Ollie fan

My memory - and I stress this is memory only - is that in 1994 he wanted us to "share" the ball around which meant that we handled far too much. Result: a team that was absolutely star studded ended up in the lower reaches of the eight and ended up playing a prelim in Perth. In the first two finals, especially the first against flag favourites Carlton, we showed how good we really were. I game always thought that year was the one that got away. Then in the off season we Schwarz did his knee, and Garry Lyon did his back.

Could be anything. For all we know he might have been saying, "this is up to us"

......We would play Jeffo in every position in the ground and lose each week by 100 points.

This is a great idea. It guarantees us bottom 5 position in the ladder for at least the next 3 years. But you forgot to mention - as most posters have suggested - that we get rid of Tracc too.

He should take lessons from Ben Brown (no, I'm not joking). BBB was excellent at eg when tackled, throwing his arms right out so any fool umpire could see that he didn't have the ball, at throwing out his arms and demonstrating beyond a doubt that he was being blocked. I think it was on Demonblog, when we got BBB, that the writer said he had had a look at clips of BBB and noticed that he got a lot of frees. Well, he did and there is nothing wrong with it. Nick Daicos is another master of it. If the free is there, let the umpire see it beyond doubt.

My understanding is that that was almost exactly the conversation with TMac at the start of this season.

This devaluing of JV mystifies me. Yes, he is a poor kick. BUT - and it is a big but - he is a tackle monster; he keeps his opponents honest (euphemism for nervous) and is a true heart and souler. He never gives up. His endeavour is inspirational.

The AFL and the media love him but he had no real influence. I agree: de Goey was better and (unfortunately) Pendles was best.

As my username suggests, I would be very unhappy to see Clarry go. He has been working his way back into form and all the posters who say, let him go: I hope they are happy when they watch him next year in the top three of the AFLCA award. I just pray that it is with us. Lot of criticism of Tracc too. Oddly enough, McRae in his presser was pretty clear that he thought Tracc (and Gawn) played very well. He might know.

We tagged Nick Daicos into insignificance and, after quarter time, pretty much shut down his brother too. How many players can you tag? However, in my opinion putting May on Elliott and leaving him there was a big mistake. Just the completely wrong matchup. To my mind, May should have been on McStay, TMac on Mihocek, and Turner on Elliott. May has been criticised a lot after the game but he was just on the wrong opponent.

Not only did we push good sides, it's easy to forget that we beat last year's grand finalists in successive weeks. Those calling for a wholesale clean out, in my opinion, would be dooming us to several years of failure, the hope that by the time Gawn , Petracca, Oliver, Melksham have gone, we will have a side capable of winning a premiership. I completely disagree. We are so close to such having such a side right now, we just need a coach to polish it off. I know it's an unpopular view, but I think Goodwin was completely right in saying that we are that close. And I never believe in 5 year plans. They rarely work. We should aim to win the flag each and every year that we play. To me, that is 2026 and beyond and I believe we can do it. Of course, I am no doubt a self-deluding fool in the eyes of "supporters"(which try are not) who think our team is a bunch of "spuds". Like the poster who used that word to describe Trac, Clarry and Viney, which is sooooo unbelievably disrespectful. And wrong.

I wonder how many posters on this thread and on the game day thread actually at the game. I was. One thing was completely clear, at least after quarter time: there was a very big advantage kicking into the city end. I'm not surprised or ashamed that Collingwood outscored us in the last quarter. What was good was that we were able to use it very much to our advantage in a third quarter. And our effort was unquestionable throughout the game. Some of the extraordinarily rude comments about players are disgraceful from people who would call themselves supporters but very much are not.

That is a shocking thing to say about three players to whom we owe so much

I really liked him first time round at the club and didn't know why they let him go. Second time round injuries have just been overwhelming. I am sorry he never really made a go of it.

It was actually Mandy Rice-Davies but in this site, who cares about facts or accuracy?

I have been in favour of him as a forward all along. I think he is a player who can make critical mistakes - handballing to the oppo etc - and in the backline, these cost immediate goals. In the forward line, they are just a missed opportunity. But he has always been a good contested mark. And since he changed his runup to the stutter he now uses, he has been very accurate. And he has a lot of injuries, concussion etc which stopped him getting a good run at being a forward. So I am not surprised at his good recent performances.

I was very much against Buckley at first, but as time goes by it seems extremely clear that the team is transitioning in the right direction and that that direction should be maintained. A new, inexperienced coach would almost certainly want to put his own stamp on the team and change the direction – which is exactly what Mark Neeld did with results we all know about. Buckley seems to understand that we are headed in the right direction and I suspect he would simply concentrate on improving our skills as he was extremely skilled himself. So I have now become very much for him.

Discussing whether he was blindsided is probably a waste of time, but..... Not many coaches are sacked straight after an 83 pt win.

Actually I have it on very good authority that he was saying EXACTLY that - how close we were- to a friend of mine the day before he was sacked.

I know it is not the answer but to my memory, under Northey we never lost the close ones. I think back then the players just had a mindset of somehow getting the ball forward and somehow kicking the necessary score and then defending as if their lives depended on it

Actually, Goody has done exactly that on several occasions.

That doesn't respond to my point at all

This really bothers me. To me, that's not galling practice. I don't care one bit if they miss the speccie boundary shots. They need to practise the regulation shots, set shots from 30-40 m out on a slight angle, etc. If we regularly kicked those, there wouldn't be a problem.

You can't let it go, can you Franky? If it new coach is a dud - but of course I hope he isn't - I sincerely hope you will eat a bit of humble pie. But you won't.

Yep, well, he did get midfield minutes. Perhaps you didn't watch the games. But we needed him in defence because McVee and Salem were not really cutting the mustard. And much as I like Rivers and his energy and enthusiasm and ability, his field and goal kicking is on a par with Trac and Clarrie.