25 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

We sewed up a top 4 spot today by beating a team who gave it their all and kept us really honest, so it was a solid win…

Yet there’s such a weird vibe around here. I thought people would be thrilled with our effort the last 2 months. If you can’t be proud of what we are serving up at the moment I don’t know when you ever will be. We are the most consistent team of the last 3 years. We haven’t been this good for 60 years! Our average losing margin for the year is 10 points. 

I’m super proud of where we are at as a football club. I can’t ask for much more as a supporter, and if you feel entitled to more you might need to ask yourself what your expectations are, and why you feel entitled to them?

Go Dees.

Supporters want some sort of certainty even when there is none! None of us know whether we are real contenders or pretenders like last year.

The whole gammut of emotions are on offer! 

Locking in a top four position is good but guarantees you nothing.

2 hours ago, layzie said:

Thought it was a good win. People were saying before the bounce that anything less than a 50 point win was pathetic and all that shaz but I thought this was a good win against a team that was playing very hard.

Jake Lever marked everything. Someone said his first quarter was pathetic and I think that's harsh. So consistent even when we werent going well.

ANB was another who put his body on the line when others simply weren't. He made some excellent plays which helped get us going. Trent Rivers excellent again and you love seeing him go through the middle. 

Jake the snake milkshake kicked serious tail today. Could have had 6.

Gus was brilliant and even the naysayers have to be taking notice

Bottom line is we did this with second tier players stepping up, it is not a case of stopping a few and stopping is. Unleash the fury!

I think bang bang bang may have broken some supporters' brains and they've never fully withdrawn from that high, expecting MFC to pummel teams every game.

Edited August 20, 20231 yr by Chook

Gotta love the mongrel streak in Rooey. He was getting pushed and shoved in the goal square by their defender, young bloke on debut (I think) while the ball was up the other end. Rooey was NOT having a bar of it. He immediately and aggressively retaliated and made the little upstart think twice about trying it again. It was very pleasing to see. 😁

 

5 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Gotta love the mongrel streak in Rooey. He was getting pushed and shoved in the goal square by their defender, young bloke on debut (I think) while the ball was up the other end. Rooey was NOT having a bar of it. He immediately and aggressively retaliated and made the little upstart think twice about trying it again. It was very pleasing to see. 😁

Well in a few weeks he's going to discover finals are a whole new ball game. I personally enjoy his goal celebrations

8 hours ago, bobby1554 said:

Rubbish. I am glad Goodwin said what he said. There is no special skill involved in making it your sole objective to stop a player getting possessions. 

Clearly there is because Oliver was largely an irrelevant factor in the game for probably the first time in his career.  Nobody else has managed to achieve that.

4 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

Clearly there is because Oliver was largely an irrelevant factor in the game for probably the first time in his career.  Nobody else has managed to achieve that.

One thing is for sure, he's a fine tagger.

9 hours ago, Binmans PA said:

Interestingly, between Rounds 18-22, Hawthorn scored 58.4 points from intercepts, the number one ranked side in the competition. I'm sure @WheeloRatings will be able to tell us how many points came from that source today in the Stats thread. I'm going to say that got nowhere near that for points today.

Yes, we scored 58 points to 23 from turnovers today

Category	For			Against			Diff
	G	B	T	G	B	T
Kick-in	1	0	6	1	0	6	+0
Centre Bounce	1	0	6	2	0	12	-6
Stoppage (Other)	2	5	17	3	1	19	-2
Turnover	9	4	58	3	5	23	+35

Category	For		Against
	Match	Season	Match	Season
Kick-in	6	2.5	6	2.4
Centre Bounce	6	11.5	12	7.7
Stoppage (Other)	17	23.9	19	21.0
Turnover	58	53.0	23	41.8

 

 

1 hour ago, Swooper1987 said:

Clearly there is because Oliver was largely an irrelevant factor in the game for probably the first time in his career.  Nobody else has managed to achieve that.

And they still lost. It is an outdated play. Which is why Goody doesn’t employ it. And Clarrie still managed to kick what I believe was the clincher. And was involved in three other scoring involvements in the last quarter. If Mitchell wants to waste a player like that, then he will never achieve the ultimate. 

12 minutes ago, bobby1554 said:

And they still lost. It is an outdated play. Which is why Goody doesn’t employ it. And Clarrie still managed to kick what I believe was the clincher. And was involved in three other scoring involvements in the last quarter. If Mitchell wants to waste a player like that, then he will never achieve the ultimate. 

Tools at your disposal has to be part of it too. Mitchell doesn’t have the luxury of a starting midfield of Oliver, Petracca and Viney that Goody has. It would be obviously wasteful if we played a completely negative player in our midfield. Hawthorn just did what they needed to have the best shot at winning. I don’t mind it, but I’d definitely prefer to be in our position than theirs.

18 minutes ago, bobby1554 said:

And they still lost. It is an outdated play. Which is why Goody doesn’t employ it. And Clarrie still managed to kick what I believe was the clincher. And was involved in three other scoring involvements in the last quarter. If Mitchell wants to waste a player like that, then he will never achieve the ultimate. 

He was moved off Oliver in the last and on to Rivers.  And as to winning, he cleaned up Daicos and Liberatore before he went off and they won both of those.  Face it, like everything there is a time and a place for a good tagger.

I don't think there's a better way to fast track a young mid's development than to have them shadow the best players. 

They might get beat but they might also do alright and the learnings are plenty.

Edited August 20, 20231 yr by layzie

Wow another year approaches September seems like a month ago the season started. I was thinking on the trip home that going to the game is what footy is about. However I now must face the reality that my trips to the footy will be lower than in the past. Sadly watching on TV is nowhere near the same. The upside! I am still around to enjoy a win. 

15 hours ago, layzie said:

Top 4 and a week of Blues fans talking rubbish averted!

They're still going to talk rubbish.

15 minutes ago, Katrina Dee Fan said:

They're still going to talk rubbish.

That's true. 

At least no threat of 'stealing' our top 4 spot.

11 hours ago, Beetle said:

Couldn’t disagree more. I think our better, more experienced stock of players ended up wearing them down and winning us the game.

For a very young side they completely picked our zone apart for most of the game and worked back hard, consistently outnumbering us at the contest on our half forward line. They also beat us in clearances without Newcombe.

61 i50s to 39 i50s does not agree that Hawthorn "picked our zone apart for most of the game". And when they did manage to go inside 50 we intercepted - 69 intercepts to 63.

 

Very late on this but shoutout to the Pink Lady event and the efforts that everyone involved go to to make this happen. One of my favourite days at the G right up there with the Freeze. 

If you are able to make a donation please do. 

10 minutes ago, old55 said:

61 i50s to 39 i50s does not agree that Hawthorn "picked our zone apart for most of the game". And when they did manage to go inside 50 we intercepted - 69 intercepts to 63.

 

I actually think we were happy for them to chip it around a bit too. Made for a lower intensity game.

Played into our hands a bit as whilst running and covering those kicks is tiring it is not fatiguing in the way lots of tackles, pack marks and contests are.

So they didn't exploit how physically sore and fatigued they must have been after the  blues game

9 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Gotta love the mongrel streak in Rooey. He was getting pushed and shoved in the goal square by their defender, young bloke on debut (I think) while the ball was up the other end. Rooey was NOT having a bar of it. He immediately and aggressively retaliated and made the little upstart think twice about trying it again. It was very pleasing to see. 😁

Nice to meet you yesterday WCW! Not sure if you remember, but I said gday to you out on the ground. The banner looked magnificent

2 hours ago, bobby1554 said:

And they still lost. It is an outdated play. Which is why Goody doesn’t employ it. And Clarrie still managed to kick what I believe was the clincher. And was involved in three other scoring involvements in the last quarter. If Mitchell wants to waste a player like that, then he will never achieve the ultimate. 

I think it's still a valid ploy. Depends very much on the quality of the player . Clearly Oliver was nullified.

11 hours ago, layzie said:

ANB was another who put his body on the line when others simply weren't. He made some excellent plays which helped get us going. Trent Rivers excellent again and you love seeing him go through the middle. 

Who failed to put their body on the line? I didn't see that happen.

Stolen from a FB group.  Credit to the creator, if it's one of you 👍

 

Shout out to Josh Jenkins, who picked the Hawks at half time on the big screen.

👋

9 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Gotta love the mongrel streak in Rooey. He was getting pushed and shoved in the goal square by their defender, young bloke on debut (I think) while the ball was up the other end. Rooey was NOT having a bar of it. He immediately and aggressively retaliated and made the little upstart think twice about trying it again. It was very pleasing to see. 😁

They’re a lot to like about him. I see he’s up to 27 goals for the season now. Just for a comparison I had a look at Charlie Curnow’s numbers. Charlie scored 20 goals in 21 games in his second season and 34 in 20 in his third. 
JVR has scored his 27 goals in 18 games this season. 

14 hours ago, BDA said:

just watched a replay of the 4th quarter. Bill Laurie did a few nice things for sure

I agree, he's coming of his own.