Alot of doom and gloom .Its onky November.

We lost by 7 points to the eventual premiers and lost by 2p to Carlton.They didnt beat us; we lost it.

A decimated forward line- even Fritsch and tmac were carrying injuries- and we only lost the two finals by the grand sum of 9 points.

A healthy senior list in '24 and the flag awaits. We've proven we can win without Oliver too.

It's kind of depressing watching some people here who have so much of their identity wrapped up in Melbourne being terrible that they desperately want to pretend we're not good. It's really sad.

 

Almost impossiblr to win 3 finals with a C- forward line ... we were always going to slip up somewhere along the line

Having Melksham & Petty as inclusions with say, Salem & Sparrow injured instead, and the balance of injuries across the team selected would have had a greater chance of winning 3 finals

So going out in straight sets although frustrating, was always a possibility

2022 was way more frustrating as we ran out of legs half-way through the season.  Losing Burgess so soon after tasting success may have been problematical

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by Macca

18 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

They don’t award the premiership cup to the team that finishes the H&A ladder in first

They have for the last three years. ☺️

21 hours ago, jumbo returns said:

Knocked out in straight sets

At least that means we finished top 4

honestly i feel like we could go either way next year. this year we lost 9 games and 7 of them were by less than 2 goals, and another was geelong in geelong by 15. 
we won 4 by less than 12 points. 
next season we could drop off and those losses be worse or equally we could win 2 more of the close ones and finish top 2 on the ladder.
i also think if we had any of a fit melksham, brown, tmac (clearly not fit), or Petty for finals we win some finals last season. id almost be tempted to put brown on ice until round 20 next year to ensure he is fit for finals if needed.

2 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

I think my irrelevant comment has been misunderstood.
I’m not sugarcoating or excusing our last two finals campaigns and I was disappointed as everyone else.

When Top 4 comes up in conversation at a pub or at home I’ve always associated it with the end of the H & A and not after finals. That was the point I was trying to make. 

And you are correct.

48 minutes ago, biggestred said:

 id almost be tempted to put brown on ice until round 20 next year to ensure he is fit for finals if needed.

I think there's an important role for BBB (if fit) in the first month of footy with Smith out and Petty having a likely compromised pre season. Then as you say I would put him on ice for a while in order to nurse him through the year and have him available for the last month and finals.

I wish he would've been fit for the Carlton final. We needed a professional goal kicker that night. 

My nightmare game last year was against Essendon without Gawn they played two rucks and we were too short

based on the afl app the 3 “tall” defenders above are respectively 193, 194and 194cms - midfielders are increasingly this tall (Bont)

Our guys will play on guys 203 cm (Peter wright) and 200 (h McKay)

yes I know body positioning and team defence etc May is really good for his size but he is getting on as well

Turner and Hore are not big defenders 

If we miss the final 8 next year then.......

the pessimists will feel vindicated 

I, however, will choose to remain optimistic.

22 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

 

22 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

I’m of the opinion that the real season begins in September. They don’t award the premiership cup to the team that finishes the H&A ladder in first

 

Yet they have the last 3 years

4 hours ago, Macca said:

Almost impossiblr to win 3 finals with a C- forward line ... we were always going to slip up somewhere along the line

Having Melksham & Petty as inclusions with say, Salem & Sparrow injured instead, and the balance of injuries across the team selected would have had a greater chance of winning 3 finals

So going out in straight sets although frustrating, was always a possibility

2022 was way more frustrating as we ran out of legs half-way through the season.  Losing Burgess so soon after tasting success may have been problematical

Stop talking logic, the naysayers want to feel important.

These things are so hard to win, we’ve given ourselves good chances the last two seasons. Overload and wear and tear injuries hit us in 2022 and we learned from that with our player/load management in 2023 to give ourselves a good shot at it. What happened to Petty and Melksham really hurt us heading into finals and there was nothing we could do about that. The significance of those two missing out to our forward structure can not be understated especially against Collingwood and tying up Moore but such is life.

Fagan and Hinkley would love 1 so posters are comparing Apples and oranges as usual 

38 minutes ago, Pennant St Dee said:

Stop talking logic, the naysayers want to feel important.

These things are so hard to win, we’ve given ourselves good chances the last two seasons. Overload and wear and tear injuries hit us in 2022 and we learned from that with our player/load management in 2023 to give ourselves a good shot at it. What happened to Petty and Melksham really hurt us heading into finals and there was nothing we could do about that. The significance of those two missing out to our forward structure can not be understated especially against Collingwood and tying up Moore but such is life.

Fagan and Hinkley would love 1 so posters are comparing Apples and oranges as usual 

And no one was predicting that Brown or T-Mac would be incapacitated rendered ineffective for nearly all the season

On top of that Fritsch was nowhere near match fit when he returned.  As previously mentioned, Melk & Petty were out

Brayshaw being taken out in an act of thuggery meant that we couldn't use Petracca forward as we would have liked

So if the majority of those aforementioned players were fit and raring to go, I'm not sure JVR gets a game ... instead of that he was a virtual linchpin 

I never make excuses but sound reasoning has to be acknowledged ... we did exceeedingly well to get so close in both finals

All this misery talk of a straight sets exit seems to be bypassing that our stocks were bare (in the forward line)

As for 2022, I reckon we mucked up fitness wise and if our top players were exhausted, take the chance and rest them ... we won our first 10 games so we had that luxury

7 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

The forward line is still a serious concern and intercept defenders will likely continue to hurt the Dees. Is there too much expectation placed on Petty to glue the forward line together based on his 6 goal game against Richmond? I think so. A pass mark for he and JVR would be 65 goals between them. Realistically both are in their infancy as forwards at this level and it’s not going to be easy.

Good post.

Our fwd line is my main concern.

I don't understand why we didn't recruit a couple more talls for it but maybe they weren't to be found.

Perhaps the club is still banking on Tmac or Bbb.

Jvr is going to have a massive year, I hope.

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by leave it to deever

7 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Is there too much expectation placed on Petty to glue the forward line together based on his 6 goal game against Richmond?

There's a lot of forward line saviour syndrome around Petty.  Defenders that go forward often do well at the start, then they start to struggle.  

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by greenwaves

23 hours ago, Smokey said:

Continue living my life because I don't have an unhealthy emotional dependence to a football team 

THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

If we miss the 8, I will bite the bullet and teach everyone on here how to correctly use an ellipsis…

7 dots?!

That ain’t it.

On 27/11/2023 at 18:56, Smokey said:

Continue living my life because I don't have an unhealthy emotional dependence to a football team 

Best post so far 

Might take up smoking to manage the anxiety.

8 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

I think my irrelevant comment has been misunderstood.
I’m not sugarcoating or excusing our last two finals campaigns and I was disappointed as everyone else.

When Top 4 comes up in conversation at a pub or at home I’ve always associated it with the end of the H & A and not after finals. That was the point I was trying to make. 

And the silver lining is that we moved up at least 2 spots in the draft by losing both finals. Almost certainly 3 spots further down if we'd lost a PF

So instead of a starting point in the draft of 13, the pick could easily have been 16

From that point, do we get to pick 11 and then snare the Danish wonder?!!

If the kid turns out to be a star, the 2 losses in the finals will have been a contributing factor

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by Macca

What a strange post to be reading in November!

There are plenty of ifs, buts and maybes, of course, but perhaps we should look at these after we've played six games?

At this stage of the year there is no need to be overly positive or overly negative. Let's see what transpires.

53 minutes ago, dee-tox said:

What a strange post to be reading in November!

There are plenty of ifs, buts and maybes, of course, but perhaps we should look at these after we've played six games?

At this stage of the year there is no need to be overly positive or overly negative. Let's see what transpires.

Yep.  Pointless hypothetical

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by greenwaves

I think we will win the flag in 2024.

But it requires a number of things, not limited to:

- very good run with injuries, particularly R18 onwards

- Clarry to get his act together and do what Clarry does best

- McQualter to fit in seamlessly to the FD and add new insight to our forward entries and set up

In the very slim chance we do not make finals, there will be some significant list changes, most notably senior coach

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by Stiff Arm

3 hours ago, greenwaves said:

There's a lot of forward line saviour syndrome around Petty.  Defenders that go forward often do well at the start, then they start to struggle.  

Mr Neitz says “hi”!

37 minutes ago, monoccular said:

Mr Neitz says “hi”!

I said "often" not "always"

Edited November 28, 20231 yr by greenwaves