Thursday night football sucks, home after midnight alarm at 5.30. 
 

So flat and disappointed about last night, I think we are the hardest team to beat unfortunately last night we helped Collingwood to much. The first quarter was some of the dumbest football you will see. The mental pressure on us this week will be huge. 

8 hours ago, The Swimming Dee said:

Agreed…Laurie not an AFL standard footballer at this stage

Have now been proven correct!

7 hours 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. 

 

Remember K Pickett V B Smith. Pickett was pilloried (including here) for that.

Differences -

-Pickett didn't tuck up.

-Pickett didn't knock Smith into next week.

-Pickett wasn't wearing black & white.

-Maynard is a bog ordinary footballer and a one trick serial offender.

I’m not going to read all 20 pages but in the sober light of morning all I will say is

Don’t get beaten by that you know.

And we did.

We know we dump kick long with no thought.

We know how forwards contend with 30 players constantly in the F50.

We know our mids set up the same way at stoppages.

We know we have half a forward line with no decent big forward who can make an impact.

We know the game plan won’t change and we like last year went super into our shells after going behind early.

We know we have the worst i50 conversion and have for years and We know Goodwin won’t change that.

We know we don’t want Carlton to win tonight.

We know Stafford should have been moved on last year.

We know straight sets is a big possibility.

We know we could be wasting Gawns best chance at a second flag.

Worst part is its only Friday and we've got a whole weekend to listen to the media try and digest why we lost.

Absolutely Damning stat!

4 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

He did early on but we were hampered by 6-6-6 and then switched to a defensive focus because we would obliterate the bottom teams but couldn't go with the top teams. You can't argue with the results, maybe we've sacrificed too much offensively but again I think it comes down to personnel. If Petty plays forward, if Weideman comes on, if Hogan fulfilled his potential etc etc When Hogan left we had the choice to trade for May or use the pick on King. Can you imagine our defence without May? We don't win the 21 flag that's for sure.

I'm confident in a Petty/JVR/Fritsch/Pickett combo moving forward but Petty has had trouble staying on the park recently and JVR is still raw. We would love another KPF but who? They don't grow on trees, yeah we could've gone after McStay possibly but there hasn't been much else for the simple fact that teams who have good kpf do everything they can to hang on to them.

JVR has come on in leaps and bounds this year imv. He is starting to take a few more marks. He will be ready with another pre-season. 

Same story for a very long time, we are terrible by foot, add in the wet we just have no idea how to hit a target.  So long bomb to a contest, numbers around the contest is our plan A.  

Collingwood just sat behind the ball and the sling shot, win the footy and sprint forward.  It was a hard game to watch MFC just so bad by foot, 3 blokes jumping for same mark and for 3 qtrs the pies cleared to ball from our forward line with ease.

Did the guys not do a warm up out on the ground pre game or did I miss it? Normally they're practising clearance work, taking shots at goal. Fritsch and Trac do this thing where they kick up and down the white line of the centre square. I arrived at 5pm and didn't see any of that. They were all just hovering around the centre circle pre game. The goal kicking and first quarter could be a reflection of that.

Watched the replay. My advice to all here that were at the MCG: don't watch it. You'll be even more [censored] off.

On TV it seems like a far bigger domination than it looked like in person. Pies seem to [censored] themselves at every single contest. Some of their goals... my god. They had at least 6 goals from turnovers I reckon. And they weren't even high pressure turnovers. Mostly from our F50 entries.

Goodwin says we played good for 3 quarters. I know he's trying to keep a positive face but gee whiz if we play like that against Carlton it is straight sets comfortably. They will mop us up. We quite literally dominate around the ground until the flanks at which point we become slow, unsure... every single entry seems 1-2 seconds late. We lacked dare and pace going forward and it is so evident on TV. Carlton's defense is very good, they are very well matched against us.

We have absolutely blown a home Prelim here, make no mistake. Last night was a team spooked early on, and then a team that choked late. They fought hard but that is a very tough loss to swallow.

I still feel like Fritsch’s last kick for goal……ugly punt

8 hours ago, Stiff Arm said:

No, but he could've insisted we trade for a young, quality key forward over the last 5 years.

BBB was always going to be a one year wonder

What a load of sh.t! Key forwards don’t grow on trees and you don’t just get to pick 1 from another team and bring them in. 

5 minutes ago, Demons11 said:

What a load of sh.t! Key forwards don’t grow on trees and you don’t just get to pick 1 from another team and bring them in. 

Richmond did, Geelong did.

Even Brisbane.

3 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Richmond did, Geelong did.

Even Brisbane.

We did in 2021 

23 minutes ago, Gunna’s said:

I still feel like Fritsch’s last kick for goal……ugly punt

If he didn't turn away, Kossie was free 20 out from goal.

37 minutes ago, praha said:

Watched the replay. My advice to all here that were at the MCG: don't watch it. You'll be even more [censored] off.

On TV it seems like a far bigger domination than it looked like in person. Pies seem to [censored] themselves at every single contest. Some of their goals... my god. They had at least 6 goals from turnovers I reckon. And they weren't even high pressure turnovers. Mostly from our F50 entries.

Goodwin says we played good for 3 quarters. I know he's trying to keep a positive face but gee whiz if we play like that against Carlton it is straight sets comfortably. They will mop us up. We quite literally dominate around the ground until the flanks at which point we become slow, unsure... every single entry seems 1-2 seconds late. We lacked dare and pace going forward and it is so evident on TV. Carlton's defense is very good, they are very well matched against us.

We have absolutely blown a home Prelim here, make no mistake. Last night was a team spooked early on, and then a team that choked late. They fought hard but that is a very tough loss to swallow.

That is exactly what i observed at the G So bloody obvious that we didn't attack enough or soon enough to take advantage of our contented possessions

Extremally poor game plan and execution

9.6!!! They kicked 9.6 and held on... FMD.

I thought the winning team from last night would have one hand on the cup, I don't think so now. 

Problem with Thursday night games is the little sleep you get and you're still wired lol. Missed opportunity for sure and it hurts. Might get another 90k next week if it's Caaaarlton.

5 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

If he didn't turn away, Kossie was free 20 out from goal.

Yep, I saw that too and Bayley has the skill to pass off accurately around his body. It was very selfish. His later dribble kick goal should have also been a handball to Kossie to run into an open goal. He had a dirty night did Fritta.

Edited September 7, 20231 yr by leucopogon

3 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

If he didn't turn away, Kossie was free 20 out from goal.

Hunter was on his own on the southern wing most of the night and was completely ignored watch how Collingwood used the wings and kicked inside and outside to make space

The Dess on th other hand collected as as a pack at the ball drop and competed against each other

repeat repeat repeat  so frustrating

Just now, Dee Zephyr said:

9.6!!! They kicked 9.6 and held on... FMD.

I thought the winning team from last night would have one hand on the cup, I don't think so now. 

Problem with Thursday night games is the little sleep you get and you're still wired lol. Missed opportunity for sure and it hurts. Might get another 90k next week if it's Caaaarlton.

Brisbane just became flag favourites for mine.

Melbourne should chase Ratogalea 

47 minutes ago, Stevienic23 said:

Did the guys not do a warm up out on the ground pre game or did I miss it? Normally they're practising clearance work, taking shots at goal. Fritsch and Trac do this thing where they kick up and down the white line of the centre square. I arrived at 5pm and didn't see any of that. They were all just hovering around the centre circle pre game. The goal kicking and first quarter could be a reflection of that.

Noticed the same thing. It puzzled me at the time.

Hugely frustrating but the only reason we lost that was missing gilt edge opportunities. Some of the misses were inexcusable. Langdon playing on, Picket with time and space 15m out etc etc. The "method" created more than enough to win the game, as shown by the expected score.

Selfish Bayley re-appeared last night. Burnt players. Jumped on packs with no chance of getting the ball,  spoiled our own players

Bad habit

27 minutes ago, pitmaster said:

Noticed the same thing. It puzzled me at the time.

Thete was plenty of goal kicking practice early on 

They all  nailed it from 40 to 50 out.

Fritsch stayed out in the first rain to get the feel of the ball.

They lost their Zen under pressure  when the game started and no one was leading the way until Max stepped up just before half time. 

By then it was  just their old chaotic scramble to keep in touch; hardly the way to unsettle a team playing with their noses in front from the first minute of a Prelim..( actually the whole season)

 

Im sorry but we would have still lost with another 30 inside 50s. We just kicked it in and expected Fritsch to play like Carey. It was the the GWS game all over again.

Also to Maynard, how many “football accidents” can one person have. Absolute [censored].