I watched the game at Ikon Park along with the other supporters.
At least we got to share the misery together and felt each others pain.

We were always up against it. Some of the selection decisions were puzzling especially Cincotta out and TDK as sub, but the preference for returning senior players over raw kids is understandable whether you agree with it or not. My beef was more with the selection of an obviously hindered Durdin and out of touch Motlop, and to an extent Fantasia although I get the attraction of his experience. So as an exercise in evaluating the extent to which MC decisions harmed our chances, given the injury list reality, I have looked at the team selected and looking at who didn't have a great game and who could have replaced them. For the purposes of the exercise simply rating the players as a pass at 50 fantasy points leaves these players short of the mark:
Durdin
Kennedy
Kemp
Williams
Cowan
Fantasia

Of those I would only have had Durdin and Fantasia out (and others who passed the 50 point mark), but for this exercise who could have replaced these players to better effect?

The 5 omissions Binns (3 games) Lord (2) Moir (2) Carroll Cincotta I suppose are in the mix and Martin was a "test" in the injury list so he might have been an option (I don't know) NO ONE else with senior experience was available. I think general consensus is omitting Cincotta was a mistake but the others are not clear upgrades or even capable of fulfilling the same roles.

Then there is the decision to play an extra defender - which I disagreed with but can understand the idea - and more significantly to allow them to have Zorko as their spare which was simply disasterous. Cincotta in would have given us a tagger for him, or another, Lord a mid with defensive intent, Moir and/or Martin some X-factor up front, Binns and Carroll options in the mids - but ultimately I can't see any combination making the difference.

You can add Neale to that list, little smart arse deserved what he got. Having said that I don't think Newman should get suspended. Neale ran into him.

If we'd subbed one of those, everyone would have flipped that our tall, slow team had become taller and slower. Let's face it, there was no sub that made sense, hence the outrage at making TDK sub to begin with

an A+ mid with harry as the trade bait.

trac is available - although he's 28 and H is 26, so imo they'd have to give something back to us.
Butters wants to come home to melbourne.
Bailey smith was my wishlist, but his heart is on geelong, away from the bright lights of melbourne and closer to the ocean.

I'd go thru GWS mids from melbourne and see if they want to come home. same with lions and freo.


i'm on the fence about young. his best is good enough, but he's so inconsistent i'm not sure i trust him. so, we could need another tall defender.

and an electric small forward. maybe trade up and get the best small in the draft. looking at what the wizard has done for the hawks - immediate impact.

draft the campo twins and keep developing lord.

i'd listen to offers for walsh, cerra, harry and even pittonet. not sure what kind of currency they'd have. we'll need to give something, to get something good. i'm not emotional or invested in any of our players tbh ... i just want to win flags by whatever means necessary.

Oy you!

Check your inbox!

_________________
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

forget last night we were DONE ,my issue is games against dogs ,port, Ferals all those games was there for the taking at 3/4 time and we know wat happened ,it is our lack of leg speed ,spread we are to SLOW simple . big trade /delist period coming up this system our u12 game plan has failed us .

Agree but I think the bigger failing was not giving guys like lord maybe 5 or 6 games experience through the year & not 2. If we'd had more of a look at him they might have felt more confident bringing him in.


It's really been a shambles this season




Sent from my moto g54 5G using Tapatalk

_________________
#DonTheStash

Yikes. Would have been a very flat night. Was the setup good though?

I watched at home with my 12 y.o. He went to bed once he'd had a gutful, smart kid



Sent from my moto g54 5G using Tapatalk

_________________
#DonTheStash

Cons:

Embarrassing and timid first half.
Started like a third of the team hadn't adjusted to AFL intensity, let alone finals intensity.
42 tackles is embarrassing. Hard to believe you can win any game with that few tackles, let alone a final.
Fumbling and turnovers.
Pittonet's start to the game was insipid. Instead of setting a standard. He didn't compete in ruck contests. He dropped 2 sitters. And he kept getting outmarked by his opponent.
Still staggered by the decision to play Motlop ahead of Cincotta. He's been consistently awful since his return from injury. Cincotta could have sat on Zorco. He would have added some pace and defensive intent. He's also a more dangerous forward at the moment anyway.
Small forwards again.

Pros:

Competed in the second half.
Cripps, Weiters, TDK, Harry, Young and Acres (although his ball use was horrible).
At least Cerra kept Neale under control.
Elijah gave us some drive in the second half.
Oli managed to bring Zorko under control.
At least Fantasia crumbed the ball in forward 50 a couple of times, unlike the other 3 small forwards.

If you get a chance, have a read of the article that Peter Ryan wrote in The Age. Balanced assessment of where we are at. Mentions the EF between Geelong & Collingwood in 2020 where the half time score was 60 to 6 in favour of Geelong. Both teams have since won premierships. His belief is we will have failed if we don’t make a Preliminary Final in the next 2 years.

oops.

_________________
This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Oliver Caffrey
@ollycaffrey
An expensive night at the Gabba for Carlton defender Nic Newman. Fined $6250 (can be downgraded to $3750) for striking and another $5000 ($3125 with a guilty plea) for engaging in a melee

_________________
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Absolutely

Reasonable view, although you’re being completely unfair on Kennedy and Motlop was short of the mark

At least he didn't get suspended.

I want to know how they told the back line to play this year.

Absolutely Hemorrhaging opposition scoring to be 4th Worst in comp. when last year was one the best defensive results in 50 years.

I want Effing Answers.

Screw everything else - THIS was the key difference.

Our team defence really drove us to the prelim last year but was almost non existent this year. A good offensive profile for 15 weeks really masked over the defensive cracks which were more like chasms by the end of the season.

Collingwood were very lucky to have Nick Daicos fall in their lap.

_________________
There is no footy god

Very disappointing. I said before the game, I was to trust the MC and believe.
Well - never again……