Would like to bring some reality to this thread. I am hurting just as much as everyone else, not performing on the big stage is very frustrating when we as supporters understand the potential of our team but tonight you can put the loss down to a few other factors beside us being "pretenders".
1. The loss of Lever is proving to be one of the biggest outs we could have, ironic considering all the talk at the start of the year about him being overpaid and needing to find his feet. Our back line structure is in an unstable state at the moment.
2. Port had their bye a few weeks ago and are in a good rhythm, first game back for us and we looked a bit off the pace of AFL and more like a practice game at times.
3. Port recognised the danger of Tmac 1 on 1 and flooded their backline, never allowing him or hogan any room. Our players have faith in Tommy besides the congestion and wanted to kick to him anyway, sadly it didn't work out.
Unnecessary to swing the axe at any players, T. Smith had a crack, Tyson clumsy but added to the midfield and Omac continues to build as a dominant 1 on 1 defender. Viney back with a vengeance, good experience under intense pressure, we will scalp one or two good sides and make the finals easily.