DeeWiz

6 Viney 5 Gawn 4 Petracca 3 Oliver 2 May 1 Hannan

Trying to rationalise and come up with a positive response to this game. All I came up with was this:

3 Brownlow votes to me for not throwing a brick through my tele in the last quarter. Seriously though, where was this footy in Round 1? Let’s bring this level (or better) every week!

In my opinion, TMac has developed into a better key forward than Jesse (in 2018). Not accounting for future potential of the player Jesse could turn into of course. I am not particularly worried, we slaughtered the Cats and Hawks in finals footy without him. We'll always have good delivery into the 50. Now that our backline is shored up a bit, I expect us to only improve from here.

I didn't realise how much I liked Hogan until he actually left us. Lot of great memories of him in the forward line, but all good things have to come to an end. He wanted to leave, and that's fine. We got what we wanted in the end. Let's see if May & KK can bring us the same good memories. I still think we have an exciting future ahead and 1 man doesn't make a team. All the best on your return to Perth Jesse, even though I hate Freo, but wish you the best (even though you play for scum).

Freoooooo fat n slow....

What a load of garbage. We beat a surging Adelaide in Adelaide last weekend without Viney and Hibberd. We're a team, not a group of individuals.

Fair comment and I should clarify. You are correct as he doesn't go as far as singling out players (unlike us rabid fans here!) which I appreciate. My thought specifically was that it's a little poor to say that his troops (collectively as a unit) couldn't execute his version of reality. Maybe a little adjustment to play to our strengths is required more than anything. I still have faith that we can steady the ship. Whether or not it happens is yet to be seen.

Yet again umpiring decisions let us down, but I don't see umpiring as big of a problem as last week. Last week I thought we got robbed as we played well enough (in fact much better than this week) but didn't get rewarded with 4 points due to poor umpiring decisions. This week we only have ourselves to blame as we played poorly which probably left ourselves open to poor umpiring in any case. Losing to a team with 2 wins on the board should NEVER be the umpires fault. How does one score 117 points and still lose a match? Our attack is potent but there are still issues prevalent as we continuously bombed in long balls which either got easily picked off or we had 2-3 players fly for it with no crumbing forwards. A lot of times this allowed Saints to settle and transition end to end and kill us (as well as insane turnovers and hospital handballs). Far from the slick inside 50 entries we managed to find in our run of 6 wins. Not sure if its an instruction from the coaching team, or whether the players actually don't have the ability to look for the short pass into the 50. Hogan is wasted playing further down the field. In the 4th quarter when Goody decided to let Hogan loose deep into our forward line he was causing a bit of a headache for the Saints. Why are we waiting until the 4th quarter when we're on the ropes to make these changes? Why does Goody persist with wasting our best mids on tagging the oppo? Seems like a very negative way to go to me. Especially when we have one of the best rucks in the comp and a steady supply why would we possibly want to waste an inside mid on tagging? We were losing clearances all day until the 4th quarter when Viney was released from tagging and the Saints were really struggling to deal with it. This whole tagging tactic has been a key factor in every one of our losses so far, and hasn't worked, so why keep using it? Finally, we concede 119 points to a team that has only won 2 games all year and struggle to average 70 odd points a game. If it wasn't for the late surge we were comprehensively embarrassed by a bunch of cellar dwellers. Our record on the MCG this season says all you need to know about our structure. There seems to be a pattern here from Goody. I genuinely think he is crazy, just loves to keep repeating the same thing over and over again even when it doesn't work for certain scenarios. It's like banging your head against a wall over and over again. Why play such a high forward press and expose our backline (especially an inexperienced backline). You would think after the first few times the Saints go end to end and goal we would react to that. Well Goody's idea of a reaction is throwing Fritsch in defence and keeping the same high press (insanity). All they had to do was kick sideways, spread and away they went. We have no adaptability to game conditions, and smells of pure arrogance and disrespect for the Saints. Goody, for a guy that repeats the mantra "we respect our opposition" clearly doesn't practice what he preaches. Then Goody blames it on the players not having qualities or habits ingrained in them. No Goody, this is not how it works. Maybe take some responsibility for your poor game plan and decisions first of all. The coach is meant to be a leader, not hanging out his troops to dry. I hate to single out any of our boys for the loss because they probably are made to look worse players than they are due to poor coaching decisions and structures allowing the opposition to play the way they do. Yesterday was a good example.

I've had a few days to reflect on the game now, so now I'd like to add my 2 cents. My fit of rage is hopefully almost over now, I'll try not to get too emotional again. My immediate reaction after the full time siren was probably the same as everyone else "f'in maggots f'kd us in the butt and cost us 4 points", followed by "those Port c**ts we're lucky to win that". On reflection, I probably wouldn't change my view too much. Firstly before I start ranting, I want to say something positive. I thought compared to Queens Birthday our intensity and effort on the inside was huge and we completely dominated Port in this area. This was reflected by our conversion to clearances and inside 50s. So in that regard I was very happy with our performance and how we lifted compared to the last game. Very positive signs going into next week. Now to the negative criticisms. Port were very fortunate with some calls by the officials which kept them alive. If that game could be replayed the same way but without the poor (non)decisions, I feel like on balance that was a 5-6 goal win for us even with our inefficiency inside 50. I think this is why the loss hurts so much to me because I felt like we gave everything and didn't get rewarded with 4 points. I feel gutted for the lads based solely on this regard. During the game we were threatening to kick away, and I thought once we opened up to a 4-5 goal lead that the game would open up. There were a couple of times in the game where we almost did exactly this with a run of quick goals in typical Dees fashion. However, every time we got 3 goals in the clear there was always a dubious umpiring call that released the pressure valve and resulted in a Port goal, which in turn completely halted our momentum. In my opinion, this had a huge effect on the final result as it kept them within range and stopped us blowing out the lead. The inability to get away on the scoreboard allowed Port to continue to play their negative defensive football (which I hate by the way) and contributed to our inefficiency. The reason I believe they were extremely lucky is that it worked for them with some external assistance. Port were completely dominated in the middle however managed to hang on by the skin of their teeth and ultimately take the lead late in the game. I recall at some point during the 2nd half they flashed up stats on the screen showing Port had 7 goals to our 2 from set shots. I don't know what this stat ended up being at full time. I know one of them was that non-mark that was paid, and at least a couple more from soft free kicks. For example, I thought Brayshaw was unlucky to get pinged for a high challenge for jumping in the air to attempt an intercept and getting headbutt in the guts. Meanwhile at the other end, we had to work our socks off to get set shots on goal, but got denied goals or goal scoring opportunities by baffling calls. On the balance of play I feel like that should have been a comfortable win to the Dees, and I certainly couldn't have faulted our performance too much besides the obvious that we didn't impact the scoreboard enough. It's an area that we clearly need to work on, but I certainly don't think it should have cost us 4 points this time. I can take heart that we won't lose too many games playing like that. Bring on the Saints.

You'd have to go all the way back to the 2017 season where we won 4 games straight from Round 10-14.

You [censored] ripper.

Our senior list has definitely changed since the 2014 season....only 14 senior players from 2014 remain (plus Jetta, Mitch King and Harmes who were on the rookie list in 2014). We have seen 26 players depart the club in 4 years. Dee wiz, we had a stinker of a list back then!

I can just picture one of the MFC backroom staff frantically going to the mailbox on Sunday evening trying to dig out all of the finals brochures mailed out to members...only to find it's too late and all the members will get a nice surprise in their mailbox...

Best wins: Adelaide, Bulldogs, Meth Coke, Port Worst losses: North (x2), Freo, Hawthorn, Pies Best newcomers: Hibberd, Melksham, Hannan, TMac (as a forward) 2017 Haiku: Paul Roos laid the stone Goodwin sure to break the curse The Dees failed again

What we have to ask here: Is the Pies desire to knock us out of the finals (even though they have nothing to play for) greater than the desire for us to play in the finals. I'm putting my money on the latter. I'll be watching from Albany, WA and it will be a very boozy afternoon on the southern coast following a big win to the Dees!

The last time this poll was run I was undecided if the season would be a failure if we missed the finals. Now I'm firmly in the "Yes" camp. At the start of the season I predicted we would have ended up with 12-13 wins. But given some of the huge wins we've had including Adelaide and Eagles away, the season has exceeded my expectations (given the injury situation). In hindsight, I believe we are at least a couple of wins behind where we should be. Anything less than finals is a failure, particularly when reflecting on losses against Freo and North (12 points squandered). You just can't afford to drop that many points against inferior opposition.

We let them escape our forward 50 a little too easily at times. Our structure going forward relies a lot on our forwards locking the ball in our 50, but some weak/broken tackles allowed them to waltz out and hurt us on the scoreboard at times. I felt like flipping tables after that Lions goal at the end of the first half. Quite clearly, we didn't learn our lesson from that as it happened again in the last. I felt just as we got on top of them, we would do something silly and allow them back into the game. The lapse in concentration in the last quarter was disappointing. We tried to slow the game down and wind down the clock, but ended up repeatedly turning over the ball too easily allowing Brisbane to get back into the game. Especially around that 2-3 minute to go mark we started chipping the ball around our back line trying to waste time. I felt it was playing with fire (and I was right) as we turned the ball over and allowed them to score an easy goal. Otherwise, I thought the response in the 3rd quarter and start of the 4th was brilliant. If not for the brain fade, we would have easily won the game by 6-7 goals minimum. We seem to make a habit of letting our guard down for short periods, and thankfully we were good enough that it didn't come back to bite us in the last 2 games. I hope it's something the younger fellas can learn from and rectify in the future. All in all, happy to get the 4 points which is the most important thing. The destiny was always in our hands and we've won 2/2 "elimination finals". Time to make it 3/3 next week and fulfill the destiny.

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6. Pedersen 5. Hogan 4. Jones 3. Hibberd 2. Oliver 1. Melksham

Mitch Hannan wasn't the most outstanding player on the ground, but I swear after those 2 clutch goals in the last quarter I had a "get him up here, I wanna boof him" moment. I would have let him do anything to my body at that moment in time. I disgust myself.

For someone that hasn't played an AFL game since Round 2(?) that was a super impressive performance. Gus slotted in and looked like he hasn't missed a game all year. I really am super stoked for the kid to come back after everything that happened to him, and put in a performance like that. Bravo. He might not like wearing the helmet, but it definitely made me feel better when I saw "the helmet" getting in the contest, or getting a possession. I always felt like we were in good hands there.

6. Jones 5. Oliver 4. Pedersen 3. Brayshaw 2. Harmes 1. Oscar

I'm not an expert on the laws of the game, and I'm often confused as to why free kicks are paid due to my lack of understanding. But yesterday, I felt in the 3rd quarter that frees were being paid to the Saints left, right and centre just to swing momentum their way. Even for someone like me, the umpiring motive was blatantly obvious.

Crying averted for another week! I was really hoping I'd be opening this thread and typing this reply today. A percentage booster against Brissie would be helpful please lads.