeing Collingwood do the same to Richmond and then next day having to backup a win at the toughest road trip in the business after a hard four weeks and in 26 degree  heat was too much. They were facing two extreme challenges. One the Perth hothouse and then the mental scarring of the Collingwood losses and their red hot form if they got through. They flamed out and gave up. The GF hype got too much and  didn’t want to face up to the pies again. I can’t see any other reasonable explanation for this inexplicable performance. 

Edited September 23, 20186 yr by america de cali

1 hour ago, Fork 'em said:

Took my young bloke for a haircut this morning.
Sitting there waiting for the completed job and eavesdropping on another hairdressers conversation with her cuttee.

"Did ya watch the footy yesterday?"
"I reckon Melbourne choked."
"I feel sorry for their supporters."

There was no "But their 1st 2 wins were good."

Massive game, everyone watching.
And we carped ourselves again.
Bigtime.
This is what people remember.

 

Well I spoke with a number of non-Melbourne supporters today who said "but you were so good before the prelim, you'll be dangerous next year".

So there. Some people will remember only the prelim, some will remember more. 

But the truth is that we stood up on the big stage for a month straight.

"So there" .... Lol.
Couldn't care less about some mates rubbing ya back and telling you it's ok.

We choked again, and the whole football world knows it.
 

Edited September 23, 20186 yr by Fork 'em

7 hours ago, Redleg said:

I hope not. The only real pace we have. 

Watch his game today. All the pace in the world but is mechanical and cant hit a target. Does not have the smarts or the repeat sprints in him to play wing. I would rather trade him for overs to a team that cant see his many weakness to his few strengths or he will spend most of the year at Casey. 

I don't think we could have beaten W.Coast with Hogan and Lever (assuming Weid/Tyson and Frost are the ones to be dropped),we need more quality players.To expect Gawn to carry most of the ruck work is a big ask. What I find strange is that some of us expected Pedo at 193 cm to help out. In the 2nds G.F Pedo was well beaten in the ruck. One Captain is the only way to go. Players don't want to listen to 2 captains who may have different views.Dropping a player is easier if that player isn't a Captain. As a club we need to make hard decisions  ,some players cannot seem to cut the "mustard".

1 minute ago, big_red_fire_engine said:

Watch his game today. All the pace in the world but is mechanical and cant hit a target. Does not have the smarts or the repeat sprints in him to play wing. I would rather trade him for overs to a team that cant see his many weakness to his few strengths or he will spend most of the year at Casey. 

So disappointed to have to agree with you, but he was just terrible today. Has completely lost all ability.

8 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

I think from looking at the team stats, it was simply two things that let us down. 1. Work rate of the midfielders 2. Our spike in deadly turnovers resulting in scores (>10 goals)

1. Eagles took 96 unconstested marks. You can’t tackle a bloke when it’s not in a contest so they kept the ball off us after they won the contested ball. Pies only let them take 69 uncontested marks. Workrate

2. Contested Possesions - 158 to 145. Already been spoken about. Workrate

3. Low tackle numbers (34) - because of the Eagles flicking it around the ground. Most teams get low tackle numbers against the Eagles. But ours was horrendous. Workrate

4. Forward 50 efficiency- 69% vs 43%. No pressure on the ball carrier due to the Eagles uncontested style from the lack of work rate from midfielders. Plus our key defenders got killed. Turnovers plus workrate

5. Lost the clearances (40-32) we’re supposed to be the best at that. Workrate

They took our driver and our one wood and beat us senseless with them.

1 minute ago, Redleg said:

So disappointed to have to agree with you, but he was just terrible today. Has completely lost all ability.

I truthfully don't think he had much to start with. We were just excited by his occasional dashes, spoils and goals. We need pace but repeat pace and class. He is not the answer and I suspect a fair few clubs will overvalue his assets at trade time. 

Unrelated but I would love to be a fly on the wall of Trac's end of season review and also curious to see where he lands in our B&F. He needs to quickly mature of mind and decide he wants to be a serious footballer that maximises his god given talents or can see him coasting to an ok career only.

4 minutes ago, big_red_fire_engine said:

I truthfully don't think he had much to start with. We were just excited by his occasional dashes, spoils and goals. We need pace but repeat pace and class. He is not the answer and I suspect a fair few clubs will overvalue his assets at trade time. 

Unrelated but I would love to be a fly on the wall of Trac's end of season review and also curious to see where he lands in our B&F. He needs to quickly mature of mind and decide he wants to be a serious footballer that maximises his god given talents or can see him coasting to an ok career only.

Tracc is either scared to death to take a set shot for goal or dumb. His mark 40 out straight in front, then pass to left footed Tyson on the left boundary was stupidity at its best. Tyson is also a worse shot than him. 

What was he thinking or wasn’t he?

54 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

"So there" .... Lol.
Couldn't care less about some mates rubbing ya back and telling you it's ok.

We choked again, and the whole football world knows it.
 

If Fork em's son's hairdressers said so, it must be true!

16 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Tracc is either scared to death to take a set shot for goal or dumb. His mark 40 out straight in front, then pass to left footed Tyson on the left boundary was stupidity at its best. Tyson is also a worse shot than him. 

What was he thinking or wasn’t he?

I don't think he's the sharpest tool in the shed.

Edited September 23, 20186 yr by Rogue

31 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Tracc is either scared to death to take a set shot for goal or dumb. His mark 40 out straight in front, then pass to left footed Tyson on the left boundary was stupidity at its best. Tyson is also a worse shot than him. 

What was he thinking or wasn’t he?

His set shot kicking has been rubbish all year, of course he'll pass it off. It was excellent the year before. This year, he creates a routine, attempts to kick better drop punts and kicks like trash. Something to fix over summer. Have we hired a kicking coach yet?????????

 

1 hour ago, Fork 'em said:

"So there" .... Lol.
Couldn't care less about some mates rubbing ya back and telling you it's ok.

We choked again, and the whole football world knows it.
 

Just like we could care less about your hairdresser saying we choked.  It works both ways.

7 hours ago, Deemania since 56 said:

There is talent within not yet ready to come up the the firsts team. We can only recruit out of this devastation for an immediate fix of less than two years ... so it is a backman giant killer we need to support Lever, Frosty, Hibberd, Nev, JSmith,  and perhaps, OMac if kept. Suggest May be the prey for the Dees. We need a ruckman who does the fwd line things of note, as well. Strongly suggest Preuss from the Kangas. We need two bloody quick ball handlers outside mids. Departures: Tyson, Lewis, Bernie, Jones, all very sad. Couple of others superfluous to our needs - unless improvements are totally evident. FD has its work cut out for 2019 and some realism factored into the mix. Lightweights abound, grunt needed. Sad realisations but we are too soft, still.

 We are far from soft.

1 hour ago, binman said:

They took our driver and our one wood and beat us senseless with them.

Driver and One wood = same thing.

Yeah still a burning feeling today. Very very disappointed but for me though missing the finals last year hurt more. Not saying this didn’t but last year felt like we did a lot of hard yards and had nothing to show for it. We have this time.

Many of these players enter the 50-100 game bracket now and there is plenty of improvement to come. 

Edited September 23, 20186 yr by layzie

19 minutes ago, Precard said:

 We are far from soft.

We're far from hardened also. 

In time maybe