Post Match. Pies punish Cats. All comments please.

[Magpietothemax]

Incredible win. Courage and desperation personified. Tackling pressure was immense. Tay and Wombat were immense on the inside, and created the foundations for Pendles and AT to impact on the outside. I will have to watch the game again to decide on votes, because that was an extraordinary, full team performance where every man just lay down everything on the line to win. I thought Elliott's game was magnificent, and likewise Howe in defence. Noble had a brilliant final as well. Just got better as time went on. A very important statistic mentioned during the game is that we are no. 1 in the AFL for speed in transition back to defence. This is why we are so difficult to score against. We are playing an amazing team defence that all players understand and execute with total commitment. Hawkins was totally nullified as a result of it, plus the brilliant intercept marking of both Moore and Howe. Maynard was also amazing in our defence.
Credit to our coaches as well. They clearly had a plan for smothering Ablett and nullifying the likes of Ablett, Kelly, Duckwood. Dangerfield got loose, but if he is the only one to do so, that is not an existential threat.

[PyreneesPie]

And while we’re on defenders, a special mention to John Noble. Super effort from a young bloke who is yet to even complete a pre season with the club. I was worried he would get exposed but the Kid was good in the contest and wasn’t overawed. He should be feeling pretty good about himself .

He displayed huge amounts of grit and courage, skill around the ball and speed over the ground. Fantastic game by an inexperienced player. However, I do worry about his disposal by foot. He gave it up quite a few times kicking out of defence. This could well improve as he gets more confidence and as Tay has shown us, if a player works really hard on it, they can come up to AFL standard.

[Adz]

Our Prelim will def be Friday night.

[35reasons]

"gave Geelong a sniff" Snoop ??

Did you really expect the number 1 team in the comp. to lie down ?

But they were a false number 1 Donny. Their second half of the year is 6-6 and only got top place thanks to a favourable easy draw.

Don't get me wrong, everyone put their bodies on the line tonight, especially Moore when he came back on. There you go Darcy, you can do it! But let's not kid ourselves. We need to improve 100% to be any chance against the Tigers or Eagles. One goal in a half of football is surely a worry.

I don’t buy the argument that Geelong aren’t really #1. Had they won, all the commentary from the footyrati would have been about how Geelong were no. 1 for a reason etc etc

And it was two goals in the second half, to three from the Cats after a first-half that went 7-4 in our favour.

To bemoan the paucity of goals is to ignore the supreme efforts from our defence, especially in that last quarter when they went I50 sixteen times for five scoring shots (2.3), meaning Darcy, Howe, Crisp and the others sent them back eleven times. They did not stop contesting and that is a significant reason underpinning the gutsy win tonight I reckon.

[Jezza]

Awesome win and we're into another prelim, which is our 9th in 18 seasons.

Couldn't be more prouder of the boys. The pressure from the first bounce was immense and we were excellent in the first half. The injuries of De Goey and Greenwood impacted us but we found a way to grind out a win. Our team defence has been immense since the beginning of August.

We have conceded an average of 53.6 points since the Gold Coast match in round 20:

- Round 20 vs Gold Coast = 51
- Round 21 vs Melbourne = 53
- Round 22 vs Adelaide = 48
- Round 23 vs Essendon = 65
- Qualifying Final vs Geelong = 51

Premiership sides of recent years have always had strong defences. It's encouraging we're reducing opposition sides to low scores.

Great game by Moore, particularly in the last quarter with all his intercept marks. To see his body hold up and contribute was fantastic.

Elliott's form leading into the finals was very encouraging and he was good once again tonight. He was a menacing presence for opposition defenders.

Wills was another highlight of the night. He's certainly stepped it up and made the most of his opportunities since Sier has fallen out of favour with the match commitee.

Stoked for Pendles that he was able to play his 300th in a big final and win the match.

Fingers crossed on the injury front with De Goey and Greenwood.

[eddiesmith]

"gave Geelong a sniff" Snoop ??

Did you really expect the number 1 team in the comp. to lie down ?

But they were a false number 1 Donny. Their second half of the year is 6-6 and only got top place thanks to a favourable easy draw.

Don't get me wrong, everyone put their bodies on the line tonight, especially Moore when he came back on. There you go Darcy, you can do it! But let's not kid ourselves. We need to improve 100% to be any chance against the Tigers or Eagles. One goal in a half of football is surely a worry.

We definitely need to play better, we need a genuine target up forward without JDG, we're screwed otherwise and that's probably taking a punt on Reid.

You can talk about Geelongs poor 2nd half record, but they didn't need to go hard because they did the damage early, they coasted to top spot just winning enough games to stay ahead of the competition. It probably hurt them tonight because we jumped them as they hadn't really played tough footy for a while, but I'd back them to bounce back next week and beat the Eagles.

I'd rather sew up top spot and coast than be having to win everything for the last 6-8 weeks and playing hard, tough games every week heading into finals. Its why I expect the Dogs to come undone, they'll be shown up in finals as they've had it tough just to get here.

Collingwood had the perfect mix, had their shit month 2 months ago and cruised into finals in good form over the last 4 weeks.

[swoop42]

How flat was Wayne Francis Carey all night.

I guess being embarrassed and proven completely wrong in your opinion can do that to a man.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/col ... 52jra.html

[eddiesmith]

The whole commentary was a disgrace

[PyreneesPie]

Just watching the highlights. How fantastic was it when Harry Taylor and another Geelong defender tried to crush Stevo between them and he just left them to it, picked up the ball and fired one into Billy!!!! I think I felt right then and there that we'd have a good game, be it win or loss.

[K]

...
Did you really expect the number 1 team in the comp. to lie down ?

But they were a false number 1...

I don’t buy the argument that Geelong aren’t really #1. Had they won, all the commentary from the footyrati would have been about how Geelong were no. 1 for a reason etc etc
...

There is no number 1. There is a cheap premiership for the taking. If only we didn't have all these injuries it would be easier.

[PyreneesPie]

The whole commentary was a disgrace

It has been all year eddie. There is never ever much praise for Collingwood from 7s commentary team, especially. They annoy the hell out of me.

[Cam]

Varcoe for De Goey
Aish or Sharenberg for Greenwood

Forget Reid, he's a basketcase of timebombs.

We can take this out.

[PiesFan]

A symbolic 10 point win for our champion number 10. He played an amazing game and sacrificed some numbers to at least slow down Dangerfield at stoppages.

It would have been a travesty if we didn’t win on our captains 300th. Well done to the club and the boys out there tonight.

[the fuzz]

Darcy Moore. Take a bow.
To go though all of your injuries and doubt and outside negativity.
To play your first final... FIRST final ( I can’t believe it) and to have that impact in the last quarter was just amazing.

Well done mate.

[3rd degree]

Darcy, Howe, Sidey and ' Bull' Maynard just brillant.