old55

Please permit me to add some background and detail to my "reasons". The bedrock is that I do not believe Richardson, Goodwin and Gawn are "arrogant" or "disrespectful". Quite the opposite in fact. Goodwin was at pains in his press conferences to stress, even though our winning streak, how tough and ruthless the competition is and he always spoke respectfully of the opposition. In fact my suggestion that our strategy of going with our best, but hampered, players reflects respect for the opposition compared with your view that "our reserves" "would have been able to deliver" against the best - that is disrespectful. Weid, Dunstan, JVR and Chandler winning in place of Gawn, Oliver, Brown and Viney against quality opposition? MFC aren't "exemplars" without "fault". Goodwin repeatedly said we don't need to be perfect (because that's impossible) we need to be at our best. There is no doubt we made errors throughout the season, it's inevitable. To win the flag you need to be very good and for almost everything to go right. We didn't have the latter this year, and the two points I've highlighted above - fixture and injuries are illustrated by the Grand Finalists. Geelong had double up fixtures against WB, St.Kilda, Port, WC and North - the latter two the worst performing teams since MFC 2013. We had double ups against Collingwood, Brisbane, Freo, WB and Port. This difference provided Geelong with selection flexibility. Sydney have had an injury free year like we did last year - I play Fantasy football semi-seriously so monitor weekly injury reports closely. Sydney's list didn't get beyond 3 for almost all the year. Franklin and Reid combined for a total of 39 games, compared with 28 and 20 in the two previous years. These are material differences to our year and in a game of small margins against very good competition are not "exogenous excuses" Finally a bit of luck is helpful. I'm confident we still would have beaten Geelong in last year's PF, but the virus they had made them a soft kill and an easy run in to GF compared with the Dogs tough campaign on the road and that was a factor in the GF blow-out. If Sam Reid does his groin in the 2nd quarter of this year's QF instead of the PF, there's every chance we're playing this weekend. There's only one winner and 17 losers each year - if that's how you want to judge it - I don't as a matter of fact. There are factors at play that are not in our control and we have to make the best decisions possible in the circumstances. We faced significant hurdles that we were not able to overcome. "Arrogance" and "disrespect" were not at the root.

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying, as the injuries to star players mounted our fixture got much tougher. That's not an "excuse" it's a reason. We chose a strategy to try to overcome this problem and it didn't ultimately work out. Yes I am saying that our fit VFL players could not have replaced Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Petracca and got us to top 4 with our extremely challenging fixture. I'm confident we'll thoroughly review the season and make improvements for next year. The fact that we didn't win ensures this. Most of the time from year to year sh*t happens and that's why it's so hard.

You're going have a lot of backpedalling to do when he's an MFC Premiership captain He moved there because the big 3 were beaten up.

I suspect we'll see action in FA and trade. Jackson, Bedford, Hunt, Tomlinson could all be on the move and there could be some surprises too.

Doesn't matter Red - Petty makes it a winner whatever.

Interesting that unlike Cerra last year, Dunkley and his management seem unperturbed that Brisbane will struggle to get this done with their 2 F/S. They'll possibly need to go into deficit to get them done if Collingwood don't way overpay McStay and they don't qualify for an end of 1st round compensation. Future 1st could get Dunkley done I suppose and the F/S draft comes after the trade so then any deficit would apply to their future 2nd. They'd end up with no 2023 draft capital but maybe that's fine with 3 very good players coming in.

Sparrow has positive attributes - his size and power, he's strong overhead, he's a booming kick and reliable long range goal kicker. But he's not a clean ball handler and combined with ANB in attacking chains is an almost guaranteed broken link.

All the things I posted that you list in B are decisions made under duress. It didn't work out but I highly doubt any other approach would have either. Sometimes you have to gamble to succeed. We gambled on Steven May's hamstring in last year's Grand Final. An alternative approach could have been to try to win it from outside top 4. That's not complacency that's just an option when you're faced with difficult circumstances. We would have had to win 4 in a row, it's not likely so I don't endorse that option. It's not "arrogant, entitled and disrepectful". Premierships are hard to win and back to back is rare.

I want Sydney to win. Or more correctly I want Geelong to lose. Imagine if Collingwood won on Saturday - now that would be truly nightmarish.

Says the poster foreshadowing a further 57 years of lack of success ...

So it was. Still wouldn't have got a vote 😀

Cripps should have been suspended. Ah Chee missed football with concussion as a direct result of Cripp's careless action. It's pretty simple and this Brownlow will always be * to me. However, those suggesting that the AFL knew the Brownlow votes at that time and deliberately conspired to enable him to win it are on crack.

Libba!

Ridiculous. Couldn't even get one vote when he totally embarrassed Buddy.

This doesn’t sound like a trade and FA rumour to me.

Ah Chee and Neale don't approve. So glad Carlton missed finals again.

Think the trade period hasn't started yet. Are you always this premature?

Culture

The reason we didn't go further this year is because our best players were beaten up after a long campaign last year, straight into this year. Our incredibly tough fixture in the 2nd half of the year compounded this. We gambled heavily on making top 4 and winning the first final. We achieved the former but missed the latter. We really needed another week off. We moved Brayshaw into the midfield because Clarrie, Trac and Viney were so banged up and that was a good move I hope we persist with next year. You can say we should have used Chandler, JVR and Dunstan to give players a rest, but I don't think they would have enabled us to win enough to make top 4. We could have accepted that we'd have to win it from outside top 4. Maybe that would have been more prudent. Our game plan is super taxing and that makes it very hard to back up. Very few teams have gone back to back after their breakthrough year. The way we play we can win more flags but don't expect consecutive ones. We don't have a culture problem. Look no further than the Dogs, Port and Essendon for last year's finalists with culture problems. Look at Casey this isn't a club with culture problems. Maybe the OP would be happier down at Linton St.

Maybe, although maybe they just appreciate his match winning effort against Crossley in the wet.

It was like soap out there. Growers dropped 4 or 5 chest marks. Weid was tremendous.

So great for White and Munro.

Munro tackle machine Commentators talking up Southports #29 Boakye but Chandler and Bedford have touched him up.

He doesn't get enough of it. Chandler light years ahead of him.

Wait, did you go nearly 24 hours between similar posts about why this is a bad idea? He's coming and there's every chance he'll be an MFC Premiership player. Better get used to it. Oh I know "happy to be wrong"