Red But Mostly Blue

Gus stays. (Saw it in a dream, he was holding the cup at the G with three fingers in the air - premiership #3, of course) Either way, my guys - we good.

Absolutely, there is certainly an element of luck in games. But you have to make the most of your luck (for example, the Pies were inaccurate against us, and we failed to capitalise). But eventually luck does turn, so here's hoping they have used up their tickets - and when we face them we make the most of ours, take our chances and put (+ keep) the foot down. After a number of recent, painful losses to the Pies (last year's Bucks farewell, the one that cost us a finals appearance, this year etc.), I would VERY much love to see us bury the Pies and send them back to reality, and further down the ladder. But we need to know they had our measure this year, and they'll know they can do it again.

I think we can and should win this Friday. At least on paper. Let's see where the boys' heads are at and if they are as hungry for back-to-back flags as they said they were . If we lose, and the rest of the games go the way they should (including perhaps the Lions finally winning at the G), we slip to 6th. Not an ideal place to launch at the finals. I mean, we need to win at least 2 to make top 4 - so can still do it, but mentally it'll be a slog getting back into the 4 with the games we have left - especially if we lose to Freo. Blood in the water etc. In short, we need to beat Freo this Friday to make the numbers nicer, but more importantly build momentum and belief.

Not sure that's exactly right. Collingwood are on the same points as us - plus they smoked us in our earlier meeting. Plus they have won 3 games vs top 8, compared to our 2. AND they are coming in with 9 on the trot - HOT (One of those wins being against us).

A lot of people are getting upset at Stokes for saying stuff that makes a lot of sense. Our patchy, inconsistent wins to go 10-0 were against lesser teams, or teams who had not yet hit their stride. Just look at the results. 11/13 of our wins are from the current bottom 8 sides. The losses against the top 8 sides show us playing a quarter of good footy, which is consistent with how we started the year. It was all very much, well the Dees are so good they only need to play 1 quarter. Sure, until you play the good teams who are willing to play 4 quarters. Complacency, ego and a loss of focus are on show. May's incident is an off field example. We built lazy habits earlier this year, and now it's coming back to bite us. Line in the sand this Friday, and we can do what we said we would do. None of this 2/4, 3/4 wins and we'll be right. Our best is unmatchable. But we must work for it! W W W W

Completely agree with this. Of all the things we've lost this year (yes, even during the earlier patchy wins this year) it's been our attitude, selflessness and hunger. Maxy said the boys want a dynasty, but to get there we're going to need a serious uptick in the WAY we go about playing these next games. The Hawks and Lions were relentless during their dynasties, and never let up. We need to rediscover our hunger, and the rest will follow - provided we actually address stuff like not bombing into the 50 etc, and some of the boys finding some well overdue form. We don't need to win all 4, but we do need to go in with confidence and momentum. We need to be feared, as it truly affects how the others will play us. I'm actually a little worried about the Pies game tbh, they properly smoked us last time, and they have their tails up at the moment, they will think/know we're up for grabs on their march into the finals.

The Pies are on the same points as us. I actually feel sick. I've hardly ever wanted the Bombers to win more than I did tonight.

Weid looks focused, and pumped. Really like his attitude tonight. Maybe tonight's the night we look back and see the beginning of a great forward. We're calling out for one, maybe he's already here!?

Phew. THANK YOU, KOZZIE! Not a convincing win, but it's a win, and the alternative of being on the same wins as the Pies truly terrified me. Going to be a tough run home, but the only way we'll make it to the business end is if we win (at least) most of the games ahead. Now is the time to do it!

Man Kozzie had his Weet bix this morning.

If we win this it's because of Kozzie, and pretty much no other reason.

Port aren't great. I honestly have no idea how we're going to win any of our remaining games, let alone the flag. What the hell happened to us?

Uh oh we're sh*t again.

Tommo has been good.

I thought we were going to come out firing after last week? Our skills are bottom 4. Creativity going forward 0/10. Goalless quarter. Don't know how we're going to kick any the way we're playing. Bored and frustrated.

We are bog ordinary.

If we can't cover the loss of 2 (admittedly very important) players, we have no business being in the top 4, let alone winning the flag. We simply have to get this done to ensure a confident run to the finals. It's clear the current landscape will mean that there will likely be late outs for teams, so we may as well get used to it and dig in. This is another good opportunity for the Weid (yes, he's into triple digits now) - if he plays - to repay the faith. Maybe in 10 years' time we'll look back at the day Kozzie ripped up the midfield, Weid kicked 5 and Dunstan cleaned up some of his disposals to lead us through a tricky game up north. We can, and should, win this.

The day after a loss is yuck. I much prefer the high of a Thursday win!! Anyway, with some reflection I'm not TOO upset about last night's loss, even though we were very ordinary. We lost to the now #1 team. While we had a blinder against the Lions, we've been shaky for a long time. Probably even the whole year. So we're been wobbling, then we come up against a white hot team who get to play at home, after an emphatic win against witches hats. And they play a blinder (lucky they didn't kick straight otherwise the scoreline would have been more honest), their Grand Final. Which is fine. Nobody is getting the flag this week. What to do? Well, there needs to be an honest assessment of what's going on. We've got Port next week. A perfect game to go back to executing basics. We were fumbly all night last night. Remove some of the fancy Hollywood stuff. Look for teammates in good positions, and execute the pass. LOWER the eyes going into the 50. Can somebody please put together a montage of all our greatest hits going forward this year? It would comprise about a billion bombs into our 50, mostly for nothing. Rubbish. We need to STOP doing that. Stafford - please fix, earn those $$$ We really need some of the guys who have had quieter years to remember the message sent by Gawn this year that we are hungry for a dynasty. If they want a dynasty, they will have to earn it. Spargo has been quiet, as has ANB (at times). Bowzer looks to be rattled by losses. Salem has not been himself since the injury - geez we need him back, he's critical back there. May had a stinker last night, but that won't happen again. Ben Brown needs to lift. We really need TMac or a TMac sort up there. I love that Fritta is goal thirsty, and when he is kicking bags, nobody complains, but I agree that he's burnt a few teammates recently and it's not a good look, it goes against the selflessness that won us a flag and he needs to return to 2021 vision. We're second, with a tough draw ahead, but we won't win the flag if we can't get through those sides anyway. We should beat Port, Doggies, Pies and the Blues. If we drop Freo and the Lions at their home ground, so be it. But they should at least be close, respectable losses that don't lose us any form, and hopefully they give us a final look into those teams for the finals, as they're likely to be in the top 4 mix. We're 6 weeks out from the finals, this is when we need to hit our straps, and honestly I think it's a pretty good timeline. The Cats have peaked too early IMO. We'll roll them in the finals (again), if we meet. But we need to hit our straps. Everyone needs to rewatch the GF, some 2021 highlights, revisit their vision for the club, whatever they have to do to recapture some magic. We can win this, but it's got to start now, it can't be expected to magically fall into place in the finals without some lead-in form. TL;DR - not panicking. Incredibly talented group. We just need to focus on the basics, be smarter i50 and work our a**es off. Go Dees.

Premierships aren't won in July... ... but we really need to sort some things out quickly, against good opposition, if we're going to be good enough to win when it counts. Imagination/connection going forward, basic skills, and some of last year's heroes really need to get back into the game. Spargo, Salem, ANB, all down on form, we need them firing. We needed less Hollywood stuff tonight. I hate losing to the cats.

I don't mind that we lost, but we ended so poorly. Terrible skills all day, sloppy, no imagination going forward, lost contests and if I had a buck for every time we kicked it straight to them I might have made back the dollarydoos I lost on a few multis. Tuohy killed me.

Could we possibly steal this!

Very poor.

The comforting thing is that even though we've been sloppy, we're right in this, If we start hitting targets (we've been wayyy off, it's almost like there's a jumper clash!), we'll win this. They're playing at about their best, despite a couple of misses. If we come out breathing fire and nailing passes, we win.

Still holding onto it...

That's being generous! I thought it was about 40cm. What a joke.