At the break of Gawn

Yep, David King called this out on Monday. It was Sydney’s quick ball movement in the second half that troubled Carlton.

Lever played his best game in ages when Tomlinson played against the Hawks. I'm not sure what Tomlinson did wrong in round 23 (I thought he was ok on DGB), so it was an interesting selection to go Turner. Surely Tomlinson comes back in to play against JSOS?

I feel like this is testing fate if we're already talking about 2024...

According to Sportsbet...

I agree that as supporters we are resilient bunch and we've been at the real depths of the AFL competition. However, I still have reservations around this playing group defeating a big 4 club at the MCG in a final in front of 90k+ crowds until we actually do it. It's something intangible I know, but it appeared that some of the players got a bit intimidated from the raucous Collingwood crowd. The jeers, the boos, the roar of an opposition goal has an effect. I know we're favourites, and by many, expected to win, but beating Carlton and getting the monkey off our back will be huge for this playing group. The 2021 premiership is a cherished memory and a landmark moment in this club's history, but the fact is, it was "off broadway". Winning a big final at the MCG is what this team needs.

100% we need to focus on Friday. A win against the Blues will do wonders for this club.

https://x.com/incrediblybozza/status/1701547203700179389?s=46&t=PgGGBVtPGxmKYqlW0SqdRw How much does this video of Eddie celebrating make your blood boil?

I think we need to bring in two talls. I just felt we looked short on Thursday night. Carlton will bring in JSOS for Mckay In: Tomlinson (defence), Turner/Schache (as a forward), Jordan Out: Hibbo (I just don't think we have an ideal matchup), Brayshaw, JVR Sub: Woewodin

Our social media pages are getting harassed and bullied by the Collingwood fans everywhere at the minute. We put a post up saying the game's sold out and Pies supporters going to town on the fact we're just a small club and it's all Carlton. I know it's just outside noise, but geez it'd be good if we could win on Friday to shut those ferals up.

Serious question, if we somehow made the Grand final and played Collingwood, and Brayshaw played, would the Collingwood supporters boo him? I honestly think they would. Some of the comments coming out has shown how classless Pies supporters are.

Gawn gave Maynard a mouthful when Maynard couched down to check on Brayshaw when the stretcher was coming. You can see him do it in the background, so not surprised if it was Gawn. Gawn and Gus are basically best mates.

Not worthy of a new topic, however, would like to know if people think this group of players gets a bit of stage fright early in front of big hostile crowds at the G? I know they’ve got Grand final experience (albeit at Optus) but it seems that whenever we play in front of a large MCG crowd against a another big Victorian team we start poorly. Some recent examples: Round 6: Richmond ANZAC eve - poor start Round 13 - Collingwood KBD - poor start Round 22 - Carlton - poor start QF - Collingwood - poor start. I know we had finals wins in 2018 but Geelong and Hawthorn crowds don’t have the same level of goading and intimidation as a Pies/Blues/Richmond crowd.

I think your GA split is a bit too one sided towards Carlton. To say Carlton has a 4:1 ratio of supporters is a bit far fetched. I think it’s probably more 8k Melbourne and 12k Carlton. I know the roar was loud with Collingwood but the roar of that first Fritsch goal was a lot more than 35k people.

Has anyone else read this on SEN? Seems awfully desperate to make amends which to me seems like he’s feeling guilty more than anything. If it was a complete accident, I’m not sure he’d go to these lengths. Also, who doesn’t call ahead?

Surprisingly a lot more modest than the Collingwood BF board. I think both teams will have problems with their forward half on Friday night. Everything will go to Curnow so we'll plan for that. I really hope we bring in another tall for JSOS. That will give Lever free rein to mark in front of Charlie all night.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't made twitter (or at least from what I've seen). I saw that interview and shortly after the Brayshaw hit, that quote came to mind. I know he was saying it in jest, but it's not a good look. If it wasn't a final, would Maynard have gone full tilt jump in the air to spoil that? Probably not. He plays on the edge and he would have wanted to make any sort of impact early.

One more question from me, does Goodwin need to instruct the players to use the corridor more? We are ranked 18th from use of the corridor and it’s robbing us opportunities of really good looks. There was a great segment on this on First Crack on Saturday night. I feel this must be tweaked for Friday.

I’ve just finished watching the replay. It wasn’t as obvious to me at the ground, but I think the main part of the reason we lost is the coaches didn’t anticipate some of the structural changes Collingwood implemented behind the ball. They held their defenders (particularly Moore and IQ) very deep. Perhaps it was the absence of Murphy/Moore for a few weeks but Collingwood were pressing too high the last few weeks and were leaking goals out the back. They clearly worked on that during the bye. Even when our players created a forward half turn-over, Moore was always there in our D50. Our coaches were too slow to react to this and I didn’t think any meaningful action was done to bring their defence higher. Perhaps bringing up JVR, Smith and McDonald higher up the ground, isolating Kozzy. Even isolating Trac if that was an option. Collingwood were successful isolating Elliott but unfortunately for them he couldn’t kick straight and Hibberd was huge. I agree at times we bombed it in and didn’t try and bring up the Pies defenders, but I think one thing we’re overlooking is the smart and strategic coaching by Collingwood to hold their defenders back. They were excellent and we failed to adjust. So my question to Binman/George is this: If Carlton employ a similar tactic and hold Weitering really deep, what can our forwards and mids do? When Carlton has their defence set, do we kick around and chip the ball to bring forward their defence? Isolate Petracca and encourage the other forwards to get higher? I felt we had near to none genuine one-on-ones on Thursday. I haven’t watched the second half of the Swans v Blues game in detail, but I’m keen to see how Sydney got really good looks against the Carlton defence.

We lost to Carlton by a finger nail in the rain (which we’re terrible in). We’ve now got another chance at them in bone dry conditions If we can’t get it done, then we don’t deserve to be in the prelim, let alone the GF.

Brisbane had 64 inside 50s (still 5 less than us) and they kicked 70 more points than us. Unbelievable

If we somehow miraculously fix our forward issues and beat Carlton, I think we can beat Brisbane. We’re the last team to beat them there and they will be a bit shell shocked to play a game with a defence as good as ours. But, ultimately I just have a feeling that with the momentum Carlton have, they’ll get over the top of us.

We need the GWS forward line coach. They’ve averaged over 100 points the last 5 weeks and look super efficient. Forward efficiency will be the story of this finals series.

https://x.com/cleary_mitch/status/1700421909945765913?s=46&t=PgGGBVtPGxmKYqlW0SqdRw

I think we’ll throw everything at Carlton and put in a really spirited performance (just like in round 22) but ultimately fall short because of the lack of forward talent and mix.

Expected score is a fallacy and I really hope Goodwin doesn’t just think our forward efficiency is just a simple fix. I hope the FD pauses the tape at every inside 50 and shows where the better option was. Also the lack of leading is extremely concerning. It’s either they’ve been directed not to because the FD just wants deep entries or the forwards are lacking some sort of confidence.