Webber

Marchons! Marchons!

Fabulous sentiments, layz.

Honestly, how good are Kate Hore and Tyla Hanks? I love watching this whole team, but something about their pure footy ability just makes me smile.

Surely you realise the forward line personnel merry-go-round and accuracy are connected. You might label it a crutch, but that doesn’t make it less than absolutely true. It’s the ‘crutch of truth’ maybe (ooh, I like that). Collingwood haven’t really had ruck issues. They’ve had at least 2 of Cameron, Cox and Frampton available all season.

Murphy aside, they had a very healthy list by finals. Are you talking Collingwood this year? Aside from Daicos, and possibly Adams now, they’ve come into finals also with a very healthy list. Still don’t think they’ll win it though. We absolutely could have won a final with what we had, which is remarkable, in fact should have, if only we’d kicked straight. It’s the sole game-day stat of significance. Turn 3 of our ‘posters’ into goals, and voila. Tweaks will happen, as they should, but there’s just no reason to go fishing for answers to questions that don’t match the plain facts. We had injuries impose on our season, and we didn’t kick straight enough for goal. 1 and 2 on the reasons list, with everything else way further down.

But it’s a relative spectrum across the clubs, layzie. Every club has greater or lesser problems with injuries across the season. Some have a dream run (which are rare), others a horror, and everything in between. I suspect we were probably mid-table for ‘games unavailable’. If we had a full fit list, we would have done better, which obviously means finishing second, or first, and gone straight to a preliminary final, and been odds on for the flag. Then the whole argument of big changes goes away. In truth, we actually did well for our injury stats. Which suggests that big change is NOT needed, and we did well at managing what could be controlled. But, of course, every club seeks to change for the better after every season, and we will. The current MFC is a very high performing club, that I think should be praised for how it managed the season, despite that we all wish it had ended better.

Never, because they’re not an excuse, they’re a reason. The ENTIRE history of footy determines it so. You can blame poor management and systems for those injuries when appropriate (not for us this year), and you can be frustrated with HOW we play, inconsistency and the average ups and downs of a season, as we all are, and none of us are immune to it, but NOTHING, and that means NOTHING determines success, W/L percentages and ladder position more than ‘games unavailable through injury’. Clubs do their absolute best to work around them - depth, ‘mirror’ players in the VFL - but it’s still the truth. It’s the most reliable indicator of relative success, bar none.

And yet a fit forward line of our best available would have seen us in the preliminary final last Thursday. THAT is what we know. Doesn’t fit your hyperbole though, I suspect.

It obviously isn’t statistically perfect, but you know what’s wildly imperfect? The eye test. It’s the first reason we have statistical analysis.

There will always be changes of course, that’s the nature of footy. But we were/are obviously so close it’s crazy. Kick straighter, we win, it’s that simple and that close. I don’t understand how people can’t see this. That’s what makes it so frustrating. And yes, @rpfc, our back half turnover and transition to score has been elite all season. Statistically. It’s not really an opinion.

Our movement from defence is elite league standard. Our forward line was as disrupted by injury as 2019, and that’s saying something. Petty, JVR, Fritsch, Melk available and together all season (along with our best smalls - Koz, Chandler), and Clarry in the middle all season to free Tracc forward, and we win this year’s flag. That was never even close to happening, sadly. It’s that simple.

Most sensible post of the night. And honest.

Which is precisely the reason Brisbane and Collingwood will contest the GF. They’ve simply had more of their list available across the season than any of the other finalists (along with GWS, who are a good shot against Port). Injury totals across the season determine ladder position. We were never going to get there with our ‘availability’ losses. Doesn’t change the fact that we choked the last 2 games, but either way, the injury factor will claim its victims.

It was actually a very messy game I reckon. Riddled with mistakes, which of course we ultimately turned into some kind of choke art form. But being as poor as you say and still being better than Carlton, apart from kicking for goal obviously, makes it something even worse. I found the whole thing pretty horrible to watch. Brisbane will be licking their lips, and would’ve had we won too.

Yep, you win for stupidest post of the year.

Not that it matters, cos we would have been thumped next week anyway, as will Carlton, but these last 2 games were the biggest choke I’ve ever seen in 5 decades. The way we kept kicking behinds just kept writing the perfect script for Carlton, who were frankly dreadful in the last half. Should have won that by 6 goals. Get ready for the ‘choke’ tag, fellow supporters.

It’s beyond ridiculous, of course. Has to be back-pedalled. In the meantime, I dare say you’ve thought about a ‘shooting stick’ - basically a walking stick with a fold-out handle you can ‘sit on’. Doesn’t qualify as a chair, albeit you could throw it on-field, as I could my prosthetic leg (don’t have one, but that’s how ridiculous this rule is).

I read this and my immediate thought was “this isn’t about the MFC, or the team, it’s about you”. And I get it, those of us who are truly invested are guilty of projecting our emotional state onto the club, team, players and other supporters.

Haha, that’s of course your MFCSS reaction, Andy. Needless to say binman’s option simply had the hurdles evaporate!

Great poddy again, boys. Highlight’s gotta be binman’s “hurdles shmurdles”. Go Dees.

Hey Gents, looking forward to the podcast. Binman will rightfully point out how he predicted that a poor first quarter, and anything beyond a 3 goal jump would be hard to pull back, and others on Demonland will want an explanation and fix for our forward 50 connection, inefficiency and kicking inaccuracy. But I reckon you should iterate to all that there’s a bigger elephant in the room. Injuries across a season are the most objectively reliable indicator of success, for any team. Look at just our forward line……long stretches of unavailability for Tmac, Ben Brown, Bailey Fritsch, Harry Petty, and now Jake Melksham. No JVR this week to boot. Our injury stats this year (obviously compared to our flag competitors) simply look like making it a bridge too far. It’s a depressing perspective, I know, but won’t be ignored. It’s the most inconvenient truth in football.

Yep, that’s how it’ll go.

They will argue he had time only to react instinctively. I’m not saying that’s true, but it will be the defence, and he’ll get the benefit of the doubt I think. That he’s a thug footballer is true enough however. Cox too.

He jumped to smother the ball. It was COMPLETELY justified. That he turned the shoulder rather than holding his hands out and coming front on is something else. He’ll get off though, because they’ll argue lack of time and need to protect himself. JVR will get suspended because his eyes weren’t on the ball, and he raised his elbow. Sad, but true.

If Pies can mark those bombs why couldn't Simple. Speed and space. Not our thing.