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They look poor. They will also be tired and a week older next week. Neither team looks threatening.

First half yesterday was about where the bulldogs free kicks were given. Kept them in the game along with Essendon inaccuracy and also the one sided adjudication of rules. The bulldogs get frees that the other side don’t get and yesterday’s first half was no different. Two sets of rules for them.

Essendon should bring up the umpiring post game regardless of consequence. The bulldogs are being handed this. Frees in front of goal. Frees going one way and not the other. I hate both teams and don’t have a dog in this fight but I am very over the umpiring handing the dogs opportunity week after week. partly on Essendon for their inability to convert too.

I thought it was aggressive. He walked straight through him while telling him what a shot job he was doing for no reason. Intent was there.

Our game does have a history of champions who are also thugs. The thuggery tends to fade from memory as time goes by.

That’s not how any justice system works. If he’s acting a fool then as an adult he will need to own that.

He looked to be imposing himself and trying to intimidate. It was very deliberate. Gotta be a couple of weeks if the AFL is serious, but probably won’t be. You can’t try and impose yourself physically on an umpire. It’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve seen a footballer do in a while.

Has he ever done anything else. Watching him belt gawn at the g earlier this year with zero ramifications was pretty [censored].

Melksham?

During that 20 minute period they didn’t have a single bounce of the ball/drop of the ball/ umpiring decision go against them. They had many umpiring decisions in that period help set up goals too. Every time the ball fell out of a pack it fell right in their hands. We were constantly wrong footed or slipping over. You get a few of them a year and they were able to capitalise on it because they’re good. They won’t do that again all finals and I doubt we will have that happen against us again this year. Even if it happened again they might kick four, but eight was nuts. I would think everyone has been on both ends of it playing sport at any level. Sometimes you get a golden run and sometimes you’re left standing there looking stupid thinking I’m not doing much wrong here.

The term “one wood” to describe a team or players strength is annoying and has become over used in recent years. A golfers strength may be their putter. The one wood is just one club in the bag. It also hasn’t existed since the beginning of the nineties, when the “driver” became what that club is referred to. Must have a lot of [censored] golfers in commentary.

The late call on Anb was odd. Only after the ball had fallen loose and we were off did the whistle come. Suspiciously late. Not to mention how out of context the free was beside the other calls of the game.

Worst deliberate call of all time. That was genuinely strange.

That was a blessed quarter for Geelong. They won’t do that again. Had a little help early in the quarter and then momentum had some fun. We dropped our heads badly. We need to make a respectable game out of it now though

Decision making/execution/game awareness forward of centre is a killer. We need a bowey/Salem like half forward. We cough up what would be simple possession chain goals or set shots kicking or handballing to the wrong spots a lot.

The umpires without doubt made sure the eagles got momentum early after the restart. The Kennedy free and the not paid mark to spargo were inexplicable

We’re a very ordinary football side that had a lucky run at the start of the season. 5-10th is where we belong with our list. No flags in our future. Just hard to watch.

At the end of 2019 I remember watching us and noticing how poor we were with the team things. In play and out of play. Eg, congratulating players, sticking up for players. It was an ugly descent into selfishness and there were rumours of a lack of harmony, cohesion amongst the playing group. It looked very badly that way one ugly night at the end of the season against the swans at the G. In sport, when under pressure, or tired, you revert to bad habits. Essentially the truth comes out. In 2019 it was a lack of effort and all of the above. This year it isn’t a lack of effort, but I see the bad habits coming out again. You start to sense not everyone really gets along. These things only come out when things aren’t going well, and here they are. I wonder is it a personnel thing, the way we train, the culture. I’m not sure. But it’s disheartening to see the cracks appear when the heat is applied. We undoubtedly are the weakest side in the top 4 between the ears. in saying this, I could see how one game where things go our way, with goal kicking etc start to reverberate through the team and help some things trend upward for the first time in a couple of months. We are running out of time though.

They can all kick. I think they need a mental coach. In the same way a golfer has a sports psych. There seems to be some collective anxiety running through the team. An inability to take the pressure as the individual when the moment comes. Such a focus on team this year which is great but it doesn’t feel like anyone has been comfortable over a set shot bearing the responsibility.

Late in the game lever had an opportunity coming out of defence to keep the ball moving with a short pass to one of two players. He instead held the ball up and kicked to a pack and they won the ground balls and they kicked the leveller. It was very stubborn and defensive. There was one minute thirty to go and he froze. We used the ball better early but at some point we only had eyes for the defensive pack kick that rarely worked. We put the cue in the rack in the second and weren’t able to get going again. Very arrogant. The lesson is not being learnt. Doesn’t bode well. Mental fragility in front of goals has killed us and will continue to. Will likely be our undoing. So hard to watch. The adjudication of high contact that came into the game in the third seemed to be missing in the first half too.

When we lose, we really lose dumb.

Our football IQ is starting to be a problem. We have a high IQ back line and wings. Our midfield and forwards are as dumb as you can find on an AFL list. Max is smart too. Too many times this year dumb decision making and a lack of understanding of where the game is at has left us looking stupid. Why we wait to the last quarter to try and win certain games I don’t understand. We now look to have lost any confidence forward as well as being a bunch of morons. The weird decision making firward of centre feels like over coaching. Our players look hell bent on holding space and no intent to get the ball and score. We had the game under controL in the first quarter but almost went out of our way to to score. It looked weird at the ground. We could have take a three goal lead early and controlled the game from there if we had any intent.

I can see is finishing fifth now and being a non event in the finals. Our forwards may have been over coached. They are very in their heads. Our midfield may be on a down week with their recovery or something along those lines.

Mindset problems coming out of our eyeballs. When we control the game we show no Intent to score. Everyone’s too worried about spacing, system etc. the instinct is on holiday. The start of the game they couldn’t get near it and a good side would be four of five goals up. But we just jogged around making sure our systems and structures were in place.

We won’t resolve our forward line problems this season. We have regressed at an alarming rate. Brown won’t help cause the problem is a lack of dynamic movement which he is the opposite of. McDonald is low on confidence again for some reason. I’m getting sick of seeing our points double our goals and being in bad positions as a result. We make it look so much harder than we need to. Our midfield today doesn’t exist, which it is prone to. maybe sometimes we need to commit the extra number to the middle and trust the players to win it against the lesser sides. They park the bus and rely on bursting through and every time we lose this is how it happens.