Vipercrunch

I've been waiting for us to play Geelong in Geelong since Geelong came into the competetion. Casey may as well be on the other side of the planet from here. I'll be there with my three girls, hoping for another impressive display.

There is nothing wrong with attempting to smother. It is his decision to turn, brace and lean his weight and momentum into Gus' head with his shoulder. There is no way on this earth you can tell me he had to do that and no way on earth he would have done that if it had been Nick Daicos there instead of Gus during match practice at training.

Maynard acted with the instinct of the self confessed white-line-fever player that he is. His instinct would of had him acting very, very differently if it had been Nick Daicos there in an intraclub game.

I 100% get that. I used to watch every game I could. Now, I very rarely watch anything other than our game.

Ask anyone trying to defend how Maynard positioned his body to make contact if Maynard would have done exactly the same thing if it had been Nick Daicos there in an intraclub game instead of Angus Brayshaw in a final.

Maybe not all season, but in games when we have been humming, we are far less fumbly, make far better decisions and are far more accurate in front of goal.

Anyone who says its purely a footy act needs to be sure in their own mind that Maynard would have turned, braced and leant his body weight and momentum into Brayshaws head if it had been a teamate there instead of Brayshaw. The only answer is of course not.

I guess it depend on your definition of choke. Failing to execute skills you have generally executed all season at a high level because of finals pressure is a choke for mine.

That was a choke. No other way to describe it. Absolute stage fright.

The question no one from the media who have been critisicising us for picking up Grundy have tried to answer is who would have rucked for us when Gawn was injured earleir this season? If Grundy leaves, the club will need to answer that question. Will Verrell or Farris-White be able to fill in at AFL for a short period (or longer) if Gawn is injured again next year? It doesnt look like it to me, so I think we need another experineced ruckman on the list next season. As unpopular he is around here, in hindsight, perhaps we should have chased Rory Lobb instead of Grundy.

I'm not taking any significance at all from the KB game. At 11-1 at the time, Collingwood would have been in a very demanding training phase, potentially even training harder than us who were 3 wins behind them (8-4). This is now the real deal and it's got every chance of being an epic final.

5 goals for the team in the 2.5 quarters before his injury is hardly evidence of that.

Umpiring is embarrassing. I’ve watched more footy this weekend than I have for a while and I had actually begun to hope the umpiring had turned the corner. That was an illusion obviously.

It is so hard to believe, but each week the quality of umpiring just gets worse. I can barely watch games involving my team; there’s no chance I’m going to watch much games as a neutral. It’s quite depressing.

Can someone please, please tell these umpires to BLOW THE [censored] WHISTLE!!!

This game.

Can’t help think that the result would have been very different if the umpiring hadn’t got Brisbane back into the game in the second quarter. Sydney was well on top at stage then the momentum swung 180.

Swans are getting absolutely rogered here by the umps. OMG

Hope so. Extremely silly thing to do.

The one that didn’t get tackled but still got a HTB paid against him? Terrible umpiring decision.

History shows Dangerfield would call a ambulance for a paper cut. There has been several times he has taken himself off the ground and out of the game because he felt the slightest twinge. Unlike our man Clarry who played out a game with a torn hammy.

Apologies if there is a thread for this already, but is anyone else really concerned where the game is going after the 3 week suspensions dished out tonight for Sicily and Mansell? I don’t like Mansell and am pretty ambivalent about Sicily, but I think both are incredibly stiff to get any punishment at all for those incidents. Mansell made a self preservation action at the very last moment to protect himself, and there is no way Sicily should be held responsible for that tackle. Accidents happen and the game seems to be getting itself lost trying to eliminate them.

It looked like Trac was pointing to the area of the ground that Cox stood over McVee giving him a mouthful after taking a mark in the 2nd quarter, so maybe Trac was reminding him of that ordinary moment.

Not sure why, perhaps it’s the last time we had a 10 day break and really needed a statement win, but I’m hoping for a similar performance to that of round 15 last season when we smashed the Lions at the G. It was one of our best performances of the year (up there with round 20 against Freo and round 23 again against the Lions) but unfortunately it was far better than the form we showed in the finals. Now, as we are passed the half way mark of the season, things really gets interesting and we get to see if we truly have learned the lessons from last season and can correctly get everything peaking when it matters. So I hope tomorrow is a statement game, but only a hint of what’s to come.

Expected scores currently is 72.5 to 61.6. Interesting.