Jaded No More

According to @WalkingCivilWar it wasn’t sounding good yesterday. I guess we will know more today or tomorrow.

You cannot drop Kosi. No matter how 'down' on form he is, he is one of only two forwards in our side who can make something out of nothing, and is a reliable kick for goal. Considering the other one might not play again this season, if you drop Kosi you might as well concede that we won't kick more than 5 goals a game.

We kept them to 12 scoring shots. Hard to complain about that, when they kept us to 90000 scoring shots, 89999 of them resulting in no score.

I have a lot of sympathy for our defenders, who are absolutely dominating, only to watch our forwardline break down so spectacularly at the other end. Bowey kicking a goal yesterday was just so ironic. Of course one of our most talented ball users who is of course a defender, goes forward and nails a shot on goal. He must be wondering WTAF is going on. It might be time to switch things up and look to push Bowey or McVee to a wing and/or half forward, because frankly if I have to keep watching the dysfunctional mess that is our forwardline, I am going to poke both my eyes out with a hot stick.

I agree with this. But I think we need some new assistants next season.

It feels like for every game Pies somehow find a way to win, we find a way to lose. It really is so infuriating 😭

Or the mental health activists

This is soul destroying stuff.

I think if we can learn to execute simple skills anywhere near and around the forward 50, we can win the game and the premiership. Sadly it’s been 78 years since we’ve had a functional forwardline and an ability to create meaningful entries forward.

If you saw him walking off the ground at half time, you could see how upset he was. He was visibly distraught. At this point in his career there is absolutely no doubt in mind it is mental. All in his head. This is a guy who kicked an impossible soccer goal in a grand final when everything was on the line. He is a NSM and one of the best players in the game. He needs to seek help to get over the mental demons that are haunting him around goal, because nothing he does at training seems to be working when he’s out on the field.

I am saying tho that we shouldn’t be still fatigued now. This is when we should be starting to run on top of the ground. So either we planned things badly, or we are carrying injuries we don’t want to admit. I’m all for looking at reasons for a loss beyond “we suck” and I’m trying hard to look past the really disappointing month we’ve had. Maybe @binman will give me some hope.

Saints still found a way to win. If only we could say the same.

We are one of the few sides to lose to a team coming off a bye. I am not a denier of loading, but at what point do we stop using fatigue to excuse really basic fundamental errors that you don’t even see at VFL level? And when do we start getting back to peak fitness? Because it feels like we’ve been running in cement for weeks now.

I mean our effort wasn’t the problem today. We dominated every key stat associated with “effort”. You can’t ask the players to physically put themselves in the contest anymore than they did. Effort is not the issue. It hasn’t been since the early days of Paul Roos. Execution and game plan is the issue.

Tell him that I’ll leave a tub of hair gel out for him while I have a mental breakdown at the thought of our forwardline without him

Has been unbelievable all season and especially since Clarry went down. Superb game from him yet again. The effort across the board was very good. You can’t question the commitment or the hardness. We played very good strong contested footy. But we cannot execute simple skills and we make some mind boggling decisions going forward. It is why Bowey, Salem and McVee stand out so much. Because their ball use is at top tier god levels, and the rest are at VFL reserves levels.

I give this post negative 900 stars. Wish I didn’t read it I do really appreciate the updates @WalkingCivilWar

He was looking for Salem or Rivers to run past. I think that we don’t know what we are doing going inside 50 and it shows.

It is getting increasingly difficult to take positives from games that we dominate in every key stat, but lose with diabolical forward half play and frankly embarrassing goal kicking.

This could well be the nail in the coffin of our season. Lost the 4 points and our solitary reliable goal kicker for maybe the season.

Absolutely pathetic performance

When they get the ball they cut us up in transition. In the meantime we have the ball for 900 minutes and do absolutely nothing with it

MY KINGDOM FOR SOME GOALS