1 hour ago, Colin B. Flaubert said:

We can do it. I have no doubt about that.

I remember years ago @Macca (2013 to be precise) wrote a list of things our players did not do that would otherwise make them a competitive team. I think the list was about 40 items in total.

 

I remember that and at the time I thought I'd cop plenty of grief coming back, Col ... but that didn't happen.  It's fair to say that the appraisals were rather damning!

Fast forward to right now and most of our players are down on their best in some ways, haven't come on or have stagnated

The optimists will point at our standout performances (Impressive Lions and Freo wins and our 10 & 0 start to the season) whilst the pessimists will focus on the 6 losses from our last 10.  And both evaluations are correct in isolation

But from an overall perspective, we are just not playing well enough right now.  As a team or as individuals

Beat Carlton and everything can change ... one win and then we play for the next win.  And the next win would be for the double chance in the finals. 

It's all on the line and the way forward is crystal clear.  We've eliminated the grey area with those losses

Edited August 7, 20222 yr by Macca

Thank you for creating this thread, @Deenooos_. 
I for one will NEVER concede at this juncture that we’re no chance to win it this season. 
When you lose hope, you've got nothing.

❤️💙

I hope you’re right. 

6 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Thank you for creating this thread, @Deenooos_. 
I for one will NEVER concede at this juncture that we’re no chance to win it this season. 
When you lose hope, you've got nothing.

❤️💙

Ah yes, Civ

The last hope is the mathematical possibility

We've still got that one up our sleeve!

 

21 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Right?!  They’re pathetic. Someone should start a new thread about this. 😉🙃😆

Really this was just my way of checking in on you to make sure you’re ok after Friday night 👍

Here is my take.

Yes we can still win it. While we are not the best team atm, I think our best is enough to win it. We need to find it quickly.

What I think we need to get to our best:

A good run with injury.

Improved goal kicking accuracy.

A ruthless and maniacal attack on the ball and player with the ball.

Increased and sustained pressure.

Selflessness and playing for the team. Increase the 1%’s.

Variety in forward 50 entry and kick outs from points. Stop the predictable, unsuccessful this year, long bombs to the forward pocket boundary. Players need to lead into space, or get into space and this needs to be honoured, with the forward entry kicks. Variety also for the kick ins in defence, to allow for fast entry into our forward 50 and set up one on one contests, as Defenders can’t get back quick enough.

Small forwards to rove the pack on forward contests, instead of being 20-30 metres away.

Kozzie to give up trying to take mark of the year. He hasn’t taken one of these attempts in his career so far.

Play two tall key forwards for finals and if weather ok, now.

Swap ANB for Bedford/Chandler.

Stop the mad handball at all costs policy and especially don’t handball to Max in the forward 50 where he hasn’t got time to react and give it off.

Gut running.

Use the sub if necessary, to gain an advantage, as every other club but us does.

Bring Bowey in, probably for Hibbo, who seems to have lost his edge, even if played forward for some of the game. Need good users of the ball to create opportunities.

Tackle to hurt like Maynard.

Anyway that’s a good start. We can win this year if we play our best.

 

34 minutes ago, BDA said:

One big advantage we have is we are the only team with grand final winning experience to draw on when the whips are cracking in September.

Geelong have a massive monkey on their back, the collywobbles are a fact and the rest of the contenders have little to no finals experience. Richmond have plenty but they don’t have the cattle anymore and will just make up the numbers.

This is whole notion of little finals experience is a giant myth.

We proved that in 2018 when we marched off to the preliminary final on the back off being 12 years without any finals experience. 

Then again last year off the back off little finals experience. 

Every year is different. What happened last year is completely irrelevant going into this year's finals.

Edited August 7, 20222 yr by dazzledavey36

22 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Really this was just my way of checking in on you to make sure you’re ok after Friday night 👍

You waited ‘til Sunday morning to check if I’m ok after Friday night?!?!

It’s a good thing I’m not lying in a gutter somewhere strangled to death by a Collingwood scarf! 
 

Nonetheless, thanks for your concern. 💕

Edited August 7, 20222 yr by WalkingCivilWar
Hadda thank THBT for his concern, even if it was 36 hours after my potential death

10 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

This is whole notion of little finals experience is a giant myth.

We proved that in 2018 when we marched off to the preliminary final on the back off being 12 years without any finals experience. 

Then again last year off the back off little finals experience. 

Every year is different. What happened last year is completely irrelevant going into this year's finals.

A giant myth!

In every walk of life, every endeavour, experience counts. To say otherwise is absurd.

Of course we had little finals experience but then neither did the other contenders. I'm sure glad it wasn't Richmond we were playing in the granny last year to break our drought. Dusty would have produced another Norm Smith from muscle memory alone

5 minutes ago, BDA said:

A giant myth!

In every walk of life, every endeavour, experience counts. To say otherwise is absurd.

Of course we had little finals experience but then neither did the other contenders. I'm sure glad it wasn't Richmond we were playing in the granny last year to break our drought. Dusty would have produced another Norm Smith from muscle memory alone

No it's a myth and my point proves that 

Huh? We played Geelong in a preliminary final who were a far more greater finals experienced then we were. In fact Geelong played off in a grand final the year before.

Even the doggies in the grand final still had majority of their premiership players still playing from 2016.

It was our system and game plan that stood up. Not because we were inexperienced lol. 

Edited August 7, 20222 yr by dazzledavey36

Must finish top 3 after H&A

No team has won the premiership outside of top 3 in over 20 year (except bulldogs)

Our best is well ahead of any other team. Need to keep that up for 4 quarters. Tmac returning would help

5 more wins and its back-to-back

17 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

You waited ‘til Sunday morning to check if I’m ok after Friday night?!?!

It’s a good thing I’m not lying in a gutter somewhere strangled to death by a Collingwood scarf! 
 

Nonetheless, thanks for your concern. 💕

I assumed you spent 24 hours in the lock up, and just got your phone back.

11 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

No it's a myth and my point proves that 

Huh? We played Geelong in a preliminary final who were a far more greater finals experienced then we were. In fact Geelong played off in a grand final the year before.

Even the doggies in the grand final still had majority of their premiership players still playing from 2016.

It was our system and game plan that stood up. Not because we were inexperienced lol. 

If you are genuinely arguing that experience doesn't count I won't bother wasting my time 

lol yourself mate

6 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

I assumed you spent 24 hours in the lock up, and just got your phone back.

No I didn’t get done for D & D!!!

Who told you that?!

 

 

5 minutes ago, BDA said:

If you are genuinely arguing that experience doesn't count I won't bother wasting my time 

lol yourself mate

Oh dear..

You legitimately said experience counts and the teams we played last year weren't really experienced either, which is  again where you're clearly wrong.

I then pointed out to you that both Geelong and Western Bulldogs were vastly more finals, and grand finals experienced then we were last year yet we both blew them out of the park with our inexperienced team.

My point is that you can have all the experience in the world, but if doesn't stand up on the day which the doggies and Geelong didn't last year, then it just proves that being the vastly experienced teams means jack [censored] if your system and game doesn't isn't stacking up well when opposition clubs ramp the pressure up.

 

Sassy Sunday on Demonland. 👌

3 hours ago, one_demon said:

I don't hate Collingwood

Here's a song for you.

https://www.google.com/search?q=kumbaya&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU843AU843&oq=kumbaya&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i67i131i433j0i67i131i433j0i67j0i131i433i512j0i512l5.1534j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

For mine the one thing we need to fix is how we defend in the middle of the ground and our forward line. Collingwood beat us because we did not shut down the corridor, and they were allowed too much time and space in dangerous parts of the ground which put our backs under enormous, while we were busy bombing it into their defenders and trying to manufacture goals from the pocket.

The good news with this deficiency is it's probably more about intensity than changes to our structure or personnel. Get this right and it will out us in the frame for another premiership.

3 hours ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Perhaps. But losing three of the last five certainly isn’t doing a lot right. 

We have won just 4 of our last 10 games and lost 4 out of our last 5 games at the MCG. Its not a little slump; its the record of a struggler. In this context, thinking about the flag is fantasy.

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

My point is that you can have all the experience in the world, but if doesn't stand up on the day which the doggies and Geelong didn't last year, then it just proves that being the vastly experienced teams means jack [censored] if your system and game doesn't isn't stacking up well when opposition clubs ramp the pressure up.

This is a fair point

What i was trying to say (and perhaps not very well) is the grand final winning experience could be the difference. There are many factors that which will determine success or failure (they are being discussed ad nauseum on numerous other threads at the moment) But if it comes down to 1%ers our winning experience could be the difference. It won’t matter if we don’t play well like you say but in an even matched contest, knowing that we’ve done it before matters

Geelongs’s finals experience over the past decade has been of ultimate failure despite high hopes and expectations. I wouldn’t like to be carrying that baggage. The Doggies have experience like you say but came up short because all the travelling during last years finals series caught up with them. When the deluge came midway through the 3^rd quarter in the granny they were spent and hit the wall.

Enjoy the rest of your day

4 hours ago, Deenooos_ said:

After moving through the emotional 'anger' phase which lasted all of yesterday I am taking a more logical view of the situation.

Your comments make it sound like we were beaten by 8 goals and are getting smashed week in week out and are no hope of winning games.

We lost by 7 points..... and smashed freo. We also only lost to the bulldogs by just 10 points because some young nerd was having a blinder.

We are playing pretty good footy over the last month, we aren't doing a lot wrong.

Yep just a bit of cleaner execution inside 50 and we'd be equal 1st and in good form. We missed a few easy chances and our form looks flakey.

We're playing well enough I believe, just need to finish off some good work and put teams away when we have the chance.

Edited August 7, 20222 yr by Dr. Gonzo

4 hours ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Perhaps. But losing three of the last five certainly isn’t doing a lot right. 

2 of those games were less than a kick inside the last minute. 50/50 games.

7 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

2 of those games were less than a kick inside the last minute. 50/50 games.

Yes, we had our chances and didn’t take them. The other sides did. What does that tell you? Everything’s ok?

4 minutes ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Yes, we had our chances and didn’t take them. The other sides did. What does that tell you? Everything’s ok?

Those games are decided by chance. That’s why Collingwood can’t be trusted. There was an article about games decided by less than a goal at the start of the year showing how lucky port were and look at them now. We all revert to the mean eventually 

1 hour ago, Winners at last said:

Here's a song for you.

https://www.google.com/search?q=kumbaya&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU843AU843&oq=kumbaya&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i67i131i433j0i67i131i433j0i67j0i131i433i512j0i512l5.1534j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Sorry,  I won't be clicking on that.