Post Match. Swans sink Pies - All comments.

[skaman]

Disgusting umpiring. Seriously blatent bias. Over it. McStay should have got 50m . Game over .

[BazBoy]

Two games coming up at the G

Brisbane will be a challenge
Dees not as much

Thing is do we stack side with all experience or try a fresh face

[Haff]

Before the Richmond game it was stated that if we win four out of the next five, we should (hopefully) be ok ... well that's still on track

Results did go that way.

We basically need 3 of Freo, Dogs, Dons, Carlton and Hawks to lose their next 3. The latter two play each other and from memory they all play the bottom 4. You can add Geelong but we need to overcome the % which I’m guessing we need to win both our games by 100.

Then there’s the little hurdle of a basically full strength Brisbane.

It won’t happen.

[Collingwouldn't]

Both Checkers and a fully fit De Goey, were sorely missed tonight. Irreplaceable, really.

Mate sorry but this is a moot point. Injuries are out of our control. Every team has them to some degree. You can only play who you have available, and they are accountable to the game. But it still doesn't explain how we gave up a five goal lead in 15 minutes of footy to lose the game. The same thing happened last week except for a shanked kick after the siren. The only thing that gives me cold comfort tonight is the Swanettes can't win the flag. They'll be lucky if they don't go out in straight sets.

Mind you, the AFL desperately wants them to win a flag to promote the game in Sydney, so every one of their opponents is going to have to make sure they have a big enough lead so the umpires can't affect the result (like we didn't do tonight). The AFL is corrupt, but they are kidding themselves trying to flog a dead horse in Sydney. Tonight they got about 35K people to the game and half those would have been Pies supporters. The Giants get bugger all to their home games in Sydney. But in Canberra they get really respectable crowds. If the AFL cared they'd move GWS to Canberra tomorrow (because they do have something of an AFL heritage in the ACT and nearby Riverena, Wagga Wagga especially). But Sydney is a waste of space minority sport as far as the NRL loving citizens are concerned. Always will be. With its huge population if the AFL were serious Sydney should have about 300,000 members. They are a joke! But get the complete backing of the corrupt AFL.

And don't worry they'll do everything they can to make sure Tassie wins a flag quickly too.

Collingwood is the AFL cash cow and they take us for granted - in fact they hate us despite all the revenue we produce. I'm 100% serious now: The clubs needs to take back the AFL from its commission. If not, form a breakaway league (like World Series Cricket). Leave the AFL to rot on the vine. It's beyond saving.

Also, we should storm the Capitol! STOP THE STEAL!!!!

[David]

I haven't read through this whole thread, so apologies if it's already been discussed, but why on earth did we wait so long to sub Richards in? We could have used his speed and creativity halfway through the last quarter when Sydney started running rings around us – the call should have been made instantly as soon as they got their first or second goal of the term. Bringing him on with 40 seconds to go was a total waste.

[lazzadesilva]

“. If that were at the MCG I think it would have been paid”. Said Craig McCrae

Not his best moment. More ridicule as if being knocked out of the season wasn’t enough!

WTF? So when did saying it as it is become a “not the best moment”? Why worry about and redicule from Collingwood hating ferals? Who GAF what they think? You tell me, if that wasn’t inconsistent umpiring with examples already mentioned, what was it? To me, (obviously my opinion) that was pure, unadulterated cheating by the umpires. Not including any magpie mates, many neutrals agree with me that the last quarter was full of very sus decisions going against us. So it’s time for the club to support us for a change and say it as it was, blatant umpire cheating or do what the AFL does, bury their heads in the sand and positively reinforce shocking umpiring decisions that will never be dealt with by the powers that be. The club has to show some real leadership, backbone and the courage of their convictions to make a stand.

[Pies2016]

Couple observations, possibly with the future in mind.
Quaynor spent some time on the wing and I thought he played well in that role. Looked like he enjoyed the freedom of being proactive rather than being accountable for an opponent 100% of the time.
I hope the club leave WHE in that deep decoy forward role. He’s good overhead, super smart and likely quicker than most of his match ups.
A forward line of Miochek, McStay and WHE playing as talls, looks at least competitive to me.
Bytel is an interesting proposition. He’s got faults but he’s doing something most Collingwood players aren’t and that’s improving with every game in the seniors. Ned Long looks a slow burn too but if you’re going to be one paced, then you need quick, sure hands in close. That should be his off season focus.
I generally leave the bagging of players to others on here but Howe is one player who has escaped a lot of scrutiny of late. He looks like the pace of the game has finally caught up with him. When you add in Frampton and take out the loss of Murphy, I can certainly see why we would be interested in Mark Keane ( and obviously Battle )
McInnes is being trialled in the backline in the VFL but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that’s a positive career move.
Funnily enough, all of a sudden, the forward line looks like the least of problems right now.

[lazzadesilva]

Disgusting umpiring. Seriously blatent bias. Over it. McStay should have got 50m . Game over .

Agree X 10. The Club MUST be proactive and hold the AFL and the cheating umpires accountable for their actions. In any other case this would be the line of action but for some reason, not in the AFL We just roll ever and play helpless little possums that sadly lost a game instead of roaring like a lion to try and solve the problem and help clean up the game from cheating, like cricket does. Collingwood is our own worst enemy

[shawthing]

**We were outcoached in the last 15 minutes

Right there Lad. Look at Fly's CV. He left Richmond when they were still a very good side after the three flags. That was before they fell off a cliff. He breaths new life into the club and turns things around with his ultra-positivity. This mentality works supremely well when everything is going well. That's why the positive thinking mantras and Tony Robbins type stuff always works among the well off middle classes who earn a packet and want to get richer. It's pure capitalism at work. But it NEVER works among people who struggle for whatever reason. In fact it ends up acting as a torment to the soul on Struggle Street. Why? Because it only serves to remind the struggler (financial and healthwise) of how far short of the "mark" they are real life. That's why I've always loathed "sales" types. The hyped up scammers and the Tony Robbins of this world.

Last year everything worked well and Fly's mantra to "be a better version of ourselves" worked a treat. Everything was rosy. Virtually no injuries for the first time in a decade. Winning all the close ones. Life couldn't be easier and we got ourselves over the line( just) for the flag. But now comes the real test of Fly's coaching. The positive thinking management speak has to go the way of the Dodo or he'll lose the locker room. Perhaps he's starting to lose it already. When times are tough you can only hear so much of this Tony Robbins style claptrap before you want to spew. It takes a different kind of coach to work when things are down. You need a bit of mongrel and "tough love". You need to demand standards and act like a street fighter. That's always been the way.

Collingwood is a working class team and we forget that to our peril. We have to get back to the basics and realise (just like the working classes that are being extinguished before our very eyes in this selfish narcissistic world), that the world is against us. We will only get what we fight for. Nice polite society stuff is the antithesis of who we are.

Let's start to want to be hated again!

[Monco Matt]

The year is now officially over so we can put season 2024 into a sheet of toilet paper and flush it! A stinker of a year so underwhelming (except for beating Carlton twice) and the opposite of what we all hoped we would be. After a stellar 2023 culminating in our 16th flag I am sure all of us expected some level of improvement and a serious back to back push but we didn't start the season ready to go and like an old lawnmower we were just pulling on the cord over and over never getting it going. A season not dissimilar to the Cats of 2023, lessons not learned.

The game last night was a perfect reflection of our team performance, far too defensive in nature, not able to attack the game with speed and ferocity when needed and not able to arrest momentum late in games when the heat is on. At the death in so many games this year we were left flailing, look at both Bombers games, Suns, Freo, last Carlton game and Crows at the MCG (we won but gave up leads late), Dogs, the 3 opening games, the Hawks debacle, that North game falling 9 goals down, the list goes on. So many games we couldn't finish strong or gave up ridiculous amounts of consecutive goals, this was not a trait of the successful 22/23 seasons. We fell back to the pack and below, last night summed it all up perfectly.

Do I mention the horrific one-sided umpiring especially in the last 15 minutes that all went in the Swans favour? What a biased and game controlling display that was from the maggots. The umps were half the reason for the loss not all of it, but when we decide to go into full turtle mode for 15 minutes and the umps also decide to give Sydney all the advantage it is a recipe for disaster. I really just can't understand the "go defensive" game mode, especially 15 min out from the final siren. How did it get to these levels of extremity? We used to close down the last 2 min (effective time managemnt), then it became the last 5 min, then the last 10 min, now it is the last 15 to 20 min......it is insanity! It cost us our season in the end. Only the brave prosper, the meek wither.

On to 2025. Freshen up the list somehow, get a stronger game plan that involves scoring in the last 15 minutes and maybe we can avoid falling into the abyss of 9th to 14th for 5 years.

[Mr Miyagi]

I think we played defensive because of the SCG’s cramped dimensions. We’ve rarely won there. It’s a shit ground for footy and it’s criminal the SCG and other millionaires killed Homebush. I would have liked Bobby playing up the ground more.

[Gerry Cooper]

I think it's official now. We can't run out games. Every team from North Melbourne upwards knows it. Its why every side keeps a little back and attacks hard in the last quarter. They know our aged midfield/playmakers don't have the tank to keep up or for one more push any more. There will be no more miracle comebacks while we rely on Pendlebury, Crisp, and Sidebottom in particular. The club needs to make plans to move them on. That will probably hurt our chances temporarily but this loss hurt us too. I will say this loss was not about our game plan's deficiencies. It's also the actors trying to execute it. As player's age, it's not just speed that goes, its reflexes and stamina, and once again that was obvious in the last quarter. Pendles, Sidey, and Crisp all looked good for almost three quarters. After that they dropped off rapidly. Maybe we would be better managing those three in game more with more spells on the bench mid game in an attempt to manage their stamina, though that might be easier said than done too.

Cameron and Cox both were impressive mostly. Loved Darcy's clutch marking around the ground. He put Grundy to the sword for the entire game in a truly wonderful performance. Hill, J. Daicos, Moore, Maynard, Quaynor and McStay had good games and too a lesser extent so did Nick - i thought he was well covered for a lot of the game and a lot of his disposals were under pressure, lessening their effectiveness. Bytel and Long both showed further improvement which was good. Long in particular seems to relish the fight in the packs and seems to have a bit of mongrel about him, something we are going to need more of going forward. I didn't mind McCreery's game either. He had a red hot go from the first siren. Playing him around the ball also was a good move and he was able to impact on clearances, when the opportunity arose.

Schultz. I used to be more in the "Give Schultz a Chance" camp but now I'm done. That miss 30 metres in front of goal was his third choke in front of goal at key moments in recent matches. If he cant get his act together, drop him for a while. Let him find his confidence in the reserves. That said I still support getting rid of that shitty little narcissist. We just bought the wrong replacement is all.

Noble. It was pretty telling that when we were dominant Noble was still butchering and fumbling the ball. As others have observed, Sydney played through him and his opponents, Heyward and Parker both scored while he was on them. If we are doing a bit of rebuilding in 2025, we should be looking at our half back line also.

I dont think putting Richards in earlier would have made any difference either. In a night of in close congested pack contests, a light outside runner wasn't going to have much impact. I actually would have preferred Sullivan or even the unfortunate Harrison (Get well soon HH) as the sub, since both are players who can impact packs at times.

The final nail in the coffin was the umpiring. Some of those deliberate out of bounds calls were disgraceful decisions. That deliberate out of bounds rule needs reformulating at the end of the season, it needs it because incompetent, officious idiots like the four yellow pustules who umpired our game have no idea how to interpret what is a reasonable attempt and what isn't. Its an effing joke at the moment. However I will give kudos to the one boundary umpire who overturned a dodgy call from one of the unawesome foursome in the second quarter. Good on him for standing up for what was right.

Ultimately our premiership defence was probably hamstrung from the start, with our premiership win inevitably delaying decision making on the future of some of our older players with predictable results. After that injuries did the rest, and then players coming back from injury being underdone on return also. Our first three losses really did cost us in the end. In the off season we need to work on alternate game plans to make us more flexible, particularly when defending.

[Haff]

To me, (obviously my opinion) that was pure, unadulterated cheating by the umpires.

Umpires don’t cheat. They are influenced by the crowd and I 100% believe in the rule of the week (15m, insufficient intent etc, the evidence is plain to see). But if an umpire truely penalised one club then they would be out of the AFL and under investigation for match fixing.

Fly talks a lot about acting like winners, blaming umpires is acting like a loser. You don’t get better, you just look for excuses. He was (understandably) straddling that line with the comments.

I haven’t looked for a while but from a free kick count we’re closer to 50:50.

[Mr Miyagi]

Elliot had Rampey and another player who had height on him — he couldn’t mark one on one, they just reached over.

were any big bets placed at three quarter time for Sydney to win?

[Gerry Cooper]

... but why on earth did we wait so long to sub Richards in? We could have used his speed and creativity halfway through the last quarter when Sydney started running rings around us...

I doubt he would have made much difference at all in such a tight and congested pack oriented game. Richards being a light outside forward/runner type wouldn't have been much help in the packs where the impact was needed. It seems like the coaches thought that too, since they didnt bring him on. I thought Sullivan would have been a better choice for sub in those conditions.