Post Match - Pies v. Eagles. All comments here please.

[Donny]

Well, what did you all think ?

[The Prototype]

Well, I could say how bad the game was from a Collingwood point of view, but we already know that. So I will just say some positives, and yes there is one...I guess

Collingwood at the start of the game looked to be heading for a big loss but they fought on. So that is a plus for the boys, but they should never have given up such a lead like that. You can't expact to win if you let the other team lead by 7 or so goals. It was a heart breaking loss, we fell away in the last, we slept through the first, so in all they fought out a heart breaker.

Still, if they had of been awake during the start of the game, we would be celebrating a victory, but it's history now, well done to the Eagles on a good game. And bad luck to each and every Collingwood player/member/Coach/supporter.

[morgues]

iits good that they fought back, i hope the boys take the defeat well and not let it ruin the next few weeks. poor pebbles

ill watch the replay tomorrow

but now, im gonna drown my sorrows with some jack daniels

[lethalburns]

Some things that concern me... I dont mean to be negative.. just wanting to generate discussion on what I find a worry...

- Our midfield does not kick goals, even when it is hoarding possession. We rely far too much on set forwards kicking goals.

In contrast, you saw today what a fast skilled midfield can do in the span of 5 minutes. IMHO their midfield is possibly the best in AFL. The amount of running talent they have is scary.

- We are not a 'smart' football side. I watched Buckley move today and if there was a PhD for reading and creating play, he would be the first to have one. There are only a couple of players in our side that are proactive rather than reactive impulsive types.

- Our backline has no strategy to fall back to when a side sets up a very good zone. We played into their hands for 30 minutes.

- Why was our best pace started on the bench when we were clearly being run off our feet early?

- Williams is a reasonable pickup, yet possibly one of the softest guys to pull on the B&W journsey in a while.

- Wowey for a guy who prides himself on fitness, seems mighty stuffed all the time. Not to mention his the only guy I know who manages to go to ground when the wind blows. Those who thought last week was special might want to open their other eye and recognise he had no one on him.

- Tarrant is the only 6ft+ guy I can think of who knows he cant kick 50 meters easily. Running around your opponent at 50 meters is a sign you have no faith in your kicking. Plenty of talent, yet some glaring flaws for this boy.

With all this said, we lost to a very good football side. I personally do not think we have a BAD team, yet I don’t think we have a diverse range of gifted players either. A lot of our guys are toilers who work their guts out, and that’s why I love em. Unfortunately guts and determination wont always prevail, and maybe we got to take it on the chin when it happens, keep getting back up, and hope things start to turn. My gut tells me that we are a couple of surprise developments or trades off a flag. Our talent to courage scale ratio needs some tilting towards the former before we become a consistently dangerous side every year.

On a final note, I think we are doing OK considering losing Lokyer. He has been one of our primary taggers, and link men for the last 3-4 years. His pace, footskill and ability to play different positions make him invalueable to us IMHO. I know plenty dont agree with me, however I think he leaves a big hole in a side that lacks a lot of his natural talents.

[ramjet21]

agree with most of that lethal, particularly that our midfield does not contribute to the scoreboard. with woey now at the club i had thought a bloke like bucks could move forward more often and kick 35+ goals a year. he's easily good enough but has been needed too much in middle as we have no ruckman and therefore rely on winning the footy from the opposition tap.
cant agree on tarrant's kicking though. he can and has kicked goals outside 50 on a regular basis(last week showed that again). just got a bit excited with that passage of play where he took off to get closer i think.
wasted chances cost us as always and poor disposal into our 50 was very ordinary, particularly by obree who was so good at it last week.
davis, fraser and clement were the few positives out of the game although lica, wakelin and bucks were ok. molloy proved his worth without getting much of it. its a decent effort to get back in the game from 41 down but it means nothing if you think youve won with 15 to go. very disappointing to let all that hard work slip away.

[bwphantom]

The answer to this is simple. You cannot allow any team to kick 5 goals in the first 8 minutes and 5 goals in the last 8 minutes. Any team will beat you (even the Coburg under 12's). I agree that our midfielders need to kick goals. But once again we outplayed the opposition for the game bar 18 minutes of footy.

However, I believe that if we can string together 4 full quarters we would be belting the opposition.

This is my analysis of a few aspects of our game. We do not have an effective ruckman and the team knows this, but at the start of game with centre bounces we line up like we are going to win the taps. Our midfielders spread out instead of playing close to the feet of the ruck. This gives the oppositon an easy run at the ball, giving time for an effective clearance. And I have noticed that whenever we get a lot of goals kicked against us in a short period it is because we set up that way.
We did it at the start of this game and in the last 8-10 mins. And that is when we were beaten.

Some other changes I would like to see is Molloy starting on the HB Line at centre bounces and just have him run in and bust packs. Our midfield are good ball carriers but not the best crunchers, Molloy is.

I was really impressed with Coles game, he is going to be a star. That bump he did (totally legal mind you) was one of the best I have seen. We are fielding a very competitive side, but we need to iron out these problems, but we don't have a lot of time.

GO PIES!!!!!!

[Culprit]

We have not played 4 quarters of football all year and that's the problem.

Don't blame woey there are 20 others out there as well. 1 was at hospital so you can't blame him.

Basic football stuff is what we did not do in the last ten minutes of the qtr, no manning up when they had the ball. Loney let his opponet get 10 metres in front of him most times and what happen, he takes a mark in the last qtr uncontested and slots it through.

Clemo who I am a big rap for has had 4 shocker weeks in a row and has to turn it around as do a few others. Eagles fast pace and accurate disposal killed us as they were quicker. They match up on us the best I feel to every other team as Worsefold learned under Malthouse and have a similar game style.

Cole gets better each week. Buckley keeps going. Rocca finally kicked one from a distance and Taz played well he just missed goals this week. Burns tried his guts out and kicked a great goal and Lica is getting fitter.

Killed in the ruck by Gardiner and around the ground. 31 hit outs to Fraser 17. Embly I am a huge rap for kicked 4 straight I told someone he don't miss and he didn't. Grrrrrrr. Judd is a gun and I hope we get him next year.

McKee was always going to be introuble against Gardiner as Gardiner is a a guy who gets the tap outs and is effective around the ground.

Williams soft? He was beaten all game and last week he attacked the ball and knocked himself out. If that's soft I must watch a different football. He ain't no Jarrod Molloy or Rocca, but he is having a shocker.

Full credit to the weagles they beat us here. It was a pretty even contest as far as footy goes they won this year just as we won last year.

We are out the eight and so we should be we are not worthy of being in it.

We lose to the sainters next week and we will really be in the shit.



"Bad Kicking is Bad Football"

[cloke4me]

a few words: our kick ins!

[JLC]

I still think we will make the 8 quite easily. However you dont wanna scrape in the 8 as u cant win the Premiership realistically if you don't make the top 4.

Our problem is largely due to the fact that we can't play four quarters of football. If by a miracle we play four quarters of football we will win most of our games. We have an unhealthy pattern of playing catch up football which isn't good.

Who does everyone think is the best player to take the kick outs. Tarko got bagged a few times on this board for his kick ins but i think now we can appreciate how good he was at it.

Hopefully we can bounce back this week

jlc

[MargOZ]

As disappointed as I am that we are now 4 - 4, I didn't think that was the worst game we've played and there were still positives to be taken out of the match. There were two main problems with yesterday's game - the goals we gave away in the first quarter and the goals we missed in the last quarter. Other than that I thought we played some really good football and if we could only put that form together for 4 quarters - would be much higher placed at the moment.

Self belief and self confidence also seem to be a problem at the moment. As soon as players get the slightest doubt in their minds, they start to hesitate - this causes skill errors, slows running down and leaves players hesitant to take risks and be a bit daring. They don't want to leave their opponent and run down the ground supporting team-mates because if there is a turn-over they know their opponent will be able to capitalize. It's a difficult state of mind to fix because only a couple of good, solid big wins will improve their confidence - but how do you get those big wins when confidence is down? I definitely don't envy Mick and the coaching staff at the moment!

I also think it's easy to pick out one or two players and start bagging them, but it's a team game - and the team have to be held responsible when we lose. Of course there were individual mistakes but they all had their share of them. Having said that, there were also players who really battled the game out and worked hard from start to finish. I thought Pebbles battled hard all day and Buckley has continued with his great form and picks up quality possessions all over the ground.

Unfortunately Tazz left his kicking boots at home but his leading, marking, tackling and second-efforts are certainly at an all time high. Lica's fitness looks to be improving each week - he constantly runs hard and gets plenty of the ball. Burnsy does plenty of hard work and although Dids needs to get more of the ball and possibly even place himself better at the fall of the ball, he still manages to get a couple of great goals. Again Jarrod needs to get more possessions and a goal or two but his tackling and body work is second to none. One highlight was Jarrod running flat-chat and an Eagles player literally jumping back out of his way - great stuff!

I thought Josh had a great game and although didn't star, he certainly held his own in the ruck against a quality opponent. I still think centre clearances are more the responsibility of the guys playing in the centre than it is the ruckman - and it's one area our guys really need to work harder and almost read the play better as well. As someone else mentioned, maybe having Jarrod at CHB running forward or at the centre bounce might be an answer to help stop the ball getting out so easily - he can then move forward to where I think he plays best. O'Bree and Woey didn't star but worked hard and never stopped trying. I actually think Woey's Brownlow is more like a noose around his neck! Everyone expects him to be best on ground each week when we don't even know the role that Mick has given him. He works hard and the momentum definitely swung the other way when he went off the ground late in the game.

The backline certainly aren't firing as well as they were last season but I think that's partly due to injuries, i.e we really miss a fit Presti and of course losing Tarks for the season has been a huge loss. Guys like Clemo, Wakes, Lokan and Lonie keep battling hard and McKee does a fantastic job when he drops back. I certainly think players need to run harder to give the guy kicking out better options. Of course that comes back to the confidence issue and guys being hesitant to leave their opponent in case of a turnover. The guys just need to keep taking some risks and backing each other in and the results (and confidence) will eventually come.

Cole, Holland and Shaw have been doing enough to keep their spots - I think they'll only keep improving with more senior match time. After a great start to the year, Williams seems to be struggling. He needs to hold more marks as we know that's one area he usually excels. Leon's certainly trying had but is struggling for form and I think Johno's skill level needs some improving. His kicks need to stay lower and hit players on the chest rather than float up in the air. I'd be tempted to put Leon and Johno back for a week or two and bring in Scotland and Rupe. I think Cloke will be back next week for Presti.

Our ladder position is a big disappointment - I think prior to the season most of us would have penciled in wins against Sydney and West Coast but at the same time we know we're a much better team and that we've just got to keep working hard to get back to our best - for 4 consistent quarters.

We're definitely going through a confidence slump but it's still heartening to know we have a fantastic team AND coaching staff who WILL turn things around. If our guys were hanging their heads and not showing any fighting spirit I'd be panicking but our guys are still hungry and they want success as much (if not more) than we do. Time for a couple of big gutsy wins over the next two rounds including some high scoring first quarters.

Votes:
2 - Rocca
1 - Buckley
1 - Licuria
1 - Molloy
1- Woewodin

GO PIES!
Marg

[Leonin5=star]

how can u drop leon after yesterday he set up about half our goals? it was a disappointing loss..i still cant work out how we lost..hopefully we get a good start against st kilda next week..and then belt them!

[hotpies]

quite a disapointing win, cause we really looked like a genuine chance to come off with the four points. But the Eagles capitalized on our mistakes and we payed highly for it. I agree with all of use that said that our midfielders need to start kicking long, (look at how Voss set's up so many goals, by just grabbing the ball and kicking long to the 50) some might say luck but 9/10 he set's up goals by making the forwards run and just sneak one through. Mabee put this into gameplay and put Shaw & Leon in the a half forward flank position to mabee sneak a few goals, probably would work best at the start of each quater and at the end.
Shaw and Tarrant are the two fastest players in our team i reckon and i think we're playing Tarrant in the correct postion but i think Shaw would be great if they moved him around for awhile mabee to the forward or just centre with Bucks. I reckon the main reason we lost was because we let them get those goals quickly in the opening minutes of the first quater, if they didn't get those goals we would of been right there up there with them, which we were all day, it's just cause those goals gave them the edge and we lost alot of leg speed getting those goals in the 2nd and 3rd.
Collingwood will bounce back, they will learn from this and they will come out pumped up more than ever against the Saints next Saturday.

[Rocccaaaaa23]

The reason why we lost is we gave West Coast a 41 point headstart. You can't give teams 41 points start and try to win games even though we nearly made it.

Some encouraging signs. I thought our third quarter was probably our best all year.

Our midfield is starting to hit thier straps.

To come back after such a huge start to the Eagles shows that the guys didn't give up.

However we need a ruckman. I think Josh is improving every week but we need someone who ca martch it with guys like Gardiner, King etc. Maybe MM should try giving Cam Cloke a go. What do we have to lose.

Overall dissapointing to lose - it has taken me a day to recover but the signs are encouraging. We are getting better every week and lets not forget that we only have 1 more trip interstate and then all in Melbourne (until the Swans game).

Lets not lose focus on the tasks ahead. Yes our season isn't going as well as last years but I think we can definately turn it around.

[CQ]

[CQ]

btw my comment on the game, i didnt think the dickheads could possibly lose it from there (1/2 way thru last Q) but no! once again they proved me wrong

we are the new hawthorn, shithouse to tip