Anyhow, Garlett was terrible tonight and that is the point, when is he going to mature and grow up on the football field?

He played against sydney last year

Strangely I don't feel that disappointed, however sides with real intent make a statement on the eve of the finals and play the way they intend to next week. Having been confident we would beat the Saints on the way to the prelim I now feel we see next week as and end in itself rather than a means to an end and we have become a mediocre club that finds adversity to be a convenient excuse, rather than using it as an opportunity for the club to show strength.

Having said that ....some excuses. Losing Big K virtually from the start of the game left our ruck strength as a weakness. Setanta looked very likely up forward but had to spend half his time and lots of energy trudging around the ruck contests.
Warnock is a good knock ruckman and nothing else. Our MC seem to have been looking backwards instead of forwards when they went so hard for him. He is okay but gives you nothing outside of knockouts, so his knockouts have to be super effective to make up for that which is impossible most times with the crowd around the ball. Certainly has had an inferior season to Sammy J.

Tuohy was terrific, Duigan and Laidler very good. Simmo good and Robbo showed the sort of desperation we want from all our players.
Hendo another superb defensive game. He is a defender and will take and beat Hurley next week.
Yarran sublime, but sometimes too cool for school, sometimes you just have to hack it towards the line - like the play leading up to Schneider's last qtr goal.
Eddie and Jeffy - for about an hour of the game it was hard to believe they were playing.
Can we have a team rule that anyone who marks within kicking distance goes back and kicks the goal, what the hell was Garlett thinking, he had a man a metre from him and a mark at the top of the square.
AJ solid again but his lack of skill catches him - not sure he's the future and not sure I would be offering him 2 more years.
Davies I thought did okay in an unfamiliar position and on Fisher, but why would you pick a medium defender as sub? I would have thought a sub should be someone whose attributes are exaggerated when fresh late in games - ie a speedster who is harder to catch when players are tired, or a tall who is more effective when the pace has slowed and defenders can't leap as high. Maybe we have just run out of players.
Can see why JR has struggled for a game, hard to believe he is the same player from last year
Let's hope Hammo has a blinder for the Ants tomorrow
It's starting to feel like the last two years again. If we lose next week we will have a welter of excuses, and Ratts will get an extension, but he shouldn't. Winning next week makes the season a bare pass and should be essential for his future. Winning next week and then losing to WCE shouldn't be seen as a step forward.

I missed the lot tonight, out at dinner.

Can someone give me a rational assessment of the night? Perhaps not.

And against Brisbane in 09 but who's counting?

Jeff turned 22 a month ago.

I think the cue was put in the rack early in the third quarter - when it was clear that St. Kilda would not die wondering trying to win the game and secure a home final.

Dont forget Round 22 in 2001 - when Geelong with nothing to play for spiflicated our finals chances with Porter and Silvagni being concussed and Ratten doing an elbow.

We just needed a good hitout tonight - we had one in the first half and did what we had to do.

Saw some great signs from Lucas and Russell - which will add something to our mid-field grunt come finals time, liked Tuohy's game as well - Duigan and Laidler were sensational against the odds - we just need to make sure we structure properly against Essendon* and play 4 quarters of clean and composed football.

Steady on mate. We outplayed them early but 8 gls is an overstatement.

Maybe we should have been 4-5 gls ahead, but not 8

so you're happy we will go into the finals not having won a game in 4 weeks ??

Nup - we were literally having our way with them in the first half & 8 goals is not overstating it at all. They were slow, inefficient & putrid, we were clean, clinical, quick & brilliant......except in front of goal (yet again). As others have said, the enforced subbing-off of Kreuzer was the game changer......the whole dynamic of the team fell apart after that & we just didn't have the structure to overcome it. Did we put the cue in the rack during the 3rd when things started looking dire? Seriously - none of us can truthfully answer that.......maybe some players did (that'd wanna be the excuse of Betts & Garlett), maybe they didn't - Simmo certainly didn't, nor did Henderson (has Riewoldt ever been so systematically obliterated? Henderson has set the new AFL benchmark for playing on this guy). There was good & bad to come out of this game, but let's not repeat it next week thanks Blues.

A good 2nd half against the Hawks, a good 1st half against the 'Aints.....maybe next week we can actually string 2 halves together?

Win next week Swans & you will forever hold a special place in my heart......

Im not ecstatic - but I think we will be frying a very big snapper next Sunday afternoon.

I personally cannot wait for sunday. I lost no confidence after tonight (and I actually didnt expect us to win anyway)
I think after #17 and #23 performance tonight, and having #40 rested to be cherry ripe, and the potential that #22 has a blinder tomorrow for the Ants, then what I've waited and worried about all year NOT HAVING A FIT AND FIRING SPINE is now not a worry.

Cant wait for love this time next sunday being thrown around TC, it will be the biggest outspread of joy and happiness this site has EVER seen.

13 to 7 shots on goal at half time, and you think we should have been 8 gls ahead

Assume we kicked reasonably well and had 7.6 at half time, and they had 4.4, that is just over 3 gls ahead

8 gls ahead is judst dreamland mate, dreamland

Did you ever stop to consider the reason played keepings off is bec we didn;t have faith in a Waite and Kruezer less fwdline and bec St.K flooded back? So where does the 8 extra gls come from? Oh that's right dreamland.

Essendon* cheated, simple as that

Garlett has been missing for a couple of weeks now, a big concern.

And can we stop kicking long bombs to Warnock? Seems like he is the go-to man whenever we have no one to kick it to. There's really no point, he can't mark the ball.

Read the first page and shook my head, are you people for real? It was so god damn obvious we weren't trying after half time with next week on our minds...just look at the body language of Irish and the team when he kicked his 4th to bring it back to 12 with plenty of time..nobody even came to pump him up and he didn't even celebrate at all.the players did not go all out tonight and why should they?