titan_uranus

I guarantee you SWYL would complain about how we didn't deserve to win.

Wow.

I'm freaking p*ssed off that we lost. But there is a difference between being happy at aspects of the performance and being happy we lost. I am happy that we went to Perth, on a 6-day break, to a ground where the home team averages 10-goal wins, and dominated. I am happy that our best players included Tyson and Petracca. But I'm anything but happy we lost. If you've lost the ability to see positives, fine. But don't take it out on the rest of us.

I think it's far too late for that.

There are plenty of ways to express disappointment with today's loss. Having a go at the spirit of the players is not one of them. If you truly believe we lacked endeavour, effort, spirit or anything like that, you either genuinely have no idea what those things mean, or you are just blindly posting negative comments for the sake of it.

I hate St Kilda. Credit to them for winning. They're winning, we're not. It hurts. I still hate them. Context though. They are a different side away from Etihad. They have had next to no injuies all year - the Dogs were down to 1 on the bench and already had no Stringer or Murphy (possibly others too). And their best players were, yet again, Riewoldt, Steven and Dempster.

I can't decide what I hate more. People who think we lacked spirit today, or the fact that the same people who completely wrote us off pre-game now complain about winning every stat, leading all day, and losing a game everyone agrees we should have won. The latter I think. Hyopcritical pessimism is draining.

I appreciate you are frustrated, as you should be, but you do not hold West Coast to their lowest home differentials in time in forward half and inside 50s without spirit. Spirit was there. Skill was not, when needed.

No doubt there was an issue there, but how often does West Coast get restricted to 37 inside 50s at home? (I have no idea, just pondering out loud). We need to improve on opposition conversion once inside but the first step is to limit how many times they go inside in the first place and in that regard, the whole team did a good/great job.

6-day break travelling to Perth with a bunch of kids against a side which ia primed for a flag tilt. We needed the lead to keep the adrenaline pumping. We didn't lose this in the 4th, we lost it in the 3rd. Would have been a very different game if we had have had a bigger lead that West Coast needed to overcome. As it was, they only needed 2 quick goals to take the lead which changed the dynamic.

That hurts. NM, Haw, Adel, now WC in Perth. Should have won 2, could have won all 4.

+60 disposals, +20 CPs, +3 clearances, +10 tackles, +18 inside 50s. Solid HT stats.

Granted, I'm not watching, but these threads always feel like they are focused on the mistakes and then spontaneously celebrate goals, then revert back to the mistakes. Surely if we're winning at quarter time, +18 in disposals, +13 CPs, +1 clearances, +1 tackles and +9 inside 50s, we must be doing something right?

For those without TV/radio- match ups? Who (if anyone) is on Kennedy/Darling/Hogan/Watts?

Sydney struggled the first time they had pouring rain in a match (vs GC). Second time, vs us, they knew what to do a lot better. My hope is we learnt something from the Sydney game about playing in the rain.

This is just revisionism. It doesn't suit the argument to acknowledge we beat a top 4 contender so the win has to be revised in worth. Fell over the line? We were 4 goals down at three quarter time but turned it on in the 4th to smash them at the contest and outside, then held off as they raised their game to try to get the lead back. That's not falling over, that's fighting back against a strong side. We might not have been better than them for 100% of the match but that doesn't mean the performance wasn't strong or the win has no meaning. People use St Kilda's win over Geelong as a sign they are better than us. Geelong had 2 more scoring shots that day and have played 1000 times better in most of their other games. I suppose that win is meaningless too? You can mount an argument that we have not had a great year without having to discount or ignore the GWS game, so I don't see the need and I definitely do not agree.

Pretending the GWS game didn't happen? Or writing it off because Round 1 is some paranormal disturbance whereas Rounds 2 onwards are normality?

I have to applaud the honesty. Trust you to be disappointed if we beat the Eagles in Perth.

Stats say we have won 9 out of our 16 4th quarters this year. That's more than half. It also has us ranked 6th in the competition, equal with Port, West Coast and the Dogs and in front of North and every other bottom 10 side. So I put this thread down to the all-too-common recency effect. It happened against St Kilda, therefore it happens all the time. Just plain wrong.

Hawthorn doesn't have a home game there this year. I don't think there's any rule which requires all Victorian clubs to have at least one home game there. I think the only relevant rule is that there is a minimum number of games that the AFL has to schedule at Etihad. For every game Carlton or Essendon get to host at the G (St Kilda had one this year as well), that's one more they have to find from someone else to get to that minimum.

Agree with rewarding ANB, I would drop VDB, Harmes or Kennedy first though. Also agree with Garlett, but we are struggling because too many players are having too many games or periods within games where they go missing, don't work hard enough, and/or make absolutely basic errors. Grimes and White are another two who were in that group yesterday.

Just out of interest, why is it that you see such a big difference between 9 wins and 10 wins? In neither situation do we make finals. In both situations it's the most number of wins we've had since 2006. In both situations we had humiliating losses to Essendon and St Kilda twice. Why is there so much importance on that 10th win?

Form isn't good enough right now to warrant being selected. I'm not going to write him off and he may not have fully recovered from his injury, but right now he's not playing anywhere near well enough to suggest he is a long-term staple of the side. There were two times when he got caught having had ample time to get rid of it - once in the first I think, and the one in the third. The fact he was filthy about it doesn't change that it wasn't good enough, Nasher, especially given that was the second time it had happened that game. Looked to be a step behind the pace of the game, which he'll learn from for next week of course, but did not help yesterday.

I don't mind putting the heat on Tyson for being inconsistent but what about Garlett, Kennedy, Harmes and VDB? Can we drop them all?

Wow, I didn't think Demonland could get so pessimistic as to start writing off Oliver, but I was wrong.