Like many of you I was going to give it 24 hours before going into a bit of a debrief. All I could conjure up was the most loony nut-job contributions. Usually this simmers down after a good night's sleep and a new day.
Except now, I don't feel any different at all and am still totally lost for words. I can't even comment on what is right and wrong behaviour right now. If you want to be negative, be negative. Positive, be positive. Stick with your membership? Sure. Fry it to smithereens? Go for it. I honestly don't have anything to say about it.
As for the game itself, well the ball was bounced, that's a good start. The half a second before Trac got the free kick seemed good, and the grass did a good job being run on before Salem was pinged for holding the ball.
And then that was it.
Now to get to the bigger picture, this is nothing we haven't seen before. If this could be the aim of playing the game I'd be so happy, if I can just find a way to really enjoy building up to a position where we start favourites and then falter terribly then there will be no problem. Honestly I think this is the only way forward rather than focusing on when to win a premiership and all the excruciating things that come along the way. Let's just focus on being flat track bullies and making extreme heavy weather of anything that might be remotely possible and when the pressure is on just make sure we know how to put that white flag up as quickly as possible.
I am getting sick of saying how stupid we are when playing in swirling wind conditions. Why on earth aren't we smarter about this? 45 metres out 45 degree angle, wind swirling everywhere. This is a LOW percentage shot, I don't care if you're Bayley Fritsch or Jack Gunston. We need to be focusing on ways to get better looks at goal. Most of Sydney's goals in the first quarter and a half were from inside 30 with opportunistic crumbing and snaps. Gus kicked his in the first like this. That was where the action was, not out on the fricken flanks.
Run. This word is great! It's a really cool word especially in modern sports. You see the action of running means to move quite fast and put 90+ % effort in. You need to do it more! Both ways. They had their 5 day break and 5 hour travel yes yes yes blah blah of course but this team has done this on occasions without these factors. Running is hard but you need to run, no one is perfect but if you can't run for more than 80% of the game then just bugger off back to the ammos or something. It sounds harsh I know but this is yet another 5 unanswered goal stretch. I'd go as far as saying there is a finite number of these stretches left in Goodwins quota. Maybe about 10 left.
Fumbling. This team finds new, exciting and creative ways to fumble the football. Gus had the ball in the middle with no-one on him and the moment our hearts felt there was a possible move forward the ball just miraculously slipped out of his hands like some poltergeist. Then there's the decision making, I'll rue this term for a long time. These twerps who think it's a good idea to back themselves when an option isn't on, seriously. What in god's name was Melksham thinking late in the 3rd when there was space in the 50 and he motioned to the middle then faked only to kick it short and wide to a contest in the pocket, and Jones who marked and could have kicked one his many team lifter goals plays on into the mark.
People seem done. I don't blame them. From the outside we'd probably get that fickle tag that we know all too well, in isolation maybe these days do happen and maybe the coach does have an excusable shocker but this club and it's fans have been at boiling point for a long long time and no-one understands this better than us.
I'm tired, need a coffee.