Hellaintabadplacetobe

2 minutes ago, rpfc said:

I was waiting for this bump. I was worried earlier in the season with how we were playing and I said that loading was a ‘red herring’ and this is what I meant.

Loading is a real thing that the best teams do, but you’re not meant to be revealed like we were revealed with some of those performances in 2nd halves in the middle of the season.

We are not moving the ball well, have little dare and run, and our forward line can’t compete against defences that are set up. And they also allow the ball out too easily.

Agree on all this.

No doubt loading happens, every team in finals contention are doing it, but there's enough sample size now to understand it can't be used an an excuse for our form.

The dare is the big one for me, it's just not the same as last year but I think a lot of this comes from good opposition coaching who know it won us games last year. We still appear to have no Plan B.

Bizarre we are at our worst at the G, and miraculously look a different team interstate. 

Beaten by a better hungrier team, simple as that. Their pressure was off the charts. 

It was actually a great game of footy for 3 quarters, great atmosphere. Nobody likes losing but you have to credit Sydney, they were great. We were sloppy at times but played some good footy too.

The Buddy dive turned the game, awful, disgraceful decision.

5 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Christian Petracca 

alteady a champion of the game 

love him 

MFC premiership player 

norm smith medal 

bull of a midfielder 

but two things … 

1. stay hungry … looking like his playing fancy little delicate handballs and tackles being missed 

2. He must must must sort out your goalkicking. It’s a huge knock on him and imv stops him from being elite … he’s not confident and his routine is poor. Straights and simple levers are the key !!! 

Not sure if you realise but he was playing on one leg from midway through the first quarter. He could barely jog at one stage and I expected him to be subbed off.

I would not be too critical of him tonight. 

It's been pretty ordinary watching some games live lately where it randomly just goes back to the beginning of the broadcast mid match.

Has happened a few times the past month. Overall it's been pretty good but it's frustrating when it happens and usually multiple times once it starts happening.

I mentioned this preseason but was a function with Yze, Jonesy, TMac n Trac in attendance.

Was taking a leak and they all walked in and Trac stood next to me. Asked him if we'd miss Burgess and he said no we are in real good hands with Selwyn.

And no I did not take a peak 😃

If Hawks kick 10 more points today, Dogs miss and Blues would play finals.

Heard Leon Cameron praising ANB on radio yesterday without being prompted. His two way running is off the charts. He does the team things asked of him and you rarely notice this unless you are at the Match.

Fans need to stop looking at stat sheets to determine how well a bloke is playing. Zero chance he's getting dropped unless injured.

I saw us kick out from full back and go right.....what the hell is going on!!

11 minutes ago, binman said:

That was so, so bizarre.

I had a mate who went. A super passionate dees fan who makes Andylook optimistic.

I was speaking to him as he arrived and was saying what a a hole Zorko was, that he would look to stir up stuff and was a woeful captain.

He has form. Every single match.

I watched the replay last night's  I started watching from the first bounce live, so missed this- but on the replay as the lions run out of the stand I'm sure they had a pair of boxing gloves hanging above them sd they ran onto the fortunate. Several players hit them on the easy through.

I'm assuming they had some theme, maybe something like Rocky or whatever.

Pathetic.

And completely ineffective 

Those gloves have been there all season Bin. 

But no doubt they went the knuckle at any opportunity and they forgot about winning the footy. Totally backfired on them.

If we had either one of Petracca or Paddy Mc we would win this game.....

On 8/16/2022 at 10:39 AM, Lucifers Hero said:

From bigfooty:

• I am going for Lions by 30 in the best four quarter display we have seen all year full of individual brilliance, team defense, desperation, focus, accuracy, no injuries, and a huge fillip for the finals series (that is re the Lions not the Demons btw)

 

 My favourite:

 

• Not confident at all. Whether it is AFL or NRL, for some reason any time a team named Brisbane plays a team named Melbourne, they go to mud. It’s all mental. We can definitely best them but I’m not sure the team actually believes it and that’s a massive issue.
  • 🙂🙃🙂

     

Well one of them was on the money!

Storm just won their 12th game in a row against Brisbane 60-12.

LoL 

Ruthless!!

Loved the move of Harmes to Bailey at the first bounce, would have totally thrown them off when all the talk was about tagging Neale.

Had all the hallmarks of a Grand Final team tonight. Super stoked!

Dees odds have shortened since teams were announced.

Punters must rate Harmes impact on Neale, no other explanation.

I saw Dunny in the Dees members area even when he was playing for Collingwood a few times.

Think his heart never left The Dees.

3 hours ago, binman said:

Sorry Kev, I was making a silly joke - a play on words from that stupid dire straits song combiing your comment you don't like something for nothing  and radomly working in free kicks

As in 'money for nothing and your kicks for free'

Safe to say, quite a stretch.

But I agree with you about free kicks btw. 

Except it's chicks for free....have you been singing Alex the Seal whenever our lips are sealed comes on for 40 years too Bin??

5 minutes ago, Bates Mate said:

I posted on another thread how the may kicks to packs in on the left side of the ground in the last qtr after doing it all game/year was nearly the death of me. Must have done it 5-6 times in 5 minutes and it just kept coming back in. What infuriated me was not only the fact we often had 1-2 players alone on the right side. It was the fact we didn't even glance to that side to see them and just went with ol reliable despite being behind 

Agree totally. Was at the game and one instance Sparrow was completely on his own 20 m clear of anyone at CHB and didn't even think of calling for it, let alone May looking for him. It is frustrating. 

Petty on his own on the right side in the last but again no call and no look from May.

Plan B is not an option for kick outs.

We should win this comfortably but we are teetering on the edge.

A loss today will see my confidence in defending the flag in tatters.

Trac to run riot tonight.

13 hours ago, deva5610 said:

How good was the atmosphere at those finals!

I was at the G on Friday night, smack bang in the middle of some Demon reserved seats and I was somewhat underwhelmed to say the least.

I might add - anyone potting the Demon Army has rocks in their head. They're loud and do a great job. It's a shame about the rest of the fans in the nearby bays. Unless the boys are up, sadly a lot remain silent.

I commented earlier this year when we were winning home games how eerily quiet our crowd was.

Can't recall us ever being as quiet in 50 plus years of supporting 

21 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I posted about our fixture earlier. Looking at fixtures further, Collingwood's first of their 11 wins was against Fremantle in Perth in Round 10. Since then, they have played 8 of their other 10 games at the MCG, they've only had two games against top 8 sides (us twice) and they've played five games against the bottom 6.

In the same period we've played 5 games at the G (including none for five straight weeks) have played 7 games against top 8 sides (will be 8 if the Dogs end up making it) and just one game against the bottom 6.

Shame we didn't play more games away from the G. Apart from Brisbane and maybe GWS we have not played great footy there at all even when we've won.

6-0 interstate. Strange but maybe we are better off playing finals interstate!?

8 hours ago, Deespicable said:

Agree this is quite the morbid post, but tend to agree, but here's a few reasons IMO.

1) Other sides have worked out that we like to go down left side and are ready for us. And because we rarely switch there's no chance to expose other players or other entries. To alter that line of attack in three weeks is not possible.

2) James Jordon worked as hard, if not harder than anyone on Friday and was in our best handful. But how many times did he do anything but normal link work. He hasn't got the speed to break lines. Ideally he should be in the middle playing as big-bodied mid. We have to find a right-side wingman who the players like going through - this ties in with our failure to switch right. Jackson isn't a long-term option as a wingman, but I'd be playing him there for the rest of the season to try and convince May and Salem and Hibberd to risk going long to him. He ain't going to be outmarked. Sadly it's too late in the season to try such a radical change.

3) We no longer take risks. When we go down the left side (as we do 95% of the time), rarely do the players risk sending a long bomb over to a player on the other side. Langdon took a clever mark and goaled in one of our few switches like this in the 2nd term. We are so ingrained in trying to beat sides down the wing, that we restrict our options and when we turn it over, sides like Collingwood take us on through the middle as our zone defence reorganises itself. We ultimately need another tall target to allow this to happen.

4) The tall target may well be JVR, but Goody doesn't like changing his setup (we are still the reigning premiers after all), but after another loss (our sixth in 10 weeks) he should consider it. But he won't now, it's too late in the season. Goody, this season, also has underrated (or forgotten) the excitement that comes with having a first or second gamer getting a chance. We all know they don't play the percentages or do the customary but that sometimes leads to a spark. But JVR won't play this year.

5) Clearly we aren't as fit this year as last year. Losing Burgess has been costly and I suspect the new fitness guy allowed a few of our senior players (now premiership players) to get away with not doing quite as much hard work. It's too late now to turn this around, but a stiff session that finishes with 8x200m reps this Tuesday or Wednesday will help. You don't need to sack the fitness manager, but hopefully he learns for next year that nice guys finish ... without a flag.

6) Speaking of nice guys, clearly Trac has won plaudits this year in this area. His profile has gone through the roof with ads, and post-match TV interviews and he's just so nice. Earlier in the year he even started picking up opponents off the ground after tackles.  Sorry Trac, you are a great bloke, but we want you to be a great, hard footballer. You can't have both. Nice guys finish ... without an All Australian. And he can't change his nice guy DNA around in three weeks.

7) When it comes to taking the game on we got a lesson from a 19 year old last night in Nick Daicos. He has the confidence to run and switch and he tackles. Unfortunately we haven't had that player down back, with the exception of Angus anywhere near that. I still think Rivers could become a great running defender but he just hasn't embraced that role like we needed yet. His effort when he failed to spoil McCreery on the wing was enough to tell me he need to go back to the school of hard knocks. He might yet become an absolute star, but it won't be this year.

8) Our search for a running defender isn't just a Trent Rivers issue. Jayden Hunt can also cop a bit of the blame, but you can tell he's playing really close to his opponent and he just hasn't quite been able to launch on the counter attack. But to be honest he's closer to reaching that role than Rivers at the moment. But Hunt will most likely be dropped this week. Finding a running defender won't be this year but at least Angus should be back in the sweeper role next week after being tagged out of it after half time against the Pies. And Bowser needs another go there as well.

9) ANB has been playing our high half-forward through the middle all year and he presents and keeps moving as well as any player in the game. It's an incredibly tough role, requires courage and awareness and is a bit like the job of a No.10 in soccer - it's that crucial. It's just that ANB hasn't been able to break free this year because sides are on to him  - I haven't got the stat but I reckon he'd be our most tackled player all year by far. There are only two players who could do this role this year instead of him - Petracca and Viney. Will Goody switch either out of their midfield positions to do so. Not likely this year.

10) I mentioned earlier we don't have the fitness but based on how we looked against the Pies we also don't have the athleticism - or at least the confidence and speed that taking the game on brings. The classic example is Olly who continually handballs when he is by far our best runner. He seemed to have gotten over that fear last year and for much of this year but I suspect he's gone back to looking at his SuperCoach points since he hurt his thumb and a safe handball is worth more than an errant kick that almost wins a game. He's the best player in the side with Trac and he just has to show the confidence (and arrogance).

11) Given that we lost so badly to the Pies run and also struggled in that department against Geelong a few weeks back, there's no doubt Joel Smith's athleticism is needed at the minute. If we don't go JVR, and I suspect we won't, he's the obvious swingman to provide a spark up forward and gives is the flexibility of having someone who can be sent back in case of injury. He's not the messiah, but he showed enough early in the season before his 15th injury, that he can cope with AFL level at last.

12) We all get that in general our central midfield is the best in the league, but at finals (and we are pretty much there now) you have to shut down players as well and Harmes has his flaws but at least he works his butt off and niggles. We need him to be assigned a player each week in the middle - Walsh followed by McCluggage etc. He will still need a break and that's where having a raging bull like Viney should come in as well with the pair waxing on the poor star who is chosen. But that won't happen this year. 

13) Finally Goody and the coaches are so caught up in their three-group (forwards, mids and defender) training method these days that the old ability to switch players mid-game on to dangerous players no longer exists. Changing players can mentally make it harder for opponents to keep their flow. It used to be a tactic that all the great coaches from Barassi through to Hafey employed. But it doesn't happen any more because coaches don't like taking risks. 

So just in case anybody doubts my message, here it is again. We are premiers and we are playing safe and our coaches and players aren't taking risks and that's understandable to a large degree because we are premiers. But ultimately that's why we won't be going back-to-back this year. Next year is another story.

13.... Thirteen!!!!!!!!!!

Overreaction. We just played in the match of the season and fell short by a kick to a team in red hot form.

If we kicked straight it would have been game over at half-time and the footy world would be saying it's ours to lose.

We have another gear in us for finals, Pies are playing in overdrive and about to blow a gasket.

Reckon our best result will be to finish 4th and play Cats at the G.

Both Swans n Pies have troubled us for years and they will both fancy their chances against us. 

16 minutes ago, Colin B. Flaubert said:

Another one from the time capsule.

The stakes were low. The atmosphere middling. The standard of play mediocre.

But it was all worth it for this.

To my knowledge, we ended this self indulgent rubbish as this was the last 'Press Red for Ed' match Eddie ever commentated.

Yep never happened again. I remember this day well because 5 mins after the siren I stepped into a lift with a bunch of Dees fans and there was Eddie. I asked him how the call went and all I got in return was hmmmmpph. I responded with I knew I should have pressed red and got another hmmmmpph.

Made my day!

7 minutes ago, rpfc said:

That’s a good team. 

Let’s see how good this pony trick is…

Great team....Only 2 missing from our premiership side. Melk n Hunt replacing TMac n Harmes.

7 minutes ago, Lord Travis said:

Another great get for the club. Pert and co are doing a good job off field.

Do we get discounts? Half my bloody wardrobe is country road at this point haha 

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