"Its Collingwood's flag to lose" - I'm very wary!

[Piesnchess]

Yeh, its all the rage, that saying now, ITS COLLINGWOODS FLAG TOO LOSE. and its scaring me, and annoying me now. Bloody hell, all the commentators are saying it, even Pie detrator kane Cornes, and Matty Lloyd, Look, i hate being red hot faves for the flag, always have, I much prefer to be the underdog. Dont get me wrong, this is one of the best Magpie teams I have seen, ever, outside of 1970, 1990 an 2010, and I rate it far over 2018. But, theres a long way to go yet, we have not yet sown up top four, let alone top two, anything can happen. Unexpected injuries to key players, -touch wood that does not happen,please- suspensions, a brief loss of form, whose too say ? Long way to go, and we cannot get ahead of ourselves one iota. yes, we are playing very well, we have improved a lot from last season, our recruting of bobby, tom and mcstay, frampton, been brilliant. We are a better team than last season, that lost a prelim by a point. If we finish top two, home finals, we will give it a hell of a shake, that is all I am prepared to say for now. Grand finals are not only so hard too win they are so damn hard to even make, and Magpie fans know THAT better than anyone around. ! Lets just cool it all down, and be quietly confident, one week at a time, hey.

Thoughts

[What'sinaname]

I hear you. No matter how great things are during the year, we seem to almost always find a unique way to fugg it all up on GF day.

[warburton lad]

Not our flag to lose.

It is our flag to win...

Qualify as high as we can (first or second are certainly achievable from here)

Win the first final at The G.

Two weeks to get ready for a home Prelim...

Crush whoever we play.

Rinse and repeat on Grand Final Day.

If successful, it will be sweet for the families of Darcy Moore and the Daicos boys...part of Collingwood Dynasties...

Floreat Pica

[piedys]

The reality is - all media comments have 100% zero effect on the outcome of eithers ours, or anybody else's AFL games.

Providing players don't start drinking their own bathwater; it tastes worse in September...

[lazzadesilva]

[bally12]

They are trying to jinx us no doubt. Check this one.
https://www.tiktok.com/@dannymcginlay/video/7254127773554461953

This guy's a comedian that writes for the Front Bar i believe..Doggies fan.
The one he does on Hawthorn is hilarious.

But it's coming thick and fast from people getting uneasy about the fact we COULD win the flag.
Personally I think we are in it up to our eyeballs but still haven't fired on all cylinders the way we need to. Let's hope Fly and the team can bring it all together and we can peak at the right time.

The one I don't like is the media discussion on Nick Daicos, invariably becoming a discussion of "what can we do to stop him". It's like a collective brain-storm by all these media muppets on how to negate Nick, instead of celebrating him. Usurprisingly Slobbo features heavily in this type of narrative.
Did Judd and Ablett get that kind of talk?

[swoop42]

After the death of a long serving Queen a new British King was crowned in 1902.

Prior to this year the last time the British held a coronation was in 1953.

We've won 11 of our 15 Premierships under the reign of a King.

David King says it will be a cakewalk.

As far as omens go.

[Skids]

[David]

^ That stat is skewed somewhat by our dominance in the early years of the comp and many GF appearances in the Rose and Hafey eras. Since 1981 we’ve only appeared in one grand final every seven years on average, so it’s certainly become a lot rarer! (And of course since then the comp has grown from 12 to 18 teams, so statistically you would expect GF opportunities to become less frequent.)

[Skids]

^Or, you could look at it more recently, over the last 2 decades, and since 2002 we've appeared in 5 GF's at an average of one every 4.2 seasons.

Either way, we've lost way too many GF's.

[stui magpie]

Commentators saying it's our flag to lose are just having an each way bet.

If we win, they'll say they were right, if we make the GF and lose, it will be our fault rather than the other team playing well.

Phuk em, what people say makes no difference to the result.

[Piesnchess]

[think better]

Leigh Matthews said it best when he said the premiers are those teams that play best in September.

All we are doing for now is qualifying high up (probably on top)

You only have to talk to a few Port Adelaide fans when they finished top for a few years in a row and bombed out in finals, before they eventually got the flag in 2004.

[Gerry Cooper]

When I see us play four quarters of dominance instead of the current one quarter, I might think we could win the flag but otherwise I think we are only one of a number of viable contenders.

[Boot]

One of the many famous quotes from Nth Melbourne legendary premiership coach was that "It doesn't mean squat how far up the ladder you finish when the teams run out on the last Saturday in September, then its only a matter of who is the best team that day"
I think we all realize that the standard and tempo of the AFL goes up each week of September which is a massive jump up from the home and away season games. Luckily Collingwood have the advantage of playing in front of large crowds in big games at the MCG quite a few times during the year to provide the experience to the players so hopefully they are getting used to being able to play at their best in big games.
I think its interesting to look at which players have excelled in big games. A couple of Collingwood players who spring to mind who have excelled in big games and have the character that rises to the challenge, including;
Pendlebury - Lets hope he can play to his stellar standard this September
Nick Daicos - Good signs with his performance in this years Anzac day game.
Ginnivan - Certainly enjoys the big stage events. Lets hope he can regain some form and break his way back into the team in September and rip the opposition apart in the Grand Final.