1 hour ago, BAMF said:

Trying my best to hate him but there was nothing in it. He will be free to play.

If you look at the rules, he has to go. High impact and careless, and he left the ground to make contact. Players have a duty of care. He has to go.

On top of this, Gus' father in law took his own life with CTE (from acquired brain injury in sport), Gus may never player again and the AFL is currently engaged in a law suit with a group of ex players who have suffered similar repeated concussions. We've just had another player retire as a result of this in McCartin.

Having said all this, the AFL couldn't give a stuff about anything but revenue. Maynard will get off when he absolutely shouldn't.

Just now, Boots and all said:

Could you imagine that game without Max? It would have been messy, he was huge tonight.

Don’t want to think about “the game without Max” 

Incredibly frustrating to enter another final series with a forward line in shambles. 
 

One of Smith or McDonald need to go and Petracca needs to spend some serious minutes in the forward line. I know he will be missed in the midfield but I feel it’s the only card we have left to play.

Edited September 7, 20231 yr by wisedog

The look on Goody’s face when Smith and Langdon took advantage like it was a Benny Hill skit rather than let Fritta have a set shot was priceless.

He’d have missed it I guess and maybe put it out on the full, so in some senses maybe we ended up a point better off than if they didn’t.

Edited September 7, 20231 yr by Undeeterred

11 minutes ago, JimmyGadson said:

Can't fault our mental toughness, heart and desire to compete. It's admirable for sure and says a lot about how far we've come and the kind of culture we've created. Clearly we're respected. 

Ultimately we lost the game in a way that has been a trend for how long now? Too long. Years. 

Oliver is a great example tonight of what too many of our players do. Bomb shallow, high, sometimes long. Just zero composure. That was as close to as the most non-infliential 30 touch game I've seen from someone and he gave away stupid free kicks also. 

Tom McDonald, wow. 

Max Gawn is just too good to believe and almost single handedly kept us alive. A pleasure watching him. 

Brayshaw being subbed out clearly didn't help our cause. But the signs were already there imo. Collingwood were cleaner, tougher and more proactive early and we just couldn't match it. One good quarter is never enough. 

And for those saying Maynard should get weeks, you have no idea. He jumped in the air to smother. That was the football action. And once in the air, could not do a thing to stop his body colliding into Brayshaw's.. Extremely unfortunate for Gus and Melbourne supporters, but if you cannot see it for what it is, you have a serious Melbourne bias and just completely unreasonable. Some of the comments on here are hilariously embarrassing. 

Maynard is scum, but he actually did nothing wrong. 

Let's hope Gus is okay, we can still do some damage although I see some serous holes appearing for us. 

 

I agree with the first half of your post.  You are right in saying that Maynard couldn't avoid contact, but isn't that true in countless cases so surely that can't be test right.

The fact is he chose to turn and bump. Now yes you could say that was to protect himself, but again, you can say that about every ground ball collision also ( Hunters this year.)  His other option was to show duty of care and try and tackle, brace with his arms out etc

yes that is split second, but again that is what every case deals with.  He had other options.

He has a duty of care to not shirt front an opposing player.  He should get 3 weeks.  And I'm not biased jvr should get 2 also, that was amateur stuff. 

Those 2 goals they got virtually straight away after we kicked a goal hurt a lot.

It was good to keep Elliott goalless to.

1 hour ago, Cheap Seats said:

Haha optimistic I like it.

We're not good enough it's that simple 

We are good enough with a fit list. Unfortunately Petty going down and then to a lesser extent Melksham doomed us.

4 minutes ago, HarpenDee said:

Hard disagree.

Plenty of other options available. Took the opportunity to level someone out because it was there under the protection that your kind of analysis provides.

I do agree he will definitely get off. Channel 7 set the agenda immediately. You could tell at half time Dangerfield felt it was unacceptable but didn't want to upset the apple cart 

Right. 

So let's run through it. 

We can both agree that his action first and foremost was to jump and smother the ball? 

I mean, clearlllly that's what he did. 

Now tell me what he could do with his body mid air to avoid the contact? 

 

1 hour ago, Vipercrunch said:

That was a choke.  No other way to describe it.  Absolute stage fright.

So wrong, VC. Pies were faster to the ball, created more pressure. They also were better at ground level, while we two-grabbed ball pick-ups and marks. And still we were in with a chance in Q4. When we had the chance to win, we fluffed it in front of goal in Q4. I don't think choking was the issue. Skills were.

'when the ball was gone and the spoil was finished he tucked up for a bump and hit him in the face' 👋

Absolutely furious losing to Collingwood! 😡😡😡😡

Even more angry because we had our chances to win if our kicking efficiency was better in the forwardine!

Someone should of knocked out Maynard after his dog act on Brayshaw! Hope he gets 3 weeks for his despicable act of thuggery! 🤬🤬🤬🤬

15 minutes ago, Undeeterred said:

The simple principle in the Maynard incident is he left is feet and once you do that, it’s your risk. He could have just landed chest to chest or rolled the other way but he chose to brace and, frankly, stuff him. Deserves a month 

The afl clearly don’t care about context either. They care about end result. This is why he’s done. Brayshaw got stretchered off. That’s what the afl care about 

3 minutes ago, OhMyDees said:

I’m not saying our forwards aren’t to blame but not all the blame is theirs. 

We have no ability to bring the ball to ground or get the ball out the back because the delivery is [censored]. They take too long and the opposition sets up. 

Case in point is Rivers kicking wide to Gawn at the death who dink kicks and fails by turning it over. Riv should have roosted it into the danger area and hope our smalls would pick it up. 

Agree. But we did that long bomb so many times to no avail. JVR and Smith awere bringing the ball to ground but we often didn't have anyone front and centre. Kossie was waiting out the back a fair bit but where was Chandler?

We dominated that game for large portions and should’ve won by 3-4 goals. 
 

Tonight our forward line consisted of:

Fritsch (with 1 game returning from injury)

TMAC (first game after how many weeks since his last AFL game?)

JVR (who is probably 2 years from beginning to hit consistency)
 

Just not going to be winning many BIG final games with a forward line in that state when big pack marks are needed especially when we bomb it in repeatedly. 
 

That isn’t a knock on those blokes at all, but be realistic, if you’re a defensive unit and those 3 (2 of them having JUST returned to AFL level) are the main targets of the opposition, you aren’t going to be sweating the ball coming down there. 
 

And they didn’t, so we lost. 
 

 

 

No Petty, No Melksham, No Brown, TMac’s first game in 4 months, Fritta’s second in 3.

We don’t get any credit for this at all. We kept solving a problem, only to have it forced back on us.

If Brisbane have that many inside 50’s against Collingwood they’ll win by 8 goals.

https://x.com/aflxscore/status/1699775071773131035?s=46&t=JtnGf8t-SYhe1APrY99Fkg

Edited September 7, 20231 yr by Fat Tony

10 minutes ago, Bonkers said:

We had our chances. Almost double the inside 50’s. At some point you have to put responsibility on the players to execute basic skills and decision making. They didn’t, we lost, it’s that simple. 

The one from Sparrow, 5m out of goal.square 😡😡😡

 Difficult angle but at least kicki it... instead gets caught HTB 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Hard to win a final when up to half the team were either MIA or well below par

So many non contributors and many of the team were mere spectators for most of the 1st quarter.  We looked unmotivated early

I'm rarely gutted by a loss but tonight was a game we threw away as the Pies just aren't that good.  Sure, their pressure was very good but why did we wilt so easily?

When we finally got our act together, it was all too late

Our composure and poise was poor, the inside 50 entries atrocious and the forward line was non functional.  Simple things like playing in front and gaining separation just don't happen for our forwards.  To get the easy goals you've got to do the hard yards

Make no mistake, we lost the match way more than the opposition won it

A chance opportunity blown

And now it gets harder to where we want to end up.  Not an impossible mission but far from easy

1 hour ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

This hurts and it should hurt, Filth just stopped in the headlights.

[censored] miserable in front of goal fugg me drunk absolutely dropped a game that was in our control.

Yep, the Pies were rattled. Had Fritsch converted that regulation shot in the last we win running away. Just far too many easy shots missed.

+32(?) inside 50s

+22 expected score

9.6 vs 7.11

Kicked ourselves out of it.

After the pathetic start to get game we controlled things for 2.5 quarters but just could not convert our dominance onto the scoreboard. Our players panicked instead of hitting up targets they just bombed away. Max trying to snag one from 55 didn't lead by example but he was immense around the ground so I can't really have a crack at him. We had players free at times and kicked over their heads to contests. Complete opposite of the Brisbane game where we took our time, we only needed 2 goals with plenty of time left but just reverted to the bomb and no-one was taking contested marks inside 50.

Extremely frustrating game but I take comfort in knowing the Pies will not win the flag.

4 minutes ago, Go Lordie said:

So wrong, VC. Pies were faster to the ball, created more pressure. They also were better at ground level, while we two-grabbed ball pick-ups and marks. And still we were in with a chance in Q4. When we had the chance to win, we fluffed it in front of goal in Q4. I don't think choking was the issue. Skills were.

I'll bet they kick 'em all day long at training.

4 minutes ago, JimmyGadson said:

Right. 

So let's run through it. 

We can both agree that his action first and foremost was to jump and smother the ball? 

I mean, clearlllly that's what he did. 

Now tell me what he could do with his body mid air to avoid the contact? 

 

Not turn his shoulder into the players head and concuss him.

Any more questions?

1 minute ago, JimmyGadson said:

Right. 

So let's run through it. 

We can both agree that his action first and foremost was to jump and smother the ball? 

I mean, clearlllly that's what he did. 

Now tell me what he could do with his body mid air to avoid the contact? 

 

Landed on top of him front on and shared the impact, rather than distributing the impact entirely on to Brayshaw’s face. 

He basically did the SUV smashing a Suzuki thing rather than two Mazdas hitting each other and everyone being ok

It’s laughable to argue he had no other options or that what he did was reasonable.

It’s also entirely predictable that he will be free to play because the AFL is borderline corrupt on these issues. A Melbourne player would get 4-5 weeks for that. 

4 minutes ago, Jjrogan said:

I agree with the first half of your post.  You are right in saying that Maynard couldn't avoid contact, but isn't that true in countless cases so surely that can't be test right.

The fact is he chose to turn and bump. Now yes you could say that was to protect himself, but again, you can say that about every ground ball collision also ( Hunters this year.)  His other option was to show duty of care and try and tackle, brace with his arms out etc

yes that is split second, but again that is what every case deals with.  He had other options.

He has a duty of care to not shirt front an opposing player.  He should get 3 weeks.  And I'm not biased jvr should get 2 also, that was amateur stuff. 

He chose to jump and attempt a smother and then last second tried to brace himself for contact as he was coming down.

Play this in normal speed and it all happened so quick that I don't think he had time to even try and turn away.

These footballing motions happen so quick in games that sometimes it's just hard to react quick enough.

12 minutes ago, Boots and all said:

Jumping forward like that didn't make sense unless he was trying to make contact. I'd have to look again but I don't think he was near smothering that kick. 

He wanted to make contact arms went down could have pushed him in the chest with his arms but drove his shoulder into Brayshaw's jaw.

How can he possibly get off?

Just now, Fork 'em said:

I'll bet they kick 'em all day long at training.

It was disappointing in Q4. We are the best-finishing team in the league, but we blew the Q4 chances we created.