Red But Mostly Blue

Now that the dust has settled a bit, it was a very ugly game, but what I loved was McVee, JVR (best game?), Kozzie’s goal, some of our good defensive work and Maxy’s goal at the end.

I’ll start with the 4 points. Great. But was that the worst game that has ever been played?? We need to do something pretty drastic very quickly. Very worried for next week. How far are we from 2021??

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Missed Salo’s run

Not high on Rivers!!!!??

Pretty sure Weitering ran off

Summary so far: both teams bad but we’re lucky they’ve been worse. What is up with our kicking? How many times have we kicked it straight to them? That’s not even counting the kicks to dodgy contests. So bad. Win or lose we need to be A LOT better against the Pies.

Still crazy sloppy movements going forward but that’s a nice goal from JVR.

Geez we always look so mental going forward. Lucky Kozzie is the only guy who could have kicked that. Good goal.

Needless to say we need to win tonight to start the course correction for the year, and we should, but I won’t lie I’m worried given how wobbly we’ve been and we’re the world champions at playing bad/underperforming teams into form. Knowing our luck, McKay will kick 5.0 tonight. Doubt and fear aside haha we should be ok. Hopefully. Go Dees! I’ve tipped us by 20.

On the upside for the blues we will probably play them into form next week and knowing our luck they’ll be dead eyes all day!! McKay and Curnow will kick 5 each. Leading us straight to the Pies who are travelling nicely and yet to play 16, 17th or 18th. Now, where’s my drink?

On another note, good to see Jackson trying again. Hadn’t seen that for a while.

Now that we've just lost to freo on our home deck maybe some of the apologists here might stop making excuses for how poorly we are travelling? Are we still learning?? Maybe it's ok to follow a team who is not as terrible as we were for so many years? It's ok as long as we can beat up on 16th-18th team. We’re wasting our generational talent. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm certainly angry. That was [censored]. Ah well we will always have 2021.

Thanks mate, just noticed all the typos haha sorry just really frustrated.

We can revel in a time where Melbourne is OK to good vs what we have been in recent memory, but if we do we ignore the fact that we just aren’t doing very well (beating up on easy beats) and we could do so much better. We’re out coached and wasting generational talent and it’s frustrating. I’m not a sad sack I just know the better teams in recent history have not frustrated their fan bases as much as ours does. What are we doing!!!???

Are we getting paid by the handball??’n WHY ALL THE HANDBALLS? And why do we always look so mental f going forward? Truth is we need to win today because we’re not going to bear better teams playing like this.

Good to see Jackson trying again

Was that harmes with that short pass? Terrible

Great goal by Fritter to snatch one right at the end which is refreshing. He’s such a smart footballer, what a clever kick. Not a great quarter, but we’re leading and we look hungry. I reckon we’ll see lots of improvement.

Sorry, I should clarify. On paper, we should dominate - killer midfield. AA backs. Kozzie. Fritter. Gawn/Grundy. But with some underwhelming game day coaching, bad luck with injuries, and arrogant Hollywood football, we're not. Aside from BBB and Petty (admittedly a decent gap), we're largely the same team who won the GF. In fact we were nearly full strength on the weekend. We had no real excuses. Can't expect to have everyone on the ground at once, for every game. Other teams do without stars. Agree we're still missing a KPF target, but that alone should not stop us from performing. We still have enough goalscorers on the ground who should get the job done. I just think we're not playing that well, and like last year, the beat-ups against poor teams is clouding perception of where we are actually at - and that's an often lazy, uninspired, rigid brand of football that does not stack up against teams who apply pressure and play to the usual plan to beat us - and we get beaten the same way every time. And I disagree with Petty going forward. He's integral to our backline. So yeah, sorry, on paper and in theory we should dominate. But it's not working. And it'll take somebody to actually look at where we are, rather than the 'that's not us' or 'that's the loss we needed to have' [censored], because that continues to gloss over the real issues. We've had plenty of 'necessary losses this and last year, and not surprisingly, against the better teams who have worked us out.

...and after all that speculation, the answer is... TBC 🤪 That'll keep the thread going for a while longer!! haha But also 😔

I hope you're right. We were disappointing last year (failing to capitalise on generational talent and a narrow premiership window), and a little wary of 'losses we need to have', but the truth is we're too good to not dominate, the issue is between the ears and some coaching tweaks.

100% - banding together and showing support is fine. Free kicks given, especially on a night when it's clear that the crowd is likely influencing them in the home team's favour, is just wasteful. Proves nothing. I wish some of our guys who went missing flew the flag by focusing on doing their bit to win the game.

Agree with this, especially given our recent record against them, but not gonna lie, if we can't beat Freo in Melbourne, I'll be pretty bummed with that given it's at home.

I agree with this. Our midfield is clearly elite but we have been inexplicably losing clearances. Clarry is a massive out (if out) every day of the week, and he'll be missed. But we are not, and cannot be, one player. We have depth and can move pieces around. This circumstance could breed opportunity and jolt us into doing something different/unpredictable. Could be some things we learn to help us evolve this year. And we need to evolve to keep up with other contenders.