Wiseblood

I will, you old geriatric.

Neither do you if we make it. Don't watch in a fortnight if we do.

You're full of something else, ding. I'll be cheering on the Crows like buggery.

It's more of option one than option two for me. I think there has been a large combination of things that have both gone against us and haven't worked out as planned. I feel as though we played some excellent football in the first half of the year, and should have had more wins on the board if not for injuries we sustained in some of them. That's bad luck, but it also showed a resiliency in the playing group that we didn't know we had. Up to the Queen's Birthday game we had worked incredibly hard with what we had, and it took it's toll on some of our players, especially when you factor in how much we relied on some of younger players. In the second half of the year it felt like our intensity, thanks to the super hard work in the first half of the year, dropped off by about 10% and opposition teams started to figure our gameplan. The 2 off the back of the square looked like a master stroke in the first half of the year, yet it looked like a hindrance in the second. Teams worked out how to stop us and Goodwin didn't seem to have the answers, which is understandable for a first year coach. It means that we've had to work even harder for our wins while also putting up with further injuries to key players. For me, the biggest thing we need to work on is our usage forward of the ball. We are getting more than our share of inside 50s, but our over use of handball and willingness to just bomb it long have conspired against us. We need another pre-season into the legs of the younger players, some tweaks to the gameplan and possibly the addition of a key backman as well. The future is really bright - if we all had of been told we would have 12 wins at the end of the season 99% of us would have gleefully taken it - but there is still work to be done in some areas. And the curse is absolute rubbish.

And just like that it's pretty much all over at Etihad.

At least Freo are making the Bombers earn it. They'll steady in the last and win by 5 goals, which will make us all sick, but most expected them to blow Freo off the park.

I saw Clayton Oliver enjoying a coffee and a croissant earlier today. How dare he. I expected to see him eating weeds from his front lawn instead after yesterday.

It's why I enjoy our wins even more, as he literally has nothing to post about. We take a loss and he is crowing about it in every thread. It's useless arguing with him though as he'll never change.

So do I, but I'd rather not have tunnel vision. We make out like we are the only ones who drop games we should win, and while we do it better than most, there are plenty of clubs in the same basket. We have improved this year. That's simple fact. 12 wins is an improvement on last year's 10, and to me there is no reason why we can't improve on that in further seasons. You can let a game like yesterday cloud your judgement, and I would understand that too, but don't be blind to the improvements we have made. There is still plenty of improvement to be made in terms of how we mentally prepare for games, tweaks to be made to our gameplan and the addition of some further class and talent to the list, but there will be 17 other clubs who will be wanting to do the same by season's end. Is it? I'm not allowed to handle performances differently to you? You can throw your hands around wildly as much as you like. Go right ahead. I'll give that style a miss. Give me a break, LH. Your 'holier than thou' style of posting is grating at best. I've seen more than enough losses in my time to know exactly how we played. What gets me is that we want our players to learn from mistakes, move on from the past and become the team we all want them to be - the problem is, is that as supporters we can't even do it ourselves. We are stuck in the past - this thread being a case in point. Roos was right a few years back when he alluded to the negative culture amongst our fans. It doesn't help the situation in the slightest and I couldn't have agreed with him more. If we want to the players to move on, then we need to do it as well. Let's look to the future and how we can improve, which we have done SO well since 2013 when we looked dead and buried. PJ and Roos didn't dwell on the past, they looked at what they had and worked their backsides off to improve it so we could go some way to erasing a time when we were a laughing stock. We should do the same.

Yawn.

I did. I do have a life outside of this board. And I'm not mocking, just pointing out your usual rhetoric.

And you could find plenty of other clubs doing the same thing over the years. Big deal. I love how you like to go alllllll the way back to '71. Why not go all the way back to the '30s? Maybe even our first season in 1897?

You can't win games by 50 points every week.

Of course we need to fix it - but then, so do Essendon, West Coast, St. Kilda, Port... So many are in the same basket we are in. We are a middle of the road side looking to push further up the ladder with consistent performances, and to do so we need to become a side that is mentally tough. But we aren't the only ones.

Really? Do you really think for one second that success means nothing to this group? Don't be so ridiculous. It's fair to analyse where their heads were at from the opening bounce, as we clearly lacked the requisite intensity, but to suggest they don't want success is just plain silly. Was it down to expectation? Nerves? Whatever it was, it needs to be addressed, but what you suggest is totally wrong.

He experienced finals with Collingwood well before us anyway, so it's a moot point.

And for the other two thirds, you could argue we were a Top 6 side that had to endure more injuries to key players than any other side. Regardless, I'm not up for a solid debate. We've been through enough today.

We've had 23 rounds to prove it, not just one game. We're in the eight at the minute which means we deserve to be there.

This had made me feel even worse. Damn you LH!

The contested marking has certainly been a problem. Our two highest contested markers from last season, Hogan and Gawn, have dropped off for us this year due to their extended layoffs. We've taken 207 contested marks this season, compared to 244 last season. We also allow the opposition to take too many of them, particularly with kicks down their line where a player runs from the side or from behind the contest to fly and mark over the top of it. Admittedly, we don't do that enough. I still think it's something that we can address. I don't see a huge problem with the gameplan, I'm just hopeful that we can make the necessary tweaks to improve it over the off season.

Cheers Ralph. That has certainly been a problem for us, especially in the second half of the year, and it looks as though it has reared it's ugly head again today which is disappointing. We are doing most other things right, so hopefully Goodwin and co. can rectify this over the summer.

Overly emotional post of the year. Well done. This. The experience, if we still make it, will be invaluable no matter who we play.

I feel the same way, although it's slightly easier as I didn't see the game today. I got angry at my phone instead. If we make it, then we deserve to make it and we can get out there in a fortnight's time and play without any expectations. I believe the experience of a final will do us plenty of good in the short and long term. I wish we didn't have to do it, but it's over to you Adelaide.

Thanks, DA, and to the others who gave some feedback. Can't be easy to do after the day we just had. Really sounds like we [censored] the bed with all the expectations. I thought we might take time to settle, but it seems like it took us until half way through the third term to settle, and by then it was gone. I still believe we can do okay come September if we get there. If we make it then we deserve to make it. The week off would really do us some good.

Classic Clint. I mentioned it as I hadn't seen the game and it backed up his argument.