2 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Or handball to Sparrow for a walk in goal

Yep, but that's Fritsch. Selfish as anything.

16 minutes ago, BDA said:

its not luck

its better skills and execution

They do have better skills and execution, but I’d maintain that was quite a lucky win.

Just now, VNightCityLegend said:

We know this league is corrupt and Naicos is the Macedonian flopper, but fact of the matter is, we win that with just a bit more composure and smarts when we had momentum. We primarily lose momentum due to our own undoing.

Richmond were bottom 6 for free kicks across their 4 years of dominance and 3 flags, so they won the flag when umps would pay the most free kicks against them.

Just really sick of losing to these [censored] and the same way time and time again. Yeah, we were brave and should be proud, but honorable losses for a group with this much top end established talent to compliment the younger blokes like Tholstrup, Langford etc shouldn’t be tolerated any longer.

Thing that bugs me it's often our "best" players doin' the brain fades.
They should be the ones we rely on to keep their heads and deliver the ball.

Edited Monday at 08:433 days by Fork 'em

7 minutes ago, sue said:

I'm amazed by some of the negativity here (...no I'm not). Almost everyone thought we'd be lucky to come with 5 goals of them, many expected a 10 goal thrashing, yet we lost by a single point!!

Sure it would have been great if the point was in our favour instead, but it wasn't. Despite all our mistakes, it ended up a toss up.

Of course we could have done better and we have problems.

But if that is all C'Wood can do against us then I'd say they must have problems too.

I’m normally pretty good at not losing it sue, but this one stung, a lot. For a start my blood pressure was at heart attack level for pretty much the entire game, and we had a golden opportunity to show the comp we’re serious by knocking the top team off. The high I was setting myself for was ripped away from me. The come-down from this one will be lengthy.

AFL house are creaming themselves after that. You know they are overjoyed that the directive to the umpires worked and their favourite team got over the line.

WWE is more real than AFL.

7 news about to go into the winners rooms.

I’ve never seen inside the umpires rooms before, should be interesting.

I never thought both Fritta and Melksgam would work in the same forward line, but they were both outstanding today. Hats off.

Daicos is a stain on this game, can't win a ball on his own merit and then has a sook to the umpires to make sure he gets a kick.

An absolute disgrace of a footballer.

1 minute ago, Nasher said:

I’m normally pretty good at not losing it sue, but this one stung, a lot. For a start my blood pressure was at heart attack level for pretty much the entire game, and we had a golden opportunity to show the comp we’re serious by knocking the top team off. The high I was setting myself for was ripped away from me. The come-down from this one will be lengthy.

I found myself far more invested in this one as well.
Haven't screamed out the "F bomb" so often since I dunno ..... Last Kings Birthday maybe.
My god I hate Collingwood.

They're my GF.
Essendons the Prelim.
And we've lost 'em both.

Just now, In Harmes Way said:

7 news about to go into the winners rooms.

I’ve never seen inside the umpires rooms before, should be interesting.

I never thought both Fritta and Melksgam would work in the same forward line, but they were both outstanding today. Hats off.

I fkn love Melky and this new lease on life he has. When he took that hanger he was like “these ……s are going to just keep kicking it to me in a 2 on 1, I’ll just have to find a way to grab the thing”. He’s playing his guts out for the the team at the moment.

Collingwood are ruthless, we are toothless.

Should have won but once again, [censored] kicking and awful decision making means we lose. Fritsch, Oliver, Gawn, all had chances to get us into it at the end and blew it.

Heartbroken.

Do we have a senior player with any composure?

Tracc’s a mess. Oliver’s worse. Pickett’s doing too much dumb stuff. Don’t get me started on Fritsch. Rivers is getting dumber by the minute.

Maybe Melk? But he’s as prone as anyone to play on to a miracle kick.

Gawn didn’t deserve a bake for his last minute kick but the one earlier in the game was horrendous. Hes a freaking ruckman, why won’t he play like it!

We can rely on McVee, Salem and Bowey chipping it across half back when we need a goal to win

3 minutes ago, dees-picable said:

Sorry disagree. Its the composure of Pendlebury and Sidebottom V Clarry and others in the heat. And poor decisions and kicking. Should be proud of the effort. May was lucky Max didnt floor him. He is the GOAT. Dont blame him.

Surely you understand there are many factors that make up a game result. Yes our flaws are there, no argument, and obviously they are in most/many games the sole difference, BUT, and it’s the one BUT that makes too many game results so frustratingly fragile at this level, is the quality of the adjudication. Poor umpiring today influenced the result of the game, it’s that simple. Perfection is a nonsense, but umpiring is glaringly the worst aspect of our professional game. To say it should/could be better is a no-brainer, but those with the money/power aren’t interested enough, and those with the most at stake are forbidden to mention it.

So May and Maxy delivered some forthright feedback to each other. so what

seriously. Is everyone that soft nowadays that they can't handle players having a go at each other on the footy field.

Wouldn't we have we praticed what to do in the final minutes?

Maxy doing a torp wouldn't be it I thought

Edited Monday at 08:513 days by dees189227

1 minute ago, Fork 'em said:

I found myself far more invested in this one as well.
Haven't screamed out the "F bomb" so often since I dunno ..... Last Kings Birthday maybe.
My god I hate Collingwood.

They're my GF.
Essendons the Prelim.
And we've lost 'em both.

Me three..

Sat on the couch staring aimlessly after the loss for a good 20 minutes. The losses this year I've been able to just walk away and distract myself but this one stings.

The effort and intent was pure 4 quarters today. That's all I ever asked and said this pre game thread today.

My next question is why haven't we been able to produce this on a more consistent level? The losses to North, Essendon, St Kilda look more and more bizarre when they dish up this kind of performance today.

I generally like the way May plays like he's an enraged Demonlander in a gameday thread, but I think he went too far with that. Gawn is untouchable! Besides, those kinds of rubbish chaos kicks are the ones that can win you games sometimes. The idea was right. Settle the [censored] down May.

Unfortunately that entire game was far too predictable. Yes, Daicos is a squib. Yes, the maggots mauled us. Yes, we wasted a chance to win. But Collingwood are damn good and they are simply so much better than us at taking their chances and closing out a game. Seen that movie way too many times.

10 minutes ago, burnthefushias said:

JVR played 60% of game time and half of that was as a second ruckman, as has been the case his entire career.

We draft a key with forward with genuine potential and don't allow him to play his natural position for more than 5 minutes each quarter. It's no surprise he's struggling, I'd like to see more from him too but he's clearly being mismanaged.

This would all be true if it was his natural positon. He played junior football as a defender and by his own admission is not a leading forward. The FD saw his contest work early and developed him as a forward under the guise of a different game plan. He is the wrong peg for this hole now. He simply is not quick enough reading the flight of the ball. Melksham gets to the drop of the ball time and time again. How often did jvr do this today? Its not why we lost ofc

1 minute ago, dees189227 said:

Wouldn't we have we praticed what to do in the final minutes?

Maxy doing a torp wouldn't be it I thought

Interesting - Collingwood actively train these scenarios. Then again all afternoon there was few targets provided coming out of defence

3 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Me three..

Sat on the couch staring aimlessly after the loss for a good 20 minutes. The losses this year I've been able to just walk away and distract myself but this one stings.

The effort and intent was pure 4 quarters today. That's all I ever asked and said this pre game thread today.

My next question is why haven't we been able to produce this on a more consistent level? The losses to North, Essendon, St Kilda look more and more bizarre when they dish up this kind of performance today.

This was the convo I was in at the game once the siren went. Who is the real Melbourne? If we played like this each week we would be top 4

The frustrating thing is we praticed our goal kicking at training this week

The umpires should award themselves the 3, 2 , 1 Brownlow votes

We are not a good team. We are getting better with what we are working on but progress isn’t linear - that last qtr decision making from CP5 and CO13 is a step back. Can they make two steps forward later in the season in a close game? I hope so.

Because we are applying consistent effort and are letting ourselves down with execution I am satisfied that we may not waste this season. But we need our senior players to age into graceful decision making golden years like Pendles and Sidebottom.

[censored] heartbroken again [censored]

If … if … we win if … any of these happen

Kozzzzy gives the ball back and no fifty and no goal to [censored] n daicos

The umps are fair and unbiased

Gawn, Fritta, Oliver could kick a clutch goal

Trac and Clarry could lower than eyes and hit a target inside forward 50

If a lot of things … but we lost it … yes we lost it… we dominate and we still lost it

[censored] the filth and [censored] the umps !!!

Goodwins going to be on afl 360 so will be interesting to hear his views

41 minutes ago, Webber said:

And the deciding factor…….the umpiring. It’s a blight on this great game, and the voices that matter aren’t allowed to talk about it.

It's beyond a [censored] joke.

Another bloody game where instead of just enjoying the contest I'm livid at the standard of the umpiring.

What's the bloody deal with umpires 50 metreS away from a contest overrulimg an umpire who is 15 metres from the cintest with an unimpeded virew (eg the Howes marking contest free) - happens every week.

Made worse when they DON'T overuse blatant howlers or missed decisions, which i thought was the only time a non controlling umpire was supposed to pay a free (the bizarre decision to pay a block against melk in one on two contest when he was clearly shoved in the back)

What's the deal with the ridiculous inconsistency (eg sparrow insufficient attempt and then no free against daicos, tracc holding the ball with zero time to dispose od it then pies players with more time and no free)?

What's the deal with ruck lotto decisions?

Whats the deal with non decisions of blatant free kicks

One of the things that infuriates me us all the AFL accredited journalists give the idea of making them full time professionals is ALWAYS rejected out of hand by almost every single one if them.

I mean it's the only logical thing to do.

And the media's half hearted criticism of the standard of umpiring as if fans are just making it up how poor the standard of umpiring is, how much it is ruining the game for fans.

Can't bite the hand that feeds.

And to be clear i don't blame the umpires. I blame the [censored] AFL.

And i truly believe they don't make meaningful efforts to improve the standards of umpiring because all of the angst and controversy is such great content.