Post Match. Pies tie again. All comments.

[lazzadesilva]

I look forward to seeing the royal wanker Nicholls getting a please explain letter from the AFL as to why he pulled out the free kick out of his arse 😡 That is the problem, the AFL hands these to players but not to others who cause disrepute to the game. They are up to their necks in this but how many hack journos would put their AFL registrations in jeopardy by challenging the AFL? The answer is a totally gutless none 😫😖 We will only get the shit the AFL allows us to hear/read/see. Total control freaks aided and betted by hidden power authorities with hidden agendas to keep to the status quo. Unreal! These top knobs won’t have the balls to confront posters like me.

[gurugeoff]

Players often leave the ball for the umpire to pick up. Is that a free? Players often throw the ball away from the boundary umpire. Is that a free?

[Jezza]

Fly's presser

Crazy finish, what were your thoughts on the match?

[RudeBoy]

Fly's presser was terrific. He was rapt in our fighting spirit and praised all our newbies. He reminded people that for the 2nd week in a row we had no key forwards in the last quarter, forcing Allan to play at full forward.

Obviously, it's hard to know how to feel when it's a draw, but I am one who was pleased we scraped through with a draw. Seriously, Freo are a good team, this was our 3rd game in a row with a 6 day turn around, this was on their home turf, we had 6 players with less than 10 games experience, including 2 playing their first game, and we lost both our key forwards through injury....and we were the victim of a crazed umpiring decision which turned the game in Freo's favour near the end. Under those circumstances, I'm thrilled we scraped through with a draw.

[qldmagpie67]

Ok on that free kick. Letter if the law it’s a free kick
Rule was bought in a few years ago to stop players deliberately wasting time
It’s been paid 3 times this season last time was a couple weeks ago against Gardiner from Brisbane
Was it commonsense no it wasn’t it was BS but under the laws of the game it was
Easily avoided though you leave the ball on the ground at all times never ever hand it back let them pick it up and use that time to find your man.
Same as over the boundary line DONT pick it up just leave it for them to find.

That wasn’t the reason we lost
Our poor kicking for goals was reason #1 we had 4 posters and 3 other sodas we missed. Bad goal kicking is common for us. We never should have been in a position for them to be that close. Until 7 minutes to go we were by far the better side and should have been 6+ goals up.
Reason #2 the injury curse again. Lost Cox at half time then checkers so 2 talls down meant we had no forward line tall. Had to move Frampton forward to give us a chop out as we had Allen playing FF on Pearce otherwise.
When Cameron went off Frampton had to ruck and they win each of those 3 clearances.
Reason #3 we got exposed exactly how we knew they would. They went wide then switched it back to the corridor and used there pace to cut through us. That last quarter they exposed our wing in Sidey for pace several times. Sharp and Young worked him over. When he was playing HBF Banfield got him for a goal then O’Meara got him for 1 as well both from pace which was always going to be an issue. We set up badly to let it happen. We had the pace in the backline to avoid it but Noble and IQ both pressed higher up field leaving Sidey with those jobs.
Reason #4 we just lacked that extra little bit of experience when it counted most. 6 players under 10 games all of who did great but little things count when momentum is against you. Those moments caught up with us twice.

Overall getting 2 points coming off another 6 day break coupled with the longest trip in football, missing 6 best 22 players and a couple ordinary frees against (no sense of occasion really) wasn’t a bad result.

Looking forward Cox and Checkers out next week.
I don’t know how we find enough talls to make a game of it really.
Dogs are a tall side and with a full team it would have been hard.
Only McInnes and king shot Howe might be available from current injury list.
If they don’t get up our injury kits will hit 15 the highest of any team in the comp

[Lone Ranger]

The only rule possibly broken was “time wasting”. Very hard to argue that was time wasting so not even a free “by the letter of the law”. Very poor decision

[thesoretoothsayer]

Yes, inaccurracy (especially in the 2nd quarter) cost us the win.
Yes, the umpiring wasn't the best.
But, as others have mentioned,
we travelled to the other side of the country to play a team in reasonable form,
about a quarter of the team were playing VFL a month ago
and we suffered injuries to two key talls during the game.

I would've been rapt with 4 points, I'm happy with 2.

[David]

[Culprit]

The umpire's decision changed the momentum of the game. The AFL will back the umpire as they will never reverse any decision. If it's time-wasting, if the players drop the ball on the ground for the umpires to pick up, is that time-wasting? If the Umpire says to a player. "pick up the ball and pass it to me" and the player doesn't. Is that time-wasting? A can of worms has been opened.

I would have loved the win, hated the loss but the draw is fine. We are getting tough tight games into youngsters is a huge bonus. Our system works.

Note: There is a theory that we hold onto the ball to waste time.

[Pies2016]

^^^
Thank you Qldmagpie
From a tactical point of view, the reason we were overtaken in the last, was because Frampton was forced to play about 10 mins in the ruck in the last quarter, while Cameron took a much needed rest. Cameron off the ground was a double whammy because our defence with Frampton had been rock solid for the first three quarters and Cameron had been excellent in the ruck. The Dockers won every clearance while Frampton was forced to ruck and that coincided with their run on. The other misfortunate moment that also cost us, was Pearce kicking his last quarter goal. Allan ( now full forward ) was his opponent at the time and that match up allowed Pearce to back himself to have more impact up the ground than his debutant opponent. If Miochek had played out the entire game, both Pearce and Miochek would have handled that scenario very differently.
The Collingwood team was superb on the night considering everything that conspired against us both leading up to the game and during it. If anyone believes differently, you should be ashamed to think otherwise.

[DT]

[derkd]

I think in retrospect, it wasn't a bad result. The team ran out of legs and injuries and the number of inexperienced players all played a part.

I am sure the freo fans are saying if we didn't drop so far behind we could have won.

[Pies2016]

It’s a pity all the umpiring talk has detracted from the positive feedback that our rookie players deserve. Everyone will see their efforts differently but I think collectively, we couldn’t have got much more than what they all produced on the night.
Richards looks one pre season away from being best 23 in 2025. He’s got great clean hands, composure and makes right decisions so instinctively. Tackles well for a little fella too
Harrison is another who looks set to break into the best 23 nest year. Quick, aggressive and works hard to be involved. The goals are now coming and that’s the cherry on top.
Sullivan has been asked to do a lot in a short time and he’s answered every call. He seems just slightly off the pace when the heat is really on but hopefully that’s just adjusting to the tempo and I would expect him to be better again next year.
Dean was simply part of a very well drilled Collingwood team defence and given the Dockers tall forwards had little impact on the night, you would say he played his role well. The run down tackle of Chapman ( ? ) in the last quarter will be highlighted at the team meeting and was a big moment in salvaging the draw.
Allan shouldnt be critiqued on such a small sample size, especially given the role he was asked to play in the last quarter. He did get caught ball watching in the first quarter when he got sucked into a contest and his opponent Sharp kicked a goal on him. He was also instructed to swap wings during the first quarter, quite possibly because the coach felt he was being beaten by his first opponent. He will quickly learn AFL quality opposition requires much more respect defensively than VFL opposition. At 194cm and a genuine gut runner, it’s a good base to improve on.
Parker also can’t be critiqued on such a small sample size but in the short time he was on, he was involved in a couple very neat plays. There is no reason to think he won’t be much improved in 2025 either. He may yet be the biggest improver of them all having spent so little time at the club compared to others.
Really enjoyed what I saw from the above last night. A lot can change in one off season and there are no guarantees but they are all fortunate to be part of one of the very best programs in the AFL, so the ball is now firmly in their court.

[Pies4shaw]

I think that's a result we would have taken coming into the game, and again at halftime. It's a shame they didn't hang on to win, especially since they probably played well enough to win by 4 or 5 goals - but they did look to be going up and down in the one spot in the last 10 minutes, just physically spent. Still, with so much going against them, they remain the only undefeated team in the last 8 matches.

What was really encouraging was the form of the players who aren't established stars. Harrison and Richards have high levels of skill and pace and the other lads looked - even when they were a bit patchy, like they have a future at the level.

Also, a shout-out to Lipinski. He is just infinitely better than the talentless, backwards-running leper he replaced. He has his limitations when he doesn't have the ball but he is one of the most creative players in the team - so, he doesn't need to have the ball 40 times to play an adequate role. The third quarter last night was as much a consequence of his brilliance as the first quarter of the previous game was a display of Pendlebury's.

Finally, the coaching - getting that level of competitiveness out of a side containing 6 players that weren't seriously in their thinking on Grand Final day 2023 - and in circumstances where there were so many forced changes - was quite remarkable. Their ability to cobble together such high-level performance out of what they happen to have available to them should not be underestimated.

[stoliboy]

I have been trying to find the rule which says you must hand the ball back to the umpire at a stoppage in the rule book. Anyone have a link?

There is this article in the AFL website from 2022, with a video interview with Brad Scott. But the examples they show are of players who get done for holding the ball and then won’t release the ball: https://www.afl.com.au/news/696861/afl-to-crack-down-on-holding-the-ball-time-wasting-in-2022-rules-update/amp

There is no way Sullivan is trying to delay the play. He is watching his man.