Post Match. Pies pipped in Prelim. All comments please.

[John LEWIN]

Pleased to see so many realistic posts here, we were beaten by the better team on the night. Take the season and bank it. Let's move on, trade and get better.

[John LEWIN]

Pleased to see so many realistic posts here, we were beaten by the better team on the night. Take the season and bank it. Let's move on, trade and get better.

[Dark Beanie]

Sack Buckley

Just like Dory in Finding Nemo.....keep on swimming, keep on swimming.

You may eventually catch something.

[ANNODAM]

We lost it in the 3rd, too many key players went AWOL.
Kicking 2pts really?
We had the week off FFS!

Plus, how can you have a ruck getting 74 tap outs & lose the game?
Checkers, 2 possessions?
Too many skinny mid sized players with not enough grunt.

Get out recruit a fwd, RICH got Lynch & they’re in a GF & as much as it pains me to admit it, they will win it, you mark my words!
GWS were spent after yesterday’s game, RICH will out run them next week.

Nothing against Noble, (I like the kid) but recruiting midgets, when we need big bodies, come on!

Make no mistake, GWS took it easy in the last allowing us back in it, they thought 33pts up in the wet was enough & in the end it was...
Give credit where credit is due, they’ve had our measure for the last 4 games we’ve played them.

Umpiring didn’t cost us the game, we had our chances in the last & failed again!

[tbaker]

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water but phark me dead we need to make some bold moves to improve our forward line!

Yep - let's recruit DeGoey and Cox.
Seriously, if we had the injury list Richmond/Brisbane/Geelong had at this time of year, then we'd have a premiership capable team.

[Rogue2k0]

We are NOT a wet weather team.

While we are not a wet weather Team - it wasn't until it stopped Raining that GWS got the lead. The rain stopped a potential GWS onslaught in the 1st quarter.

The weather favoured us, too bad the Score Reviews and Umpires didn't.

However, it was the poor first 3 quarters that cost us the game.

[Adz]

Geez would have been handy having Varcoe and Wells last night. But instead we picked Noble with 4 direct turn overs. He’s a novelity and his time is up.

[Rogue2k0]

Only if we had a player like Keefe in our team????

Buckley is cursed - until we fix our injury issue and our refusal to recruit Talls who are NOT from Ireland, not from a non football background, who are capable of playing at Senior level, we will continue to be a team who fails in September.

[Monco Matt]

So many supporters accepting mediocrity! “I’m so proud”. Of what? Two golden opportunities to win flags gone?
Pretty sure the aim is to win flags not lose prelims (or grand finals) especially when it’s there for the taking.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water but phark me dead we need to make some bold moves to improve our forward line!

Different people have different expectations, some just don't see a premiership as the be all and end all of football. For me I can accept (as we all should) that you are not going to win the flag every year, however, what I can't accept are failures at the hands of those that we need to get it right, to give our playing list the best chance to actually succeed.

This means spending your coaching tenure constructing a list that has the key position posts covered off before anything else. Make sure you have a spine that can take you to a flag and work all else around that, we have not had this since we sacked Cloke and Dawes or since they both fell off the cliff if you prefer to view it that way.

We have KPD's but how reliable have they been in recent years. We have a great ruckman who appears to know nothing about the actual craft but plays more like a midfielder, get him trained in the profession asap before it's too late.

This also means recruiting and trading for types of players that we actually need and not what we can get for a 'bargain' or from emotional reasons, start being smarter in this aspect. I understand that you cannot always acquire what you need all the time but we have had 7 years under Buckley to sort out our KPF positions (the biggest problem along with midfield balance, see below) and we are still rolling with makeshift undersized imposters tbh.

Now, why don't we have a more balanced midfield group from a physical dynamics perspective, we always look small compared to other top midfield groups and get pushed off the ball constantly. Time to develop and construct a midfield group that can compete and win anywhere against anyone in any conditions, we have always been a physically undermanned midfield.

And last but not least, get our medical department up to global standard, this has been done to death but fmd how can you be successful when you have so many injuries throughout the year that puts so much strain on the rest of the playing group. It wears you down in the end. Not getting your best dynamic, inspirational, game breaking player fit and healthy fully recovered from a hamstring strain over a 6 to 8 week period is incompetent injury management at best. Would De Goey have made a difference yesterday? No doubt, he would have dominated in those conditions.

We cannot succeed until we get it right off-field, we can go close but there can be only one and you have to be physically fit & healthy with a ruthless attitude combined with no structural weaknesses on-field and we sadly are significantly off the pace of the real contenders in all these aspects. Until we do we can expect more near enough is good enough results. I'm getting sick of it a little more each year, eventually I will end up bitter and twisted like my 70+ year old Collingwood relatives who are so whipped like a mangy dog that they feel nothing anymore when we lose games like this.

[ANNODAM]

And you, know some of us who are nowhere near 70 are beginning to feel & understand!

Time to admit the Beams experiment hasn’t worked, time to admit the Cox experiment is a failure. That retinal tear last year apparently sustained in the GF who ever mentioned it upthread, I call BS!
If you get a retinal tear, you’ll know about it straight away, trust me I’ve had 4! You start seeing flashes & floaters, you cannot see from the outset, it’s not slowly progressing like a cataract whereby you lose your vision in dribs & drabs over the years.

Also, someone, somewhere needs to be held accountable for the injuries.
Whether it’s the training facility itself (as in the surface) to have so many injuries to so many players is not down to bad luck. It could very well be the fitness department, could be the Coach, what ever it is, it needs to be sorted & sorted ASAP!
Pendles & Sideass aren’t getting any younger, that window will start to close soon if we’re not careful & smart...

[swooper]

Can’t believe hoskin Elliot has escaped scrutiny!!

Yes, disappointed in his year. Miho also disappointing finals. Needed much more from these two ...

We couldn’t adapt to the conditions at all. Giants trained in torrential rain in Sydney last week whilst we had warm and dry weather. I can’t remember the last time we played in such wet weather? The weather meant lots of stoppages and they killed us there.

[RudeBoy]

We were beaten by a better side. They were harder for longer, and were deserved winners.

Why we lost

1. Although Grundy was probably our best player, I reckon he lost us the game, through his inability to impact the game, despite winning the taps 73 to 16. FFS, that sort of ruck dominance should have won us the game. I'm no expert, but to my eyes, he mainly knocked the ball down in close, which simply allowed the Giants players to swarm, where they won clearances by 20. Grundy should have knocked the ball clear of stoppages, especially in the last 11 minutes, where we couldn't get the ball out of the scrimmages. It reminded me of the 2002 Grand final, where we had great contested stoppage players, but the Lions ruckman continually knocked the ball clear of the pack, thus limiting the ability of our mids to impact the game.

2. Our main midfielders, in Pendles, Treloar and Sidey need to do some serious soul searching. For the second time running, in our last game of the year, we were smashed in the midfield.

3. We did not have a single key forward. Reid tried hard all day, and in the end could have won the game for us, but for his sloppy kick on goal. Mihocek played the worst game of his career with us. I expected the conditions to suit him, but the opposite was the case. He should be a 3rd marking forward, not a FF or CHF.

4. We had too many players not physically equipped to be able to play physically hard, tough finals football. They include Brown, Noble and Hoskin-Elliott. WHE, in particular, has been disappointing, as he has enormous talent, but goes missing far too often.

How can we improve in 2020?

The improvement must mainly come from within our current squad, as we have already pissed away our first round draft pick, and our salary cap is apparently close to full.

1. De Goey needs to get super fit, so he can become our bull midfielder, like Dangerfield or Dusty. He can still have spells up forward, but we need significant change to our midfield group if we are to solve our on-going midfield weakness.

2. Grundy perhaps needs a different ruck coach, so he can give our midfielders better opportunities to clear from stoppages.

3. Cox needs to work his butt off over the pre-season, and learn to hold his ground and to take more marks. If he can take a step up in performance levels, that will help us enormously.

4. Quaynor, Tyler Brown, Kelly, and possibly Bossanova, should put in big pre-seasons and look to make an impact for us as new spots will open up.

5. Sier should aim to be a super fit brute for us in the midfield or else be traded.

Finally, I for one am sick of hearing players like Grundy saying how they want our club to be liked again because we are full of good people. Sure, internally we should have a caring and nurturing environment for all our players, but externally, we should aim to be feared and hated once again. No more Mr nice guys please.

[swooper]

We were beaten by a better side. They were harder for longer, and were deserved winners.

Why we lost

1. Although Grundy was probably our best player, I reckon he lost us the game, through his inability to impact the game, despite winning the taps 73 to 16. FFS, that sort of ruck dominance should have won us the game. I'm no expert, but to my eyes, he mainly knocked the ball down in close, which simply allowed the Giants players to swarm, where they won clearances by 20. Grundy should have knocked the ball clear of stoppages, especially in the last 11 minutes, where we couldn't get the ball out of the scrimmages. It reminded me of the 2002 Grand final, where we had great contested stoppage players, but the Lions ruckman continually knocked the ball clear of the pack, thus limiting the ability of our mids to impact the game.

2. Our main midfielders, in Pendles, Treloar and Sidey need to do some serious soul searching. For the second time running, in our last game of the year, we were smashed in the midfield.

3. We did not have a single key forward. Reid tried hard all day, and in the end could have won the game for us, but for his sloppy kick on goal. Mihocek played the worst game of his career with us. I expected the conditions to suit him, but the opposite was the case. He should be a 3rd marking forward, not a FF or CHF.

4. We had too many players not physically equipped to be able to play physically hard, tough finals football. They include Brown, Noble and Hoskin-Elliott. WHE, in particular, has been disappointing, as he has enormous talent, but goes missing far too often.

How can we improve in 2020?

The improvement must mainly come from within our current squad, as we have already pissed away our first round draft pick, and our salary cap is apparently close to full.

1. De Goey needs to get super fit, so he can become our bull midfielder, like Dangerfield or Dusty. He can still have spells up forward, but we need significant change to our midfield group if we are to solve our on-going midfield weakness.

2. Grundy perhaps needs a different ruck coach, so he can give our midfielders better opportunities to clear from stoppages.

3. Cox needs to work his butt off over the pre-season, and learn to hold his ground and to take more marks. If he can take a step up in performance levels, that will help us enormously.

4. Quaynor, Tyler Brown, Kelly, and possibly Bossanova, should put in big pre-seasons and look to make an impact for us as new spots will open up.

5. Sier should aim to be a super fit brute for us in the midfield or else be traded..

Good summation.

[Adz]

Out of the 8 qs we played in this final series we only kicked goals in 6 of them. Probably first time a team has managed that.

[think positive]

In the mean time c’mon girls!