i wish i could be this hopeful & optimistic. we all agree footy is about winning. not how it looks, and individual stats or any other parameter. just winning.

our record with two rucks over last season and this is:

regular season 2023 lost 9 won 1 - won two finals.

and this season we've lost 3 of the last 4 with two rucks. melbourne abandoned the whole thing and they had no semblance of a forward line, and gawn is a much better forward than tdk. and grundy a much better ruck than pittonet. and they scrapped the idea. bcos. it. just. doesn't. work.



what we all skip over is the bit about how much harder the rest of the team has to work & run when you start the game down one runner in favour for a tall. we've completely stopped running out games. pies ran us off our feet after quarter time. crows rebounded all game long and put pace on the ball and we couldn't keep up, and the cats suffocated (and then spread) the immediate area around the stoppage after we'd won it and shut down our options bcos we couldn't chase for 2 hours.

and that's not even getting into BV's excellent piece about the stoppage game relies on individual performance, over a turnover game which is a team system where everyone plays a role. the turnover game wins premierships, and the stoppage game doesn't.

pies play the latter and really if we're all honest here, they should have won by 4-5 goals. cats should have too, if not for that late burst of goals we scored bcos they were down a midfield rotation (danger) and fell away in the last half of the 4th.

i wish i could be this hopeful & optimistic. we all agree footy is about winning. not how it looks, and individual stats or any other parameter. just winning.

our record with two rucks over last season and this is:

regular season 2023 lost 9 won 1 - won two finals.

and this season we've lost 3 of the last 4 with two rucks. melbourne abandoned the whole thing and they had no semblance of a forward line, and gawn is a much better forward than tdk. and grundy a much better ruck than pittonet. and they scrapped the idea. bcos. it. just. doesn't. work.



what we all skip over is the bit about how much harder the rest of the team has to work & run when you start the game down one runner in favour for a tall. we've completely stopped running out games. pies ran us off our feet after quarter time. crows rebounded all game long and put pace on the ball and we couldn't keep up, and the cats suffocated (and then spread) the immediate area around the stoppage after we'd won it and shut down our options bcos we couldn't chase for 2 hours.

and that's not even getting into BV's excellent piece about the stoppage game relies on individual performance, over a turnover game which is a team system where everyone plays a role. the turnover game wins premierships, and the stoppage game doesn't.

pies play the latter and really if we're all honest here, they should have won by 4-5 goals. cats should have too, if not for that late burst of goals we scored bcos they were down a midfield rotation (danger) and fell away in the last half of the 4th.