We shoulda put Rich on Pods.

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I am a bit disappointed in the fact that once again, When we came up against a quality midfield with lots of grunt, Our support midfielders failed to perform and support Judd.


Hadley 11 disposals, Ellard only 9 for Two in and under midfielders is not good enough. They needed to stand up but couldnt do it. Will Mclean have time to have one final Crack at it?

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Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

only watching on telly but i was rapted the way russell and jamo responded immediatley to that incident, but gifting geelong a shot at goal 40 out by reversing the free kick is footy suicide.

liked the way waite played hard but borderline fair today. he may be reckless at times and a borderline sniper but we need someone to be physical.

thought eddie went missing big time tonight.

needs to get thrown in the middle more just to get a touch when he's getting frost bite.

mind you i can't really get a feel for how hard he's working off the ball, sitting on a cold couch in canberra. seems eddie's not the only one getting frosty.

those people dissapointed tonight, fair enough BUT i was pretty happy all things given.

we got over run and missed a few - but 12 more shots should mean more that 42 points so lucky in that sense.

the margin was spot on for what i expected if not a little in our favour.

geelong beat the western bull dogs by 101 points last week, lets not forget how good these guys can be.

we will trounce freo next week. 32 pt + win i reckon.

watch them flirt with there already iffy form against the hawks.

a tough game against the swans - then a mare trip to a physical team in the hawks all the way down in tassie. the will be hurting. prey sandi doesn't come up and we are a great chance.

swap walker for yarran please.

i'd much rather yazz setting up from half back. I reckon thats his go if he can show some man on man defensive qualities.

no dissing walkers desire - just his impact. he's had long enough now and isn't producing. athlete more than footballer - atleast thats how he's developed. i think we need to more on.

We had a chance to pinch it but realistically if your two leading goal kickers don't get a sniff, you'll struggle.

Just broke down at critical times, Jeffy has to take some of the blame but he'll get there.

I hope people realise that although Jeffy dropped some sitters, he dropped them 5.0m ahead of his direct opponent. Robbo dropped some crucial marks and did a couple of dumb things.

Geelong will not beat the Pies in the Grand final (if both teams make it) unless G Ablett goes forward and breaks Mick Malthouses heart in a stunning display, which given what he did today is a real possibility.

Docklands is not a place that suits us just yet. Walks gets so much ball, I just hope he can get his decisions right, he's too good to waste.

Judd bashers are a funny lot. Not his best game, but still good.

Bring on Freo. Subiaco is bigger than the MCG, should win, but who knows.


I think if we played Geelong again next week, I think we'd win.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

Thought we played pretty well but didnt take our chances at the end of the second and the start of the third.
Big effort from the team but little errors mainly made by players yet to play 50 games cost us. Thought the margin in the end was not a true indication of the game with us going a bit flat in the last as we were more than likely looking to next week.

Loved watching the Waite v Taylor battle.

The captain didnt do too many long kicks and all his dinky short ones were way off. Even his handpassing was off. Hopefully he is hard on himself and rectifies his issues.

I was also hoping the cats would be better than what they were. The way they crumbled when we tightened the screws in the third got me nervous about how they will handle Collingwood in the finals. This bothered me more than a young carlton side getting outmuscled in the end by a team of seasoned premiership players.

Pros:

Haven't seen the game yet, but pleasing to again get good scoreboard contribution out of our key forwards (in Waite and Henderson). That's 2 weeks in a row. We've been overreliant for much of the year on our small forwards.

I actually held my breath when one of our boys stepped on Abletts hand....
Its gonna take a red hot Geelong or a Saints team playing above themselves to stop the Pies it seems....

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Lack of a screenplay?

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Reality is we just don't have anything like the talent or experience of the Cats, so as galling as a loss is, I thought we were pretty good and seem to have put our mid season diabolical form behind us.

Murph played a terrific game and really got his hands dirty. Gibbs still floating across half back, very classy but I'd love him to be in the guts. He seems a few % short of Joel Selwood style desperation and leadership that elevates talented players from very good to great. (I'd love to have a Selwood in the middle - if the AFL hadn't altered the draft rules that year in response to the Woods tanking the previous year we could have had Selwood and Gibbs)

Bower had a shocker and we were exposed for strength in the back half.
Army is fast becoming my fave player, great courage and run.
Robbo - love the mad dog stuff, and he kicked three but some of his decision making is from little league.
Hendo and Waite good, Eddie is well off the boil
Simmo is a terrific player but it is very disappointing that he is so poor on the right foot. A guy with his skill could easily be an effective kick on his right if he put enough work in, but he is not, so he is predictable and when he gets caught on the right he kicks balloons - a small thing, but small things over the whole side win and lose games.
Juddy seems to be down a bit
Ellard is a good soldier
Davies looks promising and seems to have found the pace of the game, but spent a long time on the pine and may be replaced
Rucks were solid but I thought Blake did okay. Warnock not as dominant as previous weeks. Sauce good, but didn't offer the athleticism of Hammer.
Some shocking shots at goal. It was a four goal defeat that said 7 on the scoreboard. % is really important. Still if the Hawks beat the Dockers easily then we have our destiny in our own hands (I think).
I've been a Ratts critic, but if we can get a home final and win it, that would certainly exceed my start of season expectations so well done Ratts for getting them up and playing at the business end. We must beat Freeo now and make sure we have a home final. Although the way Bower is going I shudder to think how he'd go against Buddy in a final

From last nights team we can add Kreuzer, Lucas, Yarran & Houlihan but no tall defenders.

This squad is lacking depth..

Pleased with the effort last night though,

Err, Simon White?

I'd be interested to know our scores for second quarters this season - seems we've been blown away in the 2nd on a number of occasions. I thought we played pretty wide in the last when we were still a slight slight chance of clawing back.

Reasonably happy with the effort, although losing always sucks. Grigg's miss was awful as others have said (was a nice mark though).

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#DonTheStash

Simon White is okay.....not good enough to take Bower/Jamos position.

Could also add hampson setanta mclean joseph and thorton to last night -still think thorton would be handy against strong forward line so we dont need to band aid with waite on backline

Just got back to Tassie after the game.
Firstly, we are lucky they didn't kick straight or e would have been down by heaps at half time.
The third qtr we had possession but had no scoreboard pressure. We missed sittrers but that just evened things up from the ones they missed. Let's not kid ourselves.
Ratts waited until late in the game to rest the rucks forward. He might have done that earlier. Geelong had a line of four across the halfback line for much of the night while our fdorwards pushed past them. They literally had no opposition and as a result there was nobody goalside to kick to. It was the Bomber Thompson plan to counter the small forwards and it worked a treat. To counter it, all we had to do was leave Henderson and Waite closer to goal or stand a ruck in the 10 yard square to keep the defenders honest at least. They had a plethora of running options from =half back and that's where they won the game. Run from half back, pass to leading forward, shoot for goal. How many marks did they have inside 50 on the lead?
Gibbs did some good things but I watched him a couple of times last night standing off the play instead of making an option. He is wasted where he is and if I were an opposition coach I'd be pretty happy Gibbs was getting 90% of his possessions where they don't hurt. His stats in the Sun (I'm trying to remember them. I read them at 0530 at the airport) showed 6 contested possies, 20 uncontested, 1 tackle (interesting for a backman in a losing team), 90% efficiency and 130 supercoach points. How that equates with the 6 clangers he is also accredited with remains a mystery to me, even though I have a pretty reasonable grasp of Maths. 6 clangers from 26 possies?

Our centre square setup after a goal is too predictable. Even when we were behind and losing the clearances, we still setup the same. At one stage Judd and Ablett were on the same side of the ruck, about 6 metres apart and I said to Blue Beatle, whomever gets the hitout will run straight to the F50. Well as it turned out, it was us and Judd had the clearance but mucked it up. But it could just as easily have been Ablett running unhindered. As did Chapman a few times. And Grigg is one sided. So when I said to Blue Beatle I thought Grigg was on the wrong side of the ruck because he would have to turn into the pack if we got the hit out, he obligingly did just that and got tackled. No clearance. Dumb stuff.

I thought our tackling was pathetic for most of the night and apart from half a dozen already mentioned above, we didn't give the same intensity we have shown is possible over the past couple of weeks. Yes, the level of opposition was much higher but that shouldn't prevent ferocity.

Thanks to Carazzo's sportsmanship, Ablett won't be spending the next six weeks with his jaw wired up. I just hopr they use that hitoput last night as a warmer upper for Collingwood, with Ablett able to take his place.

I think we will rebound next week but if I were coach, I'd rest half the team and put the best team on the paddock the following week. Players like Wiggo (if fit), O'hAilpin, Yarran and others left out recently would have a reasonable crack and let Freo know they wasted their "bye" this week. We can, should and will win next week.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Great post, agree with most of that.

Have to say Yarran will be a cert for next week at Subi. Maybe at the expense of Betts.

Our backline again look very wobbly last night. Thornton could be a worthy inclusion but by all accounts he is gawn at season end and will spend his remaining games in the 2s.

I am not sure about that. White is a much better decision maker with the ball in hand. Bower is really struggling and needs a big pre season. IMO Jamison is overrated. He is easily one of the worst decision makers when looking to kick or handball. The amount of times he blazes away or puts a teammate under pressure is amazing.

Our biggest issue is that Jamo, Bower, White, Davies are all 2nd or 3rd tall defenders. Having a key defender like a Scarlett, Lake or Rutten would make a massive difference to our side and should be our priority. I have always thought Setanta's best bet was as a key forward but we have mucked him around so much he must be confused and to change him again may ruin him for good. Austin might be an option but needs to get fit but I also see him as a key forward prospect.

The key for us will be to develop what we have. Out of yesterday's side were potential flankers in Yarran, Lucas, O'Keefe, Anderson, AJ and Kerr. Can they improve?

Key forwards we have Austin, Kruezer and Casboult to add to Waite and Hendo.

Small forwards we have Garlett, Yarran, Betts and Robbo. The key for these guys is to develop further to be able to have more time on the ball. This will assist the midfield and make us more unpredictable.

Our midfield needs help! Not enough depth of class. Judd, Muphy and Simpson need assistance. Eddie needs to play more there, he is our best reader of play at the stoppage. Lucas I believe will be a gun. He is a very good decision maker and has a massive engine. Hopefully McLean will show why he was recruited? If Rischetelli was available I would get him. Hard and tough, young enough and a good user.

Whoever we recruit they must be able to use the ball well especially under pressure. Guys who can kick the ball well are a must!!!!

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Bower and Jamison were really bad last night. I reckon they have lost almost every 1 on 1 contest. Why are we so skinny and weak? They don't even know how to use their body to block to their advantage.