Post match. Pies thump Tigers - all comments please

[AN_Inkling]

A good win. Our best of the year. The Tigers were bad, but not as bad as the Swans.

Some really excellent signs that have been building over a few weeks now:

Firstly, big tick for Witts. His best game for the club, 17 disposals and 10 hit outs. Best ruckman on the field I felt. Funny that between he and Grundy, the giant is handier around the ground at the moment, whereas Grundy's tap work is better.

Maxwell's form has continued. Frost keeps doing a job. White is really starting to impress. Fas is showing something down back (20 touches). Young is starting to find his way and giving us some useful run. Most importantly though, we are not breaking down structurally like we did far too often last year. So far, we have looked a much better drilled unit this season than last.

The Caff took another scalp with one of his best blanketing performances. Keeping Cotchin to just 13 touches.

Beams and Pendlebury were our two best mids. Won plenty of the ball and both kicked 3 goals. This was clearly Beams's best game for the season. Swan and Ball are also building up some form, both were quite good tonight.

[mandy]

Sitting at the game, I felt little different to last week. The only highlight is that we won. Terrible game.

We have a long way to go. I do feel confident that we can improve. More than any team we've played so far. I just hope it's soon.

[Jezza]

A very pleasing victory! That would get the confidence of the players pumping if it hasn't already. Richmond were very poor but we also played some very good footy throughout tonight so take nothing away from us! We played well.

It was hard to split who was best on ground tonight but for me but the standouts of the night were Beams, Macaffer and Pendlebury. Beams was consistently good all night and he's regaining the 2012 form that he displayed when he was injury-free and won the Copeland Trophy that particular year. Impressive performance by Beamsy tonight! Macaffer was instrumental in stopping Cotchin tonight. Hardwick was pissed off at Macaffer in the post-match conference, but the Caff deserves plenty of praise for his performance tonight as he did his job brilliantly. Like always, Pendles is an absolute champion and was fantastic tonight yet again with plenty of the ball and three goals in the process. Clearly our best player in the first half as well when the team needed to stamp it's authority on the game.

I'm also very pleased to see Dane Swan display an improved performance tonight. He kicked a few nice goals, got plenty of the ball and never stopped trying tonight. That was clearly he's best performance this season so far and I feel he's not too far away from having an absolute blinder in the next few matches hopefully. Never write off Swanny is the lesson that should be learnt for everyone who did!

I'm also really pleased with other players during the night such as Jamie Elliott who continued his impressive form from last week. Jesse White was much improved tonight and was very handy up forward. Jarryd Witts provided plenty of positives and I like the idea of keeping him in the side next week against North Melbourne and his ground work was terrific especially in the first half. Very pleased with another strong performance by Nick Maxwell tonight. He looks like a rejuvenated player without having the pressure and expectations as captain of the club. Harry was solid tonight as well and despite a few poor moments throughout the game Frosty did a good job in defence throughout the whole night in general. Plenty to like from the youngster.

In regards to the game itself, I thought we looked switched on from the first bounce and we always looked like winning. Like Nathan Buckley, I was very pleased with the first three quarters as well. I was a little disappointed by how last quarter played out due to the fact that Richmond got some easy goals but at least we kicked six goals in the last quarter as well so nevertheless I'm satisfied with that and the margin in the end was a relatively fair reflection of how the night played out.

Our tackling was good, ball use was an improvement from the past few weeks but still needs a lot of work to be at the standard that would be expected of a strong side. I had doubts during the off-season about our chances this season in general but with lower expectations and seeing the emergence of the kids, I'm actually enjoying how the season is travelling so far. Sure we're going to have some poor weeks, but as long as we can see continual improvement and we're heading in the right direction in our future then I'm happy to be honest.

Can't wait for next Saturday afternoon against North Melbourne!

GO PIES!

[VicParkTragic]

[think positive]

[Magpietothemax]

Just watched Nathan Buckley's press conference. It was magnificent...and a real landmark. For the first time, I heard an AFL coach openly say that the umpiring is not equitable. Travis Cloke gets one set of rules, and everyone else another. Well done, Nathan Buckley. It took courage to assert this openly. And the AFL will be unable to discipline him, because the objective evidence is overwhelming. I think this is the hallmark of a really strong and loyal coach.... in fact I have not seen such qualities of fortitude in fighting for justice for his players in any other coach. My admiration and respect is really growing.

[Magpietothemax]

Just watched Nathan Buckley's press conference. It was magnificent...and a real landmark. For the first time, I heard an AFL coach openly say that the umpiring is not equitable. Travis Cloke gets one set of rules, and everyone else another. Well done, Nathan Buckley. It took courage to assert this openly. And the AFL will be unable to discipline him, because the objective evidence is overwhelming. I think this is the hallmark of a really strong and loyal coach.... in fact I have not seen such qualities of fortitude in fighting for justice for his players in any other coach. My admiration and respect is really growing.

[Magpietothemax]

Just watched Nathan Buckley's press conference. It was magnificent...and a real landmark. For the first time, I heard an AFL coach openly say that the umpiring is not equitable. Travis Cloke gets one set of rules, and everyone else another. Well done, Nathan Buckley. It took courage to assert this openly. And the AFL will be unable to discipline him, because the objective evidence is overwhelming. I think this is the hallmark of a really strong and loyal coach.... in fact I have not seen such qualities of fortitude in fighting for justice for his players in any other coach. My admiration and respect is really growing.

[Magpietothemax]

Just watched Nathan Buckley's press conference. It was magnificent...and a real landmark. For the first time, I heard an AFL coach openly say that the umpiring is not equitable. Travis Cloke gets one set of rules, and everyone else another. Well done, Nathan Buckley. It took courage to assert this openly. And the AFL will be unable to discipline him, because the objective evidence is overwhelming. I think this is the hallmark of a really strong and loyal coach.... in fact I have not seen such qualities of fortitude in fighting for justice for his players in any other coach. My admiration and respect is really growing.

[Magpietothemax]

Just watched Nathan Buckley's press conference. It was magnificent...and a real landmark. For the first time, I heard an AFL coach openly say that the umpiring is not equitable. Travis Cloke gets one set of rules, and everyone else another. Well done, Nathan Buckley. It took courage to assert this openly. And the AFL will be unable to discipline him, because the objective evidence is overwhelming. I think this is the hallmark of a really strong and loyal coach.... in fact I have not seen such qualities of fortitude in fighting for justice for his players in any other coach. My admiration and respect is really growing.

[MattyD]

Overall you got to be happy with that. We held them to 3 goals to 3 qtr time.

We started off so well. The first quarter was good. Then our skills just seemed to drop away. Missing targets again. Very frustrating to watch.

Macaffer's aggressive play was no different to many other current players for other clubs.
Of course Harley couldn't handle it. **expletives
There'll be an emergency meeting at AFL House tomorrow to work out what new rule can be brought in to specifically stop this "kind of play". But it will only be enforced for Collingwood players.

Umpires did their usual hatchet job against us.

Cloke is a head case and why wouldn't he be? The rules are completely different when the ball goes anywhere near our forward line.

Dropping the ball **expletives

[Brown26]

I like the idea of the emergency meeting. This new and revolutionary tactic of hard tagging is clearly against the rules and McCaffer should be immediately suspended and probably jailed. Oh, Ryan Crowley says hello, by the way

Typical anti-Collingwood hype from typical anti-Collingwood players, you'd think McCaffer tagged Cotchin harder and dirtier than Crowley tags everyone, which is clearly not true. I just hope Pendlebury gets 5 frees next week when they tag him, and the week after, and the week after. We'll have the game won by quarter time every week....

- Ben

[John Wren]

[Brown26]

I guess it's a lot about expectations John, I didn't expect Witts to do much around the round and he did a bit, especially in the first quarter, getting his hands on the ball a bit and some nice distribution to guys running past once or twice, pretty basic stuff but like I said, I didn't really expect it. Witts will come into his own when he can start to take some of those grabs but on last nights showing I though he looked ok and certainly worth his spot in the team until Reid comes back at least.

- Ben

[John Wren]

^ i think, too, it is also about what we're each looking at and looking for. these will be different things and this will influence what we see and how we judge.