Post Match. Pies down to Dees. All comments.

[Mr Miyagi]

Can’t believe people are bagging McCreery. His ankle looked proppy, he pulled up from a few sprints limping. It was a dirty day, Melbourne’s grand final, and we were missing Sidey, De Goey, Elliot, plus Ginnivan pulling out last minute, and not to mention a few players crawling out of their beds still coughing up the flu/covid — we were never really in it. Rest up with the bye and reload.

[piedys]

Exactly the point - who is selecting players with viruses and friggin' ankle injuries incurred the week prior, when we have perfectly fit players able to run out a game rotting away in the VFL!

It is self sabotaging idiocy which I thought we'd rid our club of since Buckley was ousted!

Melbourne; their grand final was 2021, and they iced it.
"Melbourne’s grand final"; that was the taunt we used to stir them with in years prior, when they'd be out of finals contention by the QB round.
Means absolutely nothing now, so we can shelve that one for a while.

[doriswilgus]

[doriswilgus]

Further to that,Mcreery probably shouldn’t have played at all,but with Elliott and Ginnivan both out ,we were running out of small forwards,and that’s probably why he was selected.

[Magpietothemax]

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

Rest and re load is the only way

We will blitz it from here on in

[eddiesmith]

[Pies2016]

You learn so much more from any loss ( particularly against a good team ) than any win. The club will have identified any player weaknesses when the heat was on and they will also learn from those successful opposition strategies that nullified our game style. In short, we were incredibly poor with our ball handling, ball use and decision making. We also lacked our usual overlap run that catches opposition defences out of position. We really didn’t do much right today but we can’t change the past, so maybe we should just remind ourselves what we can look forward to after the bye -

McStay will seriously straighten us up and help to hold our shape better inside our F50.
Lipinski was a welcome return. He’s easily best 22 and a genuine goal kicking mid.
DeGoey is a huge loss. He’s our impactor and punisher. We simply have no replacement for him.
Sideys composure and ball use will be sadly missed until his return.
Howe is a better option than Frampton.
Elliot replaces whoever he wants. He is still our leader in the forward line.
To be fair, all teams have injuries ( yes Dees included ) but we are missing a lot of quality, leadership and experience on nearly every line at the moment.
The bye couldn’t have come at a better time ( just ask Pendles ) and the cavalry of approx 1000 games odd is on the way.
Our biggest challenge will be to keep the injury gods at bay during the second half of the season.

[Pies2016]

Thought Harrison was pretty reasonable today. High pressure game against good opposition, huge crowd and only his second game of AFL footy. He used the ball better than most ( which is an indication of how bad we were ) and he stuck his tackles for a little bloke. If he is prepared to work his arse off in the off season, there’s no reason why he couldn’t hold down a regular spot in 2024. One to watch for next year.

[think positive]

[Magpietothemax]

[eddiesmith]

[Jezza]

Disappointing result, but Melbourne deserved to win. Bad kicking from them kept us in it. I admire our ability to keep fighting even when we were down and out. Today was no exception on this front.

Melbourne's pressure was the best I've seen from any opposition this year. We never looked comfortable disposing of the ball and we were fumbling it around too often. Melbourne's ability to cut off our run and carry game through the middle also rattled our structures.

Our forwards were largely kept quiet from Melbourne's intercept defenders in May, Lever, Tomlinson and Salem. I was concerned about May and Lever pre-match that if we didn't make them accountable, our forwards would struggle.

The sky isn't falling in. Never a good feeling to lose, but we're still in a very good position going forward. We're on top and I expect to see several big name players back in the team post-bye. De Goey, Sidebottom, Elliott, Ginnivan, McStay and Howe will strengthen us significantly.

[watt price tully]

Depleted team got found out.
Amazed we only lost by 4 points.
Not only players missing (JDG, Sidebottom and Elliott) but as has been widely noted players with illness and injury not quite right.

Reef McInnes is an OK sub but he’s simply not good enough in my view. Serious selection error in playing him.

I didn’t expect to win but losing is always hard to take.

Thought IQ and Billy F were good today.
Worst game I’ve seen Pendlebury play.

Darcy Cameron was very good before he did his knee. He’s still a way off that form since his return.

[doriswilgus]

I don’t know what happened to Pendlebury today,but that was one of the worst games I’ve seen him play.I can’t remember him ever turning the ball over so much with so many dinky little kicks that went straight to the opposition.