Ollie fan

I think if you watch the match again, you will see that we were going pretty hard through the second half, not at our best, but by no means stopped to a walk.

In the last five minutes of the Brisbane match, we were anything but at a walk.

I just watched the second half of that match again. We got killed by the umpires, Kozzie missed two shots he should never ever have missed, yet with a minute to go, we were a real chance. The way I and everyone else on Demonland has reacted, it was a disaster and we were hopeless. Sure, we all wanted to win the premiership and believed we could, but we played a team which had been highly predicted to be the premiers themselves , and had every chance to win it, and it was an extremely close and exciting game. I have never been as optimistic coming into a season as I am for 2023. I think Grundy and Gawn will be incredible together. People say that Oliver is “one of the best midfielders in the competition”. Rubbish. He is hands down the best, not “one of the best”. Petracca is one of the best. Viney is one of the best. We have the best defence in the league, two of the best wingers, and we all hope we will now have a functional forward line. I can’t wait!

True. I dont know why anyone can base a strategy on someone who has yet to play a solid game in the seniors.

Gee, they are pretty good goals!

The problem with the Petracca one was simply that he missed the shot himself. As we can see from the highlights reel, he made up for that with many many goals from difficult shots. The problem is, criticism like this meant that he then spent several games giving off to other players, when he should have taken the shot himself, only to watch them miss it, and, and some cases, lose us the game. He is paid to kick goals, not to assist.

I’m 100% with you on this. It drove me crazy.

To drag this thread back to Clarry: it makes you marvel at the level that he was playing at in circumstances where he had difficulties with his handballing and dominant hand!

That reel shows what a truly class player he is. I would rather have him kicking around the corner from the middle of a crowd than, eg, Tracc lining up for a set shot 20m out. As I have said in other threads: he is there to kick goals and the criticism of him being selfish was totally wrong. He is not like Spargo, there to assist; he is there to finish.

This is a worry!!!

He was also a Federal Minister, and he is one of the all-time great Australians.

Since there are so many certified oldsters, in this particular thread, I wonder if anyone else would like to comment on my long-held belief that Clayton Oliver is very similar to Ron Barassi. I see it in his relentlessness, his determination, and also in things like his kicking style. Some of you are obviously older than me. I remember Barassi, but I was very young. Those who remember him well: do you agree?

That ladder goes to show: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. We all know that Geelong has numerous players who are right at the end of their careers, and a whole pile of young players who may not turn out to be any good. On the other hand, we have many players in the 23 to 27 bracket. The average is arrived at completely differently.

I thought we had Salem, Bowey, Rivers, Brayshaw and a couple of Casey kids…..

Naturally, Collingwood’s game against Geelong – Geelong’s home game – is at the MCG.

I think he’s yet another reason to get excited about 2023 and beyond. Our player development now is terrific with players being given plenty of time at Casey to fill out and strengthen and learn the game. Looking at the training pictures of JVR and you can see that he has now become an adult. I think Jefferson will be the same. I love his one grab marking, and with time, there is every reason to think he will be a great pick up.

Why oh why do they have to keep messing around with things? This new rule has no point whatsoever except to stop the cheating everyone but MFC did within the totally unnecessary medi-sub rule.

Get real.

Fix the rules and that would fix the umpires. With the present interpretative rules, more umpires means more inconsistency.

….. And every time you have an extra possession, there is the opportunity for something to go wrong.

Completely disagree. Teammates will keep kicking it to him because he is quite obviously intended to be the goalkicker. Yes, in the very famous incident where he didn’t pass to Petracca, he missed the goal. If he didn’t miss the goal, no one would’ve complained. Nine or more times out of 10, he gets that goal. The number of times we played ringaringarosie with handpasses because people would not take a shot, and ultimately the ball would be killed and cleared, was ridiculous. Fritsch is there to kick goals and should never be criticised for attempting to do so.

Well, if that’s what happened to him, that is an absolute disgrace. If anyone saw him in public and didn’t do him the courtesy of leaving him alone, the only way to treat him would be to admire and praise his absolute class and elegance as a player.

Thanks for the endorsement, WCW – I read your posts, and your opinion is one that I highly value. However, when I read my original post, I’m not sure I was being completely clear and I hope you agree with my intention - I was trying to say that after the murmur of criticism, in my view he gave away opportunities, trying to show unselfishness, when he should have been more “selfish” and kicked the goal. I hope that is what you are agreeing with.

I don’t like the implied criticism of Fritta. I thought it was unfair right through the season. He is there to kick goals, not to give them away. In fact, I think the murmur of criticism of him for being selfish got to him and he ended up giving away some critical opportunities to try and be unselfish which cost us a game or two. Sooner or later, someone has to take the shot – so often, with other players we would see the ball being handpassed around and around looking for the perfect opportunity; Fritta is there to take the opportunity and kick the goal.

To my mind, if we are relying on BBB as a key forward in 2023, we will be in trouble. His weaknesses were really shown up this year -particularly his awkwardness as soon as the ball hits the ground. I am not blaming him; he was instrumental in 2021 and he owes us nothing. But the way forward is TMac, JVR, Schache maybe, a dynamite midfield led by Gawn and Grundy, and of course Fritta.