Post Match. Pies punish Cats. All comments please.

[think positive]

So... after pissing a victory against the wall in round 1 against these flogs, and just gagging for another crack at them in a QF, we finally got our wish, and the desired result. And Justice For All!

Still filthy on Mihochek for missing that sitter late in 2nd term, only to result in a 2 goal turn-around, then another gift goal to them. It was at that point my anxiety was set off the charts...
The game should have been iced by half time, but instead, the pussycat dolls went into the break with belief and hope, and that is always a dangerous combo.

We held our nerve, and held on; and that in itself was fantastic.
Yet the last quarter bag of scoreboard donuts still holds major concerns for many of us, as mentioned on the previous pages. The centre clearance efforts were back to borderline inept, circa June/July.
When exactly was our last scoreless quarter?!

And while every player bought-in for four quarters [barring those injured and consigned to the bench/medical room], some didn't have great games statistically, but most likely did enough 1%ers to retain their spots for PF.

But what a relief to know we won't have to travel interstate again in 2019.
Whilst we still don't know who our opponent will be for the MCG PF, I just hope it isn't Bitchmond.
Do you recall our last QF win was 2011, which sent us into the PF against Whoerthorn, with the most putrid case of concrete legs I've ever seen, netting only what, 5 goals to 3/4-time that night, before falling over the line?
I DO NOT want a repeat of that farce - EVER!

Pull the trigger on Wells; it is now or never, particularly if JDG doesn't make it.

Coulda sworn we won the QF last year!

I agree Rudey, celebrate this for a little while! I’m lovin it!

[inxs88]

Preliminary Final Team spit balling:

Out:

DeGoey (inj)
Greenwood (inj)
C. Brown (omit)

IN:

Wells (can he be our Tom Boyd one hit wonder)
Varcoe
Scharenberg

Depends on who we play ultimately, but could see the above changes working. Am sure messrs Aish, Goldsack, Reid, Sier, Daicos, Broomhead shall have an extra spring in their training steps given the injuries tonight. Competition is great!

[swoop42]

Going in with just 1 tall forward is workable with de Goey in the lineup but without him Reid must come in to provide a physical presence and a legitimate key forward target.

The longer the game went on without de Goey the more we struggled to find a marking target and this was only amplified with our go slow approach in the last quarter.

[rambler]

Is it a certainty DeGod is out. Has two weeks to get his hammy right. Hopefully it wasnt too bad. Even half fit id play him.

[inxs88]

Maybe a Scharenberg back in and down back thus releasing Roughead forward. Reid can never play again unfortunately.

[bally12]

Gutsy win Pies. Our tackling and pressure was awesome. Moore, Howe, Maynard were great in defense.
Sidey, Pendles, Adams, Philips, Wills, all fantastic. Well done Flip, you have been much maligned by many (including me), but you were important tonight.
What about Billy. Some massive game-saving efforts.

It's not just the Cats coach that whinges, it's all their players and officials. Every ball that gets touched last by the Pies players, you have the Cats players earnestly pleading with the umpire that it's deliberate. In fact, often they take the ball claiming the free kick, then feigning disbelief when the umpire says ball-up or a free to Pies. Much like their coach does. Danger does this a lot. Bullying the umpires is what it is.
Don't tell me the umps didn't see Hawkins fling players out of a pack in all directions in marking contests. Play on they said. Or the clear rugby throw Hawkins did to a player running past in the 3rd. Give me a break.
Stewart did one of those in the last to give to Dangerfield. No worries, don't worry about minor things like the rules.
Nick Maxwell put a foot over the boundary line by mistake when the ball was on the other side of the ground, and the Cats players on the bench were up in arms and stalking the emergency umpires to pay a goal-square goal to them. Ridiculous. They are really trying hard to earn back their hand-bagger monnker.

In the wash-up, we need Jordy back, or we don't have a chance to go all the way. I don't know what needs to be done to get him up, but it needs to be done.
Terrible news on Greenwood. Aish to come in for him. I'd be bringing Shaz back to replace Noble. I know people are excited by Noble but he didn't give us much run from the half-back line to be honest, and he doesn't have good sideways movement.
Stevo, 35m out, you need to be putting those through post high. We need to nail clutch shots like the one. That would have snuffed out the Cats, but the Pies sure know how to make it close and give us heart palpitations.
Highlight of the match: Darcy Moore huge in a big final. Who would have thought? A massive piece of the jigsaw might have fallen into place. You never know. Keep the surprises coming. Just not the injury ones.

Now, the Channel 7and Fox commentators. McAvaney, just retire please, or just concentrate on w#nking yourself over racehorses. Carey, from glassing your girlfriend to a media career...classy. "That's a goal...that's a goal!!" both Bruce and Duck claimed as the Bunker replay showed the Hawkins kick clearly touched before crossing the goal line. Idiots.
Couple of weeks ago the Fox commentators led by that Sarah Jones the Essendon supporter were complaining that the Magpie song was on constant repeat after the match. How dare they. Huddo is just cringeworthy. Russell just a complete tool. He regularly says so and so team "needs a safe word" when getting beaten badly. Lovely, equate to losing a footy match with getting raped. I'm' going to stop listing them because the next one is worse than the other, just as Alistair Lynch flashed into my mind. What a pathetic lot.

[Streak]

I'm not sure about that. I agree that the second example was just stupid to compare to the first. I also agree i was made about the Phillips free earlier this year. But i'm also not sure that i want Dangerfield penalized in that situation.

Right. It was a contentious example in real time, and the commentators were doing their job in analyzing the example, and explaining Dangerfield's protest. Honestly, if you find yourself saying "This or that commentator's Collingwood hatred is on full display" or something comparable, stop... you are infected with Collingwood paranoia. It's debilitating, and it's pervasive.

[RudeBoy]

Noble was terrific.

[bokka]

If that's all we got to replace DeGoey, may as well risk Wells and add some real class.
Managed to beat Geelong without DeG after early Q2, so wouldnt' be total disaster if Wells got reinjured.
but it says it's just "tighness" so should get up by prelim.

I thoguht Darcy would be more likely to break down but he held up well and starred.

Or REid as some suggested but Wells may be more like-for-like - or actually DeGoey is almost halfway between the 2 but a lot more physically powerful than either.

I take ur Reid/Wells...and raise you a Goldsack!

Hes a good forward and puts 110% in every contest

IF they picked Goldy I'd be onboard. It just seems that internally they consider,and Goldy himself also seems to accept, that he's now past it for whatever reason - maybe lost too much pace.

[bokka]

If he's deemed fit then Reid is the only player we should be considering to replace de Goey IMO.

de Goey has a huge physical presence in our forward line, able to play tall and one of the best contested players in the competition.

If he isn't available then we need Reid as another marking threat and someone capable of providing a strong aerial contest to bring the ball to our ground level players. He's also the one most likely able to come in and produce 2 or 3 goals.

If de Goey joins Greenwood on the sidelines then I feel we'll have no choice but to replace some of that natural on field aggression with Varcoe.

Varcoe to replace Brown who struggled in his first final.

For Greenwood then it'll all come down to our eventual opposition I guess with Scharenberg or Aish the likely inclusions.

I thought Brown was pretty good for a first final, it was a struggle for everyone because Geelongs' pressure was immense after Q1 (but ours a bit immenser). Whether he'd be the unlucky one (or one of them), I'd have to go through the list and recall every player's game. H-E was great, possibly best game all year. Just another dangerous forward and with DeG there there was too much forward talent that overwhelmed Geelongs defense - well that is one interpretation anyway, but Geelong did hit back a lot harder roudn the ball after Q1 so maybe even if DeG had not been injured they would have come back the way they did and stopped our scoring. but DeG is a similar type of player to Dustin Martin in fact I recall he modelled himself on Martin in his early days. IF Richmond lose Martin I think they'd be no chance this year, so DeG is a huge loss.

[bokka]

Buckley and the match committee deserve a lot of credit for engineering that win. They have had the wood on us for a while and the Cats are the number one team for points against. Our team defence was near perfect all night and it’s no coincidence that Howe was close to best best on the ground when he finally got both Moore and Roughy back along side him.
Maynard is now close to the most underrated mid sized defender in the comp. Hardly ever gets beaten in the air or on the ground.

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 .

All I really hoped for from Noble was he would play a serviceable role, add a bit of dash and not f^&* up too much, ie not cost us too many scoring shots. so his game was a great unexpected bonus.

[bokka]

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.

Will be interesting to see how Ablett goes next week, because from this game I was wondering if maybe he is now past it as far as finals footy.

[Streak]

All I really hoped for from Noble was he would play a serviceable role, add a bit of dash and not f^&* up too much, ie not cost us too many scoring shots. so his game was a great unexpected bonus.

I think what's fair to expect from a first-year player (even moreso with a midseason recruit) is that he's no overawed by the occasion and adds value. He accomplished that.

[bokka]

"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.

I think pressure aroudn the ball is the most important factor in deciding finals - and of course the ability to stand up under great pressure. Geelong's pressure was elite last nite and I think it will probably be too much for WC, esp as they will be breathing fire after losing that one.

[E]

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.

Will be interesting to see how Ablett goes next week, because from this game I was wondering if maybe he is now past it as far as finals footy.

that does a disservice to Maynard!!! He was magnificent tonight. Very physical and just blanketed Ablett whenever he went near the ball.

Nobody agrees with me, but i thought him getting cleaned up in the Grand Final was a pivotal moment for us.