5 minutes ago, Precard said:

They may as well have brought white flags to the national anthem.

I'm not following. 1 minute you're saying we're not soft and the next saying that we gave up before the ball was bounced?

Just now, Jones said:

No, it was our 3rd. We had to win 1 of our last 2 games which we did in R22. Then we had a break! Then finals started.

No excuse.

We had brutal opposition for 6 games in a row was my point, dwell in misery, I'm already over it and looking forward to next year.

1 minute ago, SFebes said:

We had brutal opposition for 6 games in a row was my point, dwell in misery, I'm already over it and looking forward to next year.

With a weeks rest in-between...

Didn't expect them to win on Saturday but didn't expect them to fly the white flag either.

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Jones

2 minutes ago, Jones said:

With a weeks rest in-between...

Didn't expect them to win on Saturday but didn't expect them to fly the white flag either.

Oh well, spring is here and the snapper are already biting. Am looking forward to see what talent we bring in.

We also did well to get as far as we did without our CHF and CHB.

Probably like a lot here, I could see something was off in about the first minute or so. The previous WCE game we were playing on at almost all costs from the start of the game, the first chance we had to do so we stopped and went back over the mark. Our game plan was seemingly different. I don't believe we actually changed the game plan but it was the players who got completely spooked. It was something I expected to happen more in the first final than the third but it happened. 

Whilst I believe we are stronger mentally than we were at the start of the year, we still aren't strong enough. We need some more outside run but what I think we need more of is a better connection with the forward line. For the number of inside 50s we had this year we should have scored a hell of a lot more and this would have resulted in more wins in itself. Either working on the disconnect with the forward line or getting players who make the correct decision going forward should be our priority (we need both though). 

Overall though, I am a pessimist with us and us expected nothing from us this year so to win two finals was good and have my kids finally get to experience a final was good. We could be anything next year but having been beaten down by the club over the years there is part of me that says the players will be too mentally scared and will go backwards next year. We shall see but I hope to be wrong. 

2 minutes ago, Sadler said:

I'm not following. 1 minute you're saying we're not soft and the next saying that we gave up before the ball was bounced?

We have a good hard ball team and we aren't soft but we played like crap when it mattered. We need to be better mentally and not play like girls in the biggest game we've had for years.

1 minute ago, Precard said:

We have a good hard ball team and we aren't soft but we played like crap when it mattered. We need to be better mentally and not play like girls in the biggest game we've had for years.

Have you seen the AFLW? The girls are as tough as old boot leather.

7 minutes ago, Precard said:

We have a good hard ball team and we aren't soft but we played like crap when it mattered. We need to be better mentally and not play like girls in the biggest game we've had for years.

might have gone BETTER with the girls team 

3 minutes ago, layzie said:

Have you seen the AFLW? The girls are as tough as old boot leather.

No thankyou. I prefer to watch football. They shouldn't even be out there.

I was at the game behind the goals on the weekend.

In the first quarter when I noticed we were zoning! I thought oh [censored]! We are done... We were off in the coaches box from the gecko! 

We went completely against our strength in contested one on one football...

And the Footy Gods just weren’t with us on the day! Nothing went our way!

At quarter time I was celebrating the season and not getting hung up on the game.

They had awesome last month of football and great season. Hopefully they go two better next season! ??

 

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Dee tention

4 minutes ago, Dee tention said:

I was at the game behind the goals on the weekend.

In the first quarter when I noticed we were zoning! I thought oh [censored]! We are done... We were off in the coaches box from the gecko! 

We went completely against our strength in contested one on one football...

And the Footy Gods just weren’t with us on the day! Nothing went our way!

At quarter time I was celebrating the season and not getting hung up on the game.

They had awesome last month of football and great season. Hopefully they go two better next season! ??

 

Really??

Surely the coaches could see that we were not in the game and had the capacity to change it quickly??

2 hours ago, beelzebub said:

I reckon quite a lot would care a great deal about that goal less half.

Hopefully the 22 that played ( and all that didn't ). Hopefully the coaching staff and equally those in charge of this club.

That is beyond unacceptable

 

I highly doubt they're ever going to talk about a goalless half in one game. It was a symptom of a poor half. No one seems to be talking about that stat outside of Melbourne supporters and hyperbolic editors looking for a headline. It is so irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. IMO Richmond looked no more likely to score in the first half on Friday than we did. One of our 6 shots goes through for a goal and it's not even mentioned. We would still have been losing by 10 goals. Do you see how pointless a stat it is?

56 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Them 52 Us 53 (i50)

O/all possession WC 49% us 35

The i50 is misleading in that more often than not the ball was marked by WC and returned to the other end with unrelenting monotony .

That is where the poor ball use is shown up. 

29 minutes ago, Precard said:

No thankyou. I prefer to watch football. They shouldn't even be out there.

I think we found our first delist for this killing season thanks

10 minutes ago, praha said:

I highly doubt they're ever going to talk about a goalless half in one game. It was a symptom of a poor half. No one seems to be talking about that stat outside of Melbourne supporters and hyperbolic editors looking for a headline. It is so irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. IMO Richmond looked no more likely to score in the first half on Friday than we did. One of our 6 shots goes through for a goal and it's not even mentioned. We would still have been losing by 10 goals. Do you see how pointless a stat it is?

I think it would have been a lot worse if our full time score was a record low. There's plenty of teams in history that have had pathetic first half scores but come out to get a bit of scoreboard respectability.

24 minutes ago, praha said:

I highly doubt they're ever going to talk about a goalless half in one game. It was a symptom of a poor half. No one seems to be talking about that stat outside of Melbourne supporters and hyperbolic editors looking for a headline. It is so irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. IMO Richmond looked no more likely to score in the first half on Friday than we did. One of our 6 shots goes through for a goal and it's not even mentioned. We would still have been losing by 10 goals. Do you see how pointless a stat it is?

They may not talk about it much, but they WILL care. If that doesnt burn a hole into the thinking  and cause the many to have a good hard look at what went wrong then Id be quite concerned. They used that loss to Geelong as a pivotal exercise in going forward, i suspect they will use the prelim as some form of incentive.

Whilst I would normally concur stats are somewhat over rated , in this instance it's not a stat per se. Its a result..at half time it was the SCORE..  Stats get you to that Score.

I totally agree a goal here or there is not of much difference... but to go GOAL-LESS  is actually different .Argue all you might..it's different. That goes into record Books...it's THAT different.

5 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

They may not talk about it much, but they WILL care. If that doesnt burn a hole into the thinking  and cause the many to have a good hard look at what went wrong then Id be quite concerned. They used that loss to Geelong as a pivotal exercise in going forward, i suspect they will use the prelim as some form of incentive.

Whilst I would normally concur stats are somewhat over rated , in this instance it's not a stat per se. Its a result..at half time it was the SCORE..  Stats get you to that Score.

I totally agree a goal here or there is not of much difference... but to go GOAL-LESS  is actually different .Argue all you might..it's different. That goes into record Books...it's THAT different.

Agree it is important and will burn a hole in their thinking but more important is what got them there.  The score resulted from -15 contested possession at half time, only 17 tackles in the first half, and eagles scoring something like 56 points out of 69 points from turnovers to half time etc.  For a side that prides itself on contested ball (No 1), pressure (No 1 in last 4 weeks before prelim), tackling (No 1) they will have a lot to motivate them over pre-season.  But as Neale D would say about next year, it's not about what you say it's about what you do so I'm looking forward to what they do in 2019.

1 hour ago, Dee tention said:

I was at the game behind the goals on the weekend.

In the first quarter when I noticed we were zoning! I thought oh [censored]! We are done... We were off in the coaches box from the gecko! 

We went completely against our strength in contested one on one football...

And the Footy Gods just weren’t with us on the day! Nothing went our way!

At quarter time I was celebrating the season and not getting hung up on the game.

They had awesome last month of football and great season. Hopefully they go two better next season! ??

 

This is inexplicable. Watching the ball switched by WCE to unmarked players was infuriating. Finals is one on one footy -and that is our strength. Unfarkingbelievable.

3 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

This is inexplicable. Watching the ball switched by WCE to unmarked players was infuriating. Finals is one on one footy -and that is our strength. Unfarkingbelievable.

Considering the ball only went inside our 50 about 7 times in the first 1 1/2 quarters it was irrelevant.  Nearly all the scores came from turnovers.  Halfway through Q2 WC had scored 50 points from turnovers out of the 57 points they had scored.  And the ball spent most of that time in their forward 50.  

Forgive me for making such a ridiculous statement but I am thinking out aloud.

I have watched the game 3 times now and something is really “off”.  If I didn’t know better, or was looking at the game from the perspective of a first timer, I would say that our boys looked like they had been told not to win the game and went about ensuring those instructions were carried out.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s crazy but body language doesn’t lie and it was completely opposite to the previous few weeks. Anyway, just another supporter trying to understand what happened out there on Saturday afternoon.

1 hour ago, Dee tention said:

I was at the game behind the goals on the weekend.

In the first quarter when I noticed we were zoning! I thought oh [censored]! We are done... We were off in the coaches box from the gecko! 

We went completely against our strength in contested one on one football...

And the Footy Gods just weren’t with us on the day! Nothing went our way!

At quarter time I was celebrating the season and not getting hung up on the game.

They had awesome last month of football and great season. Hopefully they go two better next season! ??

 

This what I noticed also early in the game behind the goals. I didn’t understand the zoning early in the game. We had Jetta and Lewis chasing shadows. It seemed the press was too high again, Simpson certainly put a lot of homework into us. 

Ryan and Rioli were used as defensive wide half forward flankers especially when we tried to transition the ball out of the backline. It seemed a smart move to use their quickest players to block the wide areas so we wouldn’t get a quick outlet using the width. When we did go down the line it almost always created a stoppage or if we tried going through the middle their midfield was outnumbering us and was ready to pounce causing multiple turnovers resulting in scores. From where I was sitting every possession looked like a real struggle. 

As bad as we were they were equally as good in my opinion. Shame really, not just for the Melbourne supporters at the ground but all in general. None of us had the chance to cheer anything after the team ran out and it was a real shock knowing the game was over 10 minutes into the second quarter. 

Disappointing end no doubt but hopefully we come out bigger and better next season.

The stadium was unbearable by the way.

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Dee Zephyr

1 hour ago, Dee tention said:

I was at the game behind the goals on the weekend.

In the first quarter when I noticed we were zoning! I thought oh [censored]! We are done... We were off in the coaches box from the gecko! 

We went completely against our strength in contested one on one football...

And the Footy Gods just weren’t with us on the day! Nothing went our way!

At quarter time I was celebrating the season and not getting hung up on the game.

They had awesome last month of football and great season. Hopefully they go two better next season! ??

 

Completely disagree with this. This loss is solely on the players. We laid 34 tackles for the entire match. 34. That is the lowest  tackle count by any team in 2018. West Coast laid 59 despite having the ball for the majority of the match too. 34 tackles is an indictment on the players. It shows a complete lack of effort, work rate and intensity. You don’t have to be skilled to tackle, all you have to do is try. They did not try.

Anyway the season is over and we made big steps forward this year. Our core of young talented kids now have finals experience under their belt and I expect a period of sustained success for the years to come. We should be contenders for a flag over the next few years and it’s exciting to finally get close again!

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Lord Travis

It’s such a shame that after all the hard work and gaining respect after our last two performances that they dish up such a nightmare game like that.

Make no mistake , they were absolutely putrid and embarrassing .

Lets hope this gives us a harder edge next season , burns in their guts and make sure we finish top 4.

Nothing else will be good enough.

1 hour ago, Lord Travis said:

Completely disagree with this. This loss is solely on the players. We laid 34 tackles for the entire match. 34. That is the lowest  tackle count by any team in 2018. West Coast laid 59 despite having the ball for the majority of the match too. 34 tackles is an indictment on the players. It shows a complete lack of effort, work rate and intensity. You don’t have to be skilled to tackle, all you have to do is try. They did not try.

Anyway the season is over and we made big steps forward this year. Our core of young talented kids now have finals experience under their belt and I expect a period of sustained success for the years to come. We should be contenders for a flag over the next few years and it’s exciting to finally get close again!

Yes the players had a lot do with it! 100% 34 tackles is effortless... And work rate non existent.

5 minutes in you could see the game plan was off... Completely out coached. The most disappointing aspect was you could clearly see we’re playing to some other BS game plan. We threw our Brand out the window! That’s what was disappointing! I’m interested to listen to the speeches at the B & F Monday night... 

It would be good good to have Roaming Brian at the B & F too ask the hard questions! Haha... It would be a Pissa! ?

I just want to ask the coaching group what the F..k were they thinking?

18 minutes ago, Dee tention said:

Yes the players had a lot do with it! 100% 34 tackles is effortless... And work rate non existent.

5 minutes in you could see the game plan was off... Completely out coached. The most disappointing aspect was you could clearly see we’re playing to some other BS game plan. We threw our Brand out the window! That’s what was disappointing! I’m interested to listen to the speeches at the B & F Monday night... 

It would be good good to have Roaming Brian at the B & F too ask the hard questions! Haha... It would be a Pissa! ?

I just want to ask the coaching group what the F..k were they thinking?

Might be more to the point to ask the players why their disposal and ball handling turned to crap.

50 of the first 57 points scored by the Eagles came from turnovers.

Our disposal and handling of the ball was as bad as I have ever seen it.

If you can't pass the ball or grab it, you lose and lose badly.

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Redleg