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

[doriswilgus]

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.

That's such a great post.The best analysis of the game I've seen yet.Your point about Grundy's ruck work was spot on.When I was watching the game,i couldn't believe the number of times he just palmed the ball straight down at the feet of our midfielders,who were caught straight away.In those desperate last five minutes when we couldn't break away from the stoppages,all he had to do was smash the ball forward to clear the congestion,but for some reason he never did.It could have changed the course of the match.

[Dark Beanie]

Turn on the TV guys we are going to win a premiership!

[Mr Miyagi]

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.

Totally agree with everything, especially this. We can thank the media for this, for consistently making stories out of our "rotten culture" over the years. Dear Brody -- everyone hates us. End of story. Because most people are just spiteful, self-centred shits who don't have anything positive to contribute to society. They're assholes, they hate us -- don't try to please them, don't try to win them over, don't try to convince them we're a great footy club full of great people. Because no matter what we do, they will always be spiteful, hateful shits who were raised by spiteful, hateful shits to piss on Collingwood at every chance they get. Time for us to say "**** everyone" and just look after our own, only care about how we treat each other at the club and only care about the truth and the facts, not what the media is making up. **** the media, **** the AFL, and **** the haters. Walk tall with your head high and judge yourself by how your team mates and club staff and coaches and friends and family treat you. In the rooms after the games all I see are people who care and admire you and your hard work -- family, friends, and strangers who love the footy club. That is all that matters

**** everyone else. If they're not going in our direction, put them in the rear view mirror.

[Mr Miyagi]

Everyone hates us already. So we may as well give them a good reason to.

[PyreneesPie]

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.

I like everything abut this comment MM, but the two factors that stand out for me are in bold.
Grundy is a wonderful lion-hearted player with great stamina. However, it's almost as if he wants to be a mid-fielder in a big body. Here's a thought - why not let him play that role at centre bounces and train someone else up to do the centre taps?? Imagine at centre bounces, the ruckman tapping straight to or in the vicinity of Grundy, who then handballs to an outside mid. Very few could prevent him from winning the ball in this way.
Brodie is excellent at around the ground stoppages, where he can out body his opponent. He seems to be able to direct the ball to our players much more accurately at these stoppages than he can at centre bounces.

The injury issue is of course a glaring problem and if the club doesn't address it, supporters should start a petition!!

[KenH]

Turn on the TV guys we are going to win a premiership!

Yep well done girls!

[RudeBoy]

I agree with some of your analysis Monco Matt, but disagree with you about our lack of KPPs. With Roughead, Moore and Grundy, we have very good talls at FB, CHB and in the ruck. Cox may yet make it as a key forward, so we are probably only short of one more key forward.

[Fino]

I am flat as today.

[Piesnchess]

IT is what it is, least we wont now lose a GF to bloody Richmond, as bad as u feel today, if we lost to the Tigers, magnify that X 100 times, plus.

[PyreneesPie]

Possible selection table errors:
* Johnny Noble is a great story and could become a regular player for us, but he shouldn't have been out there yesterday. He looked just terrified initially and took ages to get into the game. When he did, his disposal efficiency was even worse than it has been. It was just too soon in his AFL career for him to be playing in a PF. Varcs would have been a better choice - finals, experience, a wise old head, wonderful tackling ferocity, well developed skills, still enough pace to do some damage.
* Aish was clearly under-done and lacking in actual match practice. Faded dramatically in the second half - I read that he had only one touch after half-time. We would have got better value from the bigger, stronger body of Schazz, as well as his calm and coolness in delivering by hand out of the back line.

[Pies4shaw]

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.

I appreciate that you have no interest in hearing it but every one of the things you think cost Collingwood the game is the result of deliberate coaching strategy. We lost playing exactly the way we were supposed to.

[K]

...
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...

Yep, accountability is a good thing. The club could start by at least stopping talking baloney. Some of the stuff they've said makes no sense at all.

...
Seriously, if we had the injury list Richmond/Brisbane/Geelong had at this time of year, then we'd have a premiership capable team.

I didn't track Brisbane in previous years, but it's claimed they were good then too. If Richmond and Brisbane have worked out the injury stuff, the other clubs must be asleep at the wheel not to have spied on their methods. (The other way is to poach their staff, if you're sure they're doing it better.)

...
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. ...

...
The injury issue is of course a glaring problem and if the club doesn't address it, supporters should start a petition!!

It's mind-boggling that they refuse even to have a professional external review. Maybe they fear it'll make them look bad, but they are not making themselves look good with 8 years of this stuff.

[think positive]

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.

Totally agree with everything, especially this. We can thank the media for this, for consistently making stories out of our "rotten culture" over the years. Dear Brody -- everyone hates us. End of story. Because most people are just spiteful, self-centred shits who don't have anything positive to contribute to society. They're assholes, they hate us -- don't try to please them, don't try to win them over, don't try to convince them we're a great footy club full of great people. Because no matter what we do, they will always be spiteful, hateful shits who were raised by spiteful, hateful shits to piss on Collingwood at every chance they get. Time for us to say "**** everyone" and just look after our own, only care about how we treat each other at the club and only care about the truth and the facts, not what the media is making up. **** the media, **** the AFL, and **** the haters. Walk tall with your head high and judge yourself by how your team mates and club staff and coaches and friends and family treat you. In the rooms after the games all I see are people who care and admire you and your hard work -- family, friends, and strangers who love the footy club. That is all that matters

**** everyone else. If they're not going in our direction, put them in the rear view mirror.

im going with that - i wont even whinge to my hubby, he looks like hes packing himself right now! he has no reason to worry, im not talking to the enemy!

[dollygray]

Why is everyone pussy-footing around? Let's tell it like it is. Why didn't they come out after half time breathing fire? Instead we got a no goal quarter and GWS kicked 5!!!! Absolutely disgraceful. Didn't anyone tell them they were playing for a spot in the GF? Brown was useless and should have been benched after his fumbles in the goal square. Reid took a great mark in the second quarter and kicked a fine goal. He took another mark in the last quarter (only his second I think) and kicked the ball out of bounds. He would never get another game in my 22. Pendlebury and Sidebottom both played poorly. Mihocek and Hoskin-Elliott didn't kick a goal between them. Elliott kicked our first goal and I mistakenly thought -- oh boy, here we go again. I was hoping for another 5 goal game like he kicked against Adelaide just a few weeks ago. Didn't happen. Would DeGoey have made a difference? Possibly/probably. And what's with Beams? We are not psychologists and cannot fix his mental problems (assuming that's what they are). So de-list him and use the money to find a decent FF. In finishing, I am not merely profoundly disappointed, I am ANGRY. Shame, shame, shame.

[RudeBoy]

I sat next to Dollygray and Piedys at Victoria for over 10 years and I almost didn't survive!