titan_uranus

No issue with your views on goal-kicking. But just because West Coast in 2018 won the flag without Naitanui, Gaff and Sheppard doesn't mean every club with injuries should be able to win the flag forever more. A key difference between their three injuries and ours was that ours all impacted the same end of the ground, which happened to be our weakest part of the ground in the first place. I know in times of disappointment/anger, many don't like hearing about injuries (or luck, or umpiring, or these sorts of things) but they all played a role. There can't be any doubt that losing Petty, Melksham and JVR (the latter through his own clumsy fault) in a season where TMac, Brown and Fritsch had all spent months out with injury made our chances worse.

The kick was poor but so unfair to blame the loss on Viney. Lever has the ball on half-back and can’t find a target. That’s on him and the rest for not making an option. The next contest had a bunch of 50/50 moments that could have gone either way but we still ended up with Viney who, yes, panicked and turned it over. But despite Weitering playing on quickly, somehow we were outnumbered in our D50. In the 20 seconds it takes them to switch and go deep, the only player within cooee of Acres is Fritsch. The back half structure from the time of the Lever kick was appalling.

Based on their careers, sure. But based on the first three quarters last night, Schache.

Some won’t like it but one thing we need more of is luck - the Petty and Melksham injuries were devastating for our season. As for things in our control: 1. Rivers to the midfield 2. Another wing to put selection pressure on Langdon and Hunter 3. A tall forward who can lead at the ball carrier and kick straight 4. A re-think of the way we move the ball in order to generate easier shots on goal given our personnel 5. More Woewodin, Laurie, and other new faces 6. And we need to work on how we start quarters. We give up the first 1-3 goals of quarters too much (tonight they scored first in each of the second, third and fourth. Last week Coll scored first in the first, second and third - same as Sydney the week before).

The string of deliberates was insane. Saad’s was blatantly deliberate. We copped the raw end of the umpiring stick all night. Add it to the list of what went wrong.

When Lever kicks it out, we have more numbers behind him than Carlton did. As part of our general panicked choke, we lost all structure in the next 20 seconds and had too many come up out of the D50, leaving too much space, let alone an unguarded Acres, out the back.

That’s the point, he was awful all night. Why pick Schache as sub if you aren’t going to sub him in for an ineffectual tall? If we don’t trust him to be better than McDonald’s first three quarters we should not have given him another contract.

Your negativity is tiresome but tonight’s the night to let it out, so who cares, except for this. If you think Petracca is “overrated in general” you have NFI. You bang on about how poor our club’s culture is - do you think any other club’s members would speak like this about a player who is one of the competition’s elite both statistically and influentially? There is so much you can fairly pot tonight but if you’re going to run with this, get stuffed mate.

Shouldn’t have been playing. He was immobile from the start. We must have known. I know Schache’s not that good but McDonald was so far off it that Grundy would have offered no less.

You can run the same “it’s a waste” argument for any of the 17 sides who don’t win the flag. Part of the fun of football is going to and following the games each week. I’ll never lose that, I don’t think. I suppose others might not share my view. I know plenty on here are effectively telling everyone else to stop enjoying the 2021 flag, which to me is pretty much hurtful to see coming from fellow MFC supporters.

McDonald should have been subbed at three quarter time. He couldn’t move all night.

I get why we didn’t play him. If we’d held on no one would have cared about it. I think we would have got more out of him than TMac, but I still get the thinking I don’t know if I’ll ever get why we played Schache as sub but didn’t use him, though.

Also I know we want to soften the blow but I don’t buy the “Brisbane would have killed us next week” stuff. If we held on tonight, got the monkey off the back, and then got to get on a plane and galvanise as a unit against a side we hate, but match up well against, and who is the only other side in it who has anything like the pressure that we have, I genuinely would have backed us in.

Shelve the “we have the best list” talk. It’s not even close. We have as good a crop of elite talent as anyone. But we have so, so many holes on our list. Langdon, Salem, Hunter and McDonald are all so far below their previous best form, for various reasons. Sparrow, Jordon, Spargo, Chandler, ANB and Smith all bring their own assets to the table but are all limited footballers in their own various ways. Schache’s depth, sure, but hardly any good. We have far too many poor kicks. We have far too many players who cannot or will not work out how to improve problems they’ve had for years.

I’m utterly deflated. I love this club. I love being at the ground. I love following us week to week. So I hate that we’re not going to be there on prelim final weekend, again, when we should be. It’s not one issue. Too many things went wrong. Some were in our control - as everyone has said, the TMac/Schache situation was a debacle. TMac was terrible all night, it’s unfathomable that we didn’t sub him. The goal kicking, the ill-discipline, the fumbles, the botched passed. Some were out of our control - the absence of Petty, JVR, Melksham and Brayshaw, the umpiring, Carlton continually kicking crucial shots. Too much went wrong over the last 6 weeks. So the first 22 weeks of the H&A season is for nought. Our depth isn’t good enough. Our foot skills aren’t good enough. Our forward half play isn’t good enough. But at least we give ourselves the chance to compete. I’m sure at some point I’ll reflect on that positively.

The Jordon/Tomlinson selections are sensible and correct. The Spargo selection I consider to be a major mistake. I do not like the look of our forward half when we have all of ANB, Chandler, Spargo and Pickett in it. When one of our "talls" is Joel Smith, we are severely undersized against a very good aerial backline. Largely speaking I agree with those who say these selections aren't going to be the reason we win or lose the game. We will lose this game if we're -9 in CPs at quarter time. And we will not win this game if we continue to move the ball as poorly as we did last week. But, IMO the forward half selections aren't going to assist with the latter.

Chargers, 49ers, Dolphins

Yes you are. Every time you or @Bring-Back-Powell or anyone else post about "it was at the Adelaide Oval/Optus Stadium" or "neutral crowds" or "rent-a-crowds" or "not at the MCG", you are diminishing our efforts in 2021. I don't get why any MFC supporter would want to do that. You talk in your OP about how Collingwood approach things. Do you think Collingwood supporters would take the same view if they were the 2021 premiers? No [censored] way. They'd own it proudly and loudly.

I've deliberately stayed away from this thread, and Demonland in general, since Tuesday. Not because I'm angry, but because I just can't deal with this issue any more. I want to be thinking and talking about the game tomorrow night. I'm completely done with Maynard and the Tribunal. Whether it's the GF or KB next year, I'll care more about Maynard the next time we play Collingwood. For now, the only part of the whole incident I want to allow myself to think about in any way is Brayshaw and his health.

We know we have to replace Brayshaw and it seems like Jordon gets that spot, given there aren't any other mids from outside last week's 23 who are training today. That disappoints me as I'd have liked to see Woewodin get that spot. We know we have to replace JVR. If we had a full list it wouldn't be Grundy but we don't. With no Petty, no Melksham, and Brown not fit enough, the options other than Grundy are hardly confidence-inspiring. The question has to be whether Schache offers more than Grundy overall - as a forward, probably, but not by all that much, and Grundy then offers a lot more in terms of the ruck, giving Gawn a rest if he needs it, and allowing us to play Gawn more forward if we think that's something that might help. Neither option is ideal, but we don't have a choice. I personally am fully supportive of Tomlinson replacing Hibberd. Carlton are a tall side and with May needing to focus entirely on Curnow all night, we're leaving too much of the defensive aerial game to Lever. He needs some height support. Given the two forced changes and IMO the near-forced requirement to get a taller defender in, I don't think we can or should drop Chandler for Spargo. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's Jordon, Grundy and Tomlinson in for Brayshaw, JVR and Hibberd, with Hibberd perhaps the sub.

I reckon Gawn’s toe injury is a non-story. Probably something he’s managed for a while now. However, if it’s at risk of worsening, we may need to bite the bullet and play Grundy. Given we need to replace JVR anyway, and the other options are an uninspiring Schache, an untried Turner/Tomlinson, or a possibly not fully fit Brown, I’m not against it.

I’ve reflected on this a lot since Thursday. My position is he should be suspended. Don’t focus on the split second he’s in the air, he made a decision, many seconds before, to run full pelt at Brayshaw and to jump straight at him. The AFL’s position should be “sure, you can do that, but you can’t do it in a way which exposes your opponent to a head injury”. The same principle as a tackle. Don’t worry about Maynard’s intent. Don’t worry about corruption or the MRO or even that it’s a final. Just focus on the action - it’s recklessness in the purest sense and should be met with suspension.

It’s not the pressure that gets me, it’s the contest in the first quarter. Our “one wood”, as they say. We were -9 in CPs in the first quarter. Our worst quarter for CPs since the second quarter in Round 8 vs Gold Coast. That cannot happen again this week.

Agree entirely.

I don't for a second believe we can't beat Brisbane in the prelim. It's clearly a much harder path to the GF than a home prelim against Port/GWS, and for that reason I'm of the view the loss to Collingwood renders our flag chance much, much lower than they'd be if we'd won, but I don't accept that Brisbane belting Port means they can't be beaten. If we beat Carlton, we'll go to Brisbane with all the pressure on them. The last time they hosted a prelim in similar circumstances was 2020, and they choked and lost to Geelong. This is their 5th-straight deep run into September and they are yet to make a Grand Final, let alone win a flag. We'll be playing as the clear underdog for one of the rare occasions in the last three seasons and I like it like that. But right now I don't care about Brisbane, I care about Carlton.