Christ, you sat in the Ponsford?

How are you still alive?

AJ took 2 awesome contested marks dropping in front of T.Cloke! credit where credit's due

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i AM CARLTON

Very very true. They are a great football side the Pies (hate to admit) but some of their fans???... Geez they were whinging about frees from the 5 min mark of the 1st qtr....and only got worse after that.

Was a finals like atmosphere today and the pressure was intense. Yes we lacked 1 or 2 talls but to me the main difference between the 2 sides was disposal. We fluffed ours way too many times. They were precise and accurate.....makes a huge difference.

A bloke that doesn't get mentioned enough but for me has been our best pick up this season - Jeremy Laidler! Always looks composed, generally uses it well and already looks like a real general for us down back. Duigan too has been great but for me Laidler is all class...

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HENDERSONALENKO......YOU BEAUTY!!!!!

We need a tall strong spine that can take contested marks.

Midfielders can then be based around that.

Or at the very least a fwd who can bring the ball to ground, not have it punched 10m away.

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

I thought that Malthouse made a telling move in the second quarter. Davis had stitched up Eddie Betts in in the first quarter but Yarran had been having a field day on i think Rounds.

Malthouse moved Davis to the forward line FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR onto Yarran and all of a sudden Yarran had to be accountable which IIRC he was not. Davis was involved in way too many forward plays. Whilst Yarran was doing his thing and running the lines the ball came back the other way as quickly and Leon was on his own more times than I care to remember.

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Ecclesiastes 1:4, "One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but The Blues abide forever."

It doesn't have to be one or the other. That was what's so frustrating about today.

Play the kid. But in his what? second AFL game, he has enough stuff to handle without taking kick-ins against the best side in the comp. Someone else should have been told to do it.

If a second gamer has to take one, he should been told to play percentages. No cute stuff with short passes in the back 50. Irrespective of what short options are on, he's to settle and then kick 60m to a contest on the boundary with more than one Blues player at it, where it is 70:30 to go out of bounds which is a win for us.

He can worry about spotting up 15m passes in a press when he's got a dozen games under his belt and a feel for how quick off that mark oppositions forwards are in the big time.

god no. didn't need to, could hear them moaning miles away

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"I had to eat"

Dale Thomas - 3 contested marks
Luke Ball - 3 contested marks

Footy is full of intangibles,

6 posters
a couple of tinny arse goals to them in a critical period
Lame turnovers on kickouts

Footy is about attitude

Game played at a high instenity, we kept working hard right to the end. That attitude wins you a lot more games than you lose. Indivivual players while they made some bad errors recovered and kept on "Robboing"

Footy is about skill

What got them over the line in the end was that they were cleaner with the ball under pressure, the more pressure games we play the better we will get

Footy is about persistance

We have pushed them twice this year, they will know it and we will know it. Next time around the fear factor will have gone and the players should relish the oppotunity to challenge them. Play the way we did today eliminate some of the dumber errors and we more than capable of taking them on and beating them.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

I was shaking my head at 3 qtr time wondering how we'd lost that qtr. we were all over them.

Those two tin arse goals from Pendlebury and Sidebottom were critical, totally against the run of play.

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"I had to eat"

The BIGGEST and I mean the BIGGEST moronic, vernin, knob, bogan filth supporter sat right behind me today. I just shut up for the whole day praying that karma would come his way at the end of the game. I've always known this, but now it's indelibly etched in my psyche.....I HATE COLLINGWOOD MORE THAN Essendon*.
I need someone to convince me that we can beat them in September....and October.

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

The HUN said we were brave

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

I actually tend to agree. Today basically re-affirmed my view that they spend a lot of energy in the first half and they're very uncomfortable if they're not comfortably ahead at the end of that. So poor kicking at key moments cost us today. Yes they missed a lot of shots as well. But our misses were far more straight forward when it mattered in the first half.

Davis to FF might not work so well in Sempteber when Tuohy can go to him.

excellent post

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i don't wanna spend my life explaining myself. Either you get it, or you don't- Frank Zappa

Our forward line is a real concern. Having Henderson away from the forward line without Waite is suicide. Kruezer & Warnock do not know how to play forward. You cannot win against top4 sides with small forwards alone. We need to address this area now.
Bower as a sub and leaving Thornton at ff for the entire game was embarrasing and no wonder the Collingwood inner sanctum laugh at us!
Kudos to our runners and the 1st year players like Duigen/Laidler who kept us in the game and we where able to walk away with some dignity.
Ratten and comp. have lost me....but I have a feeling some might be losing there job come 2011 now as well.

get off watsons back, the kid is in he's first year, and has played 3 games, two games are against the pies.
we need,
-another tall forward
-another tall defender
-footballers who can kick
and can we please give ''KANE LUCAS'' a game
once again get off WATSONS back
thought curnow was ok today.

I said to a 'filth' mate of mine few weeks ago that they'd beat us this week but we'd get em in the finals . I honestly think we can beat them, but only if we select the right side and play to our strengths. We've got 3-4 really good mature age rookies and youngsters that are slotting in really well. We just fall down with the bottom 4 or 5.

Our 'outs' today hurt us more than theirs did.

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end of message

So just because he's a first year player, he's entitled to make as many dumb decisions and terrible turnovers in the backline as he wants, and we have to eat his crap and call it ice cream ?
I dont think so....

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James Hird and Essendon* FC - #FOREVERDRUGCHEATS

Funny you say that surrey as Wallsy said our backline was the big worry.