At the break of Gawn

West Coast at the MCG. We haven’t played them there since 2014.

8 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Why? Maybe because it was true. It's also irrelevant. Geelong's performance this year, just like ours and every other team in the competition, has nothing at all to do with last year's.

So you’re happy to discount one of Melbourne’s best on-field performance in 60 years and just chalk it up to the opposition being under the weather?

I’ve seen at least 3 journos cite the illness that ran through the Geelong camp in the days prior to the 2021 prelim final as a reason they lost that match. It honestly makes me angry about the amount of disrespect they’ve shown towards Melbourne and how good we were that night. What annoys me most is that several Geelong players have brushed off the excuse but the media keeps bringing it up and they almost use Geelong’s 2022 form as a form of validation. 
 

Here is another article on it written by Daniel Cherney who I consider one of the better ones out there.

The tweet accompanying this article reads “Last year, illness halted Geelong’s Grand Final hopes. 12 months on, they have made up for that misfortune “.

https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/geelong/geelong-poised-to-overcome-lingering-pain-of-last-years-83point-preliminary-final-defeat-to-melbourne/news-story/9fdd557b12b3fbed77dafcf16ed5a9e9
 

I’m glad Cripps won it over Neale. There’s no way Neale is as good as everyone says he is. He was pulling votes in almost every Brisbane game where he had no right to (rnd 23 in particular). Neale has a real nice guy attitude which is why I think the umps love him so much. 

Honestly can’t fathom how Miocek got 3 votes against us. I thought Cox maybe, but that was just bizarre.

This happens year on year with the umpires. We really need to peg down the Brownlow to a middle tier award but the whole ceremony and red carpet just inflates the importance of it.

Just now, Jaded No More said:

Hahahahaha Clarry with 2 votes against Collingwood. 
Umpires are a disgrace. 

If he loses by a vote this game will be heavily discussed. Mihocek had just an average forward game.

How did Scott get 1 vote against us in round 10?

3 hours ago, Jara said:

With you on Buckley. He's a one-man premiership avoidance zone.

Bucks’ ego is too big for an assistant coach. It’s head coach or nothing for him.

Watching this game just makes me realise how last week everything just went perfectly for the Lions. They had an unbelievably lucky night and barely made a mistake.

1 minute ago, ANG13 said:

In all seriousness how is it that CH7 see BT as their No1 commentator?

Boys club.

2 minutes ago, monoccular said:

When did this happen?  He did get some sort of calf (?thigh) injury in the VFL PF. 

Tmac has re-injured his foot. Wrap him in cotton wool and let’s hope he can still get a full pre-season in.

I took two things out of that:

1. The players were cooked and barely got a break between 2021 and 2022.

2. The players are expecting a new game plan from Goody and the coaches.

I don't think I've seen it in this thread, but I wonder how much did the Entrecôte incident effect the rest of our year? There's no denying that there is some fractures amongst the playing group, so I wonder if this was put to bed in round 12 or if it did simmer away in the background.

Would love to hear Goodwin or someone in the FD actually articulate the reason. All I’ve heard is some vague “bit of everything” answer.

I’m a firm believer that the game has shifted to a complete system based game. The teams with the best system win.  It’s less about talent, it’s less about fitness, and it’s less about culture. It’s all about how you can execute your role in that system. Perhaps some players did take it easy over the off-season and hence couldn’t execute their role to the level that was required, which you could point to culture/standards, however, I think in our case, it was a mixture of a system that has been worked out by the opposition , and players just 2-3% off their role execution which exposes flaws.

We need a new system for 2023 and we also need a system that can still stand up when players are a few % off their usual output. 
 

More on-field success will improve the culture. People never talked about the Geelong culture until they started winning multiple premierships. Ironically, no one talks about the Hawthorn culture anymore as their on-field success has deserted them with a large scale re-build - but who would know if their culture isn’t just as strong as it was in their 3-peat era?

Are you going to do a season one @joeboy?

Abundantly clear how much you need to pressure your opponent in a final. Still gobsmacked by our lack of intensity last night.

Absolutely disgraceful that Pies will have a better season than us when you compare the stars we have.

I will also add the worst part of this season is that next year we won’t have the slightest clue whether or not 2023 is going to be a good year unless we finish top 4 and win our first final.

Finishing 2nd and then not even winning one of 2 home finals just dampens any optimism during a home and away season until the real stuff starts.

Oliver improved

Fritsch perhaps slightly improved I thought.

Pickett on par but second half was elite

Petty improved.

Brayshaw showed he’s a great intercept mark.

That's about it for me for on field. 

If fitness really is the reason for our second half fade outs, why didn’t Goodwin just say so? Is he trying to deflect the blame on one department or are there really other elements to it like he suggested?

Certainly, a new game plan in 2023 is on the cards. I’m tipping some other big personnel/positional changes. 

The main reason we failed this season was an abnormally unlucky fixture. We played no genuine contenders in the first 10 weeks and so there was no obvious signs to the coaches that anything was wrong (despite many of us on here having some serious doubts). We then started to play some genuine contenders and the coaches had an “oh [censored]” moment and realised that our method doesn’t really stack up and that pressure is the new black.
 

They tried to tinker with things as the season went on but not radically enough which left us on the back foot. One thing that was beautiful about 2021 was that we played all the big contenders by round 12. We played Geelong, Richmond, Bulldogs, Lions etc and we won all those games which proved a fantastic audit to our game which also provided enormous belief among the playing group. We knew we had a winning formula and we had the competition on the hop. Thankfully we made the most of it with a premiership.

Unfortunately in 2022 our audits came too late,  and in this caper, it’s very difficult to make wholesale changes mid season, or at least Goodwin and co don’t have the skills and experience to do so.

This loss will put the spotlight back on the FD. We have the best list in the AFL with the most A-graders in a prime age bracket. This off-season, we will really know how good this FD is because they need to devise a completely new game plan in 2023 and catch the competition off guard again.

As far as I’m concerned, we just didn’t play “Finals footy”. Sydney lifted their pressure and intensity, as did Brisbane. For us it just looked like a home and away game and hence we deserved that result. 
 

It’s incredibly disappointing way to finish the year, and to think they go by that motto “when all is said and done, more is said than done”. Well, Gawn said he wanted to win one in front of our fans… and all he did was say it. Not do it.

As I said in a few other threads, a win is just simply expected tonight. I can’t remember the last time a finalist was >$4 to win a final. Even we were close to $2 against West Coast in the PF in 2018!

A loss will be a complete disaster for this footy club after starting 10-0 and finishing 2nd.

Just get it done and we’ll be back where we rightly belong - playing in a PF.

2 minutes ago, praha said:

Not at all confident but gee whiz , Brisbane is not Prelim caliber. We should at least get there. A Geelong vs Brisbane Prelim is going to be a snorefest.

A win is just expected. It’d be a disaster if we don’t make the prelim. To lose two home finals in a row against 2 interstate sides would just be an embarrassment.

I’m not really concerned too much about outside noise on crowd figures, just as long as we win tomorrow. Next Friday will be 90k+ if we make it. Guaranteed.