1 hour ago, wizardinoz said:

The selection of Smith was a complete waste of time. Considering he was picked to play down back, Goodwin put him forward again & he was still ineffective. Played one man short IMO. 

It seemed like an act of desperation. I wonder what message the backline received from his omission. So much of this game is above the shoulders!!

a disappointing end to a reasonably good year. I had hoped we could win to then have a show down with Collingwood for the Granny. Unfortunately the A team decided to stay at home.  Our poor kicking for goal in the first half did not help. So many passengers, Eagles chipped it around all day long then went long and our guys could not keep their feet or lay proper tackles.  Very disappointed that a lot of players just could not get themselves up for today.

Time to talk trade, I really dont know if Tyson is worth keeping, too many mistakes and turn overs. Lewis had a mare and a half, turn over after turn over. Max was well held and our midfield in the first half was virtually unsighted.  Thankfully the westcoast took their foot off the pedal so we could get a little respectability into an insipid performance.

 

 

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Absolutely gutted. It's not that we lost, it's how.

We lost the CP count once all year, but we were hammered in CPs from the opening bounce. We laid at least 50 tackles in every game this year, but today just 34. We haven't played like that all year. It was just so un-Melbourne and that is what is so demoralising, we didn't even put our best foot forward.

During the first quarter we were trying so hard to keep our head above water and stay close to them, but all four of their goals came from appalling turnovers. We were missing targets under their pressure and we just never settled. Then in the second quarter we couldn't even get our hands on the ball.

It was one of those days where everything went right for them (smothers would end up in their hands, the bounce of the ball seemed to always go their way, Nicholls doesn't reverse the 50 when McGovern throat-punches Viney), but that largely happens when one side works harder than the other.

Trying to work out why this happened is the harder bit. I'm sure part of it is fatigue. Not just the fact that it's the end of a long season and we're fielding a young side, but as has been mentioned we've been playing finals effectively for 6 weeks, since the first West Coast game. We won 4 in a row but to win 5 or 6 in a row is hard enough at the best of times, let alone all against finals sides. 

There's nothing we can do now but learn from our mistakes and focus on what needs to be improved: not just based on today's loss, but based on the entire season.

A perfect summation of an incredibly disappointing afternoon 

18 minutes ago, Pottsydee said:

Emotions ars still raw but..

I cant remember a club choking like this! Ever!!

Best team all season 24 hours ago?

Just now, Megatron said:

All I’m saying is that today’s performance or lack thereof was more physiological than about leadership. 

You cant tell me that leadership was lacking in the first two finals?

Leadership was unsighted in the 1st Half today, When a Grand Final spot was on the line. 

I can handle losing, shiit we have all grown up with it, but today’s first half was a disgrace on all levels...

Did anyone expect us to win a GF this year? I didn’t. That first half was a [censored] embarrassment but I’m happy with the progression; we’re playing the long game. I look forward to a decade of finals dominance.

Well, that was a bitterly disappointing way to finish up. We were beaten comprehensively in pretty much every element of the game. Every single player got pantsed in that first half. 

People can rant and rave about individual insipid performances, and there were plenty of them, but like it takes a big team effort to win big games, the team collectively flopped on this occasion. It's not possible for every single player to be individually to blame. They beat us at our own game early and we couldn't recover.  All the players get made to look much worse when that happens. It's exactly the same thing we were all laughing at Richmond about last night.

Anyway I understand people's mode of grief is to blame Lewis or Jones or Goodwin or the the umpires or whoever. I'm perpetually frustrated at the way people become irrational and grossly exaggerate the magnitude of the problem after losses (and get told I don't care as much or I'm a happy clapper or whatever), but that's how people cope so fair enough. I'm gutted, but at the end of the day we've shown we can play a finals brand of footy in the previous two rounds, we didn't bring it today, and we therefore got given an education by the team that finished second on the ladder, and not by fluke. I hate ending the season this way but we got further than 14 other teams did, and we should absolutely build on that for next year.  

Chin up people. Bring on 2019.

We certainly could use a bit more outside run at times be good to see what Oskar Baker can do, and can Jayden Hunt get back to his best?

58 minutes ago, defuture15 said:

With the benefit of hindsight we can show the group that they can do it.

The press was that we couldnt win the close games, couldnt beat the top 8 teams, couldnt succeed without lever and hogan.

The group will learn to trust each other and the system. They will win those close games that we should win.

Remember those games we lost by not turning up? Carlton, essendon, north at the G? This year just st kilda and nearly brisbane. This is a vastly different team to just 12 months ago.

First year players in fritsch and spargo played very well.

Only lever and hogan missing from inside. Need to get good speedy ball users in and develop strong tall marking players in weeds and omac.

Backup for max too

This was not a close game

17 minutes ago, Megatron said:

All I’m saying is that today’s performance or lack thereof was more physiological than about leadership. 

You cant tell me that leadership was lacking in the first two finals?

Physiological? Did they have renal failure or an Addisonian crisis?

14 minutes ago, Macbush said:

Did anyone expect us to win a GF this year? I didn’t. That first half was a [censored] embarrassment but I’m happy with the progression; we’re playing the long game. I look forward to a decade of finals dominance.

We would have been thrashed in a GF this year. This year was good practice for getting there when we have the development and the cattle.

3 minutes ago, President Dee Trump said:

Physiological? Did they have renal failure or an Addisonian crisis?

Haha psychological 

 

58 minutes ago, CityDee said:

I reckon Jordy has an injury . No power through his handball . 

Wouldn’t have made it this far in September without him. 

Then why play him

43 minutes ago, Pottsydee said:

Emotions ars still raw but..

I cant remember a club choking like this! Ever!!

You must be young. I was at the 1988 and 2000 Grand Finals. They were horrible.

We'll be back ... better than ever!

Not a good day today but we won 2 finals and disposed of the Cats & Hawks in the process ... fans of those 2 clubs would be just as annoyed as us but neither of those 2 teams won a final.

We need to add some talent & pace as well as Hogan & Lever.  And that is quite an achievable target so we need to get to work.  We're still a work in progress and we're still behind a few clubs right now (notably Richmond,  Collingwood & the Eagles)

To bridge the gap we need to improve the list and get more games into our young talented players.  Again,  it's not a reach to say that we could bridge the gap as early as next season.

Chins up fellow Demons,  we live to fight another day.

10 minutes ago, bingers said:

You must be young. I was at the 1988 and 2000 Grand Finals. They were horrible.

Were never expected to get close in either of those games - choking wasn’t the problem in then

2 hours ago, RedButMostlyBlue said:

I just walked through and had a bevvy, it was buzzing - made me feel human again haha

Wasn't bad was it! Some real good wineries were down there. A lot of them more than happy to help drown your sorrows! 

Just in case your brain is going soft and you are inclined to chant  :  USA   USA

or if you suffer from short term memory loss 

 

PULEEZZE come back to this image 

 

One of the big problem areas are the wings - Tyson and Jones can not run and spread. Too slow yet they persist with them there. Fair dinkum, Jones was just jogging around at half place and looked lost. For a leader to not stick one tackle surely says a lot. Fritsch should have played instead of Tyson, as most on demonland thought. 

Viney must be the sole captain and Lewis should be banished from the leadership group.

5 minutes ago, Crompton's the man said:

Just in case your brain is going soft and you are inclined to chant  :  USA   USA

or if you suffer from short term memory loss 

 

PULEEZZE come back to this image 

 

I’ll be quoting that on Twitter when he doesn’t take a mark on Barass next week

2 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

I’ll be quoting that on Twitter when he doesn’t take a mark on Barass next week

No you won't, he deleted it quick smart

13 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

One of the big problem areas are the wings - Tyson and Jones can not run and spread. Too slow yet they persist with them there. Fair dinkum, Jones was just jogging around at half place and looked lost. For a leader to not stick one tackle surely says a lot. Fritsch should have played instead of Tyson, as most on demonland thought. 

Viney must be the sole captain and Lewis should be banished from the leadership group.

Would be against Trading Tyson if the price was reasonable.

I have no issue with Joel Smith in. They just got the wrong out.

Interestingly though when Smith went forward despite some moments of poor skill and getting in the way he looked like our most athletic forward.

That shows you how much work we need to do in upping our forward pressure and really just getting some speed and real pressure in to the mix.

Melksham does absolutely nothing at ground level, he's awful in that regard. Petracca runs out of puff. ANB doesn't have great agility or power to stick tackles. Hannan has poor agility for a modern foward. Spargo has a bit of movement but is only small and young. We need to get guys who can really bend, twist and lay tackles.

The focus on forward pressure this year was excellent. The execution of that focus was poor.

Well at least I saved mobile data on not watching the second half. Apologies to the players for not giving them a fair go and seeing them claw back a semi respectable 50points. I just didn't have the heart to watch.

Max has already written a column for the HS. [censored] me that was quick, must have been writing it at half time