Post Match. Swans sink Pies - All comments.

[Mr Miyagi]

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.

Haff, umpires do have bias and they do cheat — a senior ump was stood down for Brownlow cheating and other umps were involved but never faced consequences. I implore you to watch the Netflix documentary on American basketball and the referee who blew the whistle on widescale bias, cheating and corruption — we’d be naive to think it doesn’t happen in AFL. And they get in-game instructions fed to them through their mics — umps might just be obeying orders, but who’s giving them? Home crowd influencing umpires who should be trained and coached to ignore it is cheating, end of. We criticise players for getting sucked in and giving away frees — why shouldn’t umpires be criticised for getting sucked in by the crowd.

I mean bloody hell, just look at how Ginnivan is treated differently now he’s at another club! It’s night and day.

Fly had every right to be angry. Losers are the ones who don’t speak up and stand up for what’s right.

[Haff]

Haff, umpires do have bias and they do cheat — a senior ump was stood down for Brownlow cheating and other umps were involved but never faced consequences.

^i think bias and cheating are two different things. 90% of the crowd screaming ball creates bias.
The umpire betting I was also thinking off when posting but from my shotty memory wasnt it in the Brownlow? Not a pre bet on the result of the game he could influence? Insider trading if you will..

[Mr Miyagi]

Haff, umpires do have bias and they do cheat — a senior ump was stood down for Brownlow cheating and other umps were involved but never faced consequences.

^i think bias and cheating are two different things. 90% of the crowd screaming ball creates bias.
The umpire betting I was also thinking off when posting but from my shotty memory wasnt it in the Brownlow? Not a pre bet on the result of the game he could influence? Insider trading if you will..

Yep it was inside trading to mates, leaking the votes after games. A few of them were doing it but only one faced consequences.

100% agree on home crowd bias. But these are supposed professionals.

[David]

... 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.

Maybe you’re right, but he’s the sub we picked and the one we had in store. Bytel didn’t have a bad game, but I think he could have come off earlier without too much negative impact and Richards could have provided some kind of spark.

Even if he’d been parked in the forward line he could have been the difference – we did have a few entries in the last five minutes that amounted to nothing, after all, so an opportunistic finisher might have been able to get us the goal we needed.

[Pies2016]

You don’t get overrun in last quarters unless you are being repeatedly belted out of the middle. For over 100 years, teams could defend leads late in the game by throwing an extra or two in the backline at the centre bounces. The “ new “ rules don’t allow it and invariably the success ( or not ) of comebacks late in the game is determined by the dominance of a teams centre square set ups.
I keep reading that Fly was out-coached but when you’re 4+ goals up early in the last, the last thing you do is change anything. What happened in the last was simple, quality players like Warner and Heeney ( 28 touches and 2 goals between them in last quarter ) took over from a very tired and limited midfield ( without DeGoey and mitchell ) and they set up those repeated opportunities to hit to the scoreboard. Throw in an out of form backline who couldn’t defend those forays forward and the game turned on its head very quickly.
What I would have considered doing ( since nobody else who has criticised his coaching has put up any alternative tactics ) is to have dropped McStay behind the ball and have him play as an 8th defender, like Carlton do with Curnow. Fly also did it with Miochek a couple times late last year. But of course, that’s all in hindsight too.

[Mr Miyagi]

We would have won with De Goey.

[Gerry Cooper]

We would have won with De Goey.

How about with an underdone injured Degoey with little closing speed?

[RudeBoy]

Without dwelling on it, I also thought our team lacked real on-field leadership in the last quarter. Where was Moore? Where was Pendles? Even Nick Daicos was tagged out of the game by then.

On the other hand, the Swans were inspired by the heroics of Isaac Heeney, who delivered perhaps the greatest quarter of football I've ever seen.....apart from when I saw Peter McKenna kick 7 goals in the 3rd quarter at Vic Park against the Bummers all those years (decades) ago.

[stui magpie]

At 3/4 time I thought we had it won. It had been a grinding effort. Then in the last when Heeney suddenly started playing like he'd sculled 6 Red Bulls at 3/4 time, I thought, "They can't get on a roll here, can they".

All of a sudden it all turned to shit. Heeney was everywhere, the Swans all lifted, the crowd fired up and the umpires umpired accordingly, paying home crowd decisions. Every time we tried to steady or wrest momentum back, either the Swans or Umpires or both pulled the rug out from under us.

Disappointing end, but maybe somehow fitting that they did to us what we've done to other teams so many times over the past 3 years.

I hope Fly, the coaches and the List management people take some time to do some hard reflection on the list and the game plan. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water but some hard decisions need to be made on both.

The game plan isn't broken but every other team has scouted it and knows how we play and how (in theory at least) to beat it. Using Fly's continuous improvement philosophy, we need to evolve it, make it better, make sure it suits the players we have (or get players that suit it) and try to tweak it so it doesn't require constant manic effort to make it work.

We also definitely need some more class in the midfield. Leaving out Pendles and Sidey, the drop in quality from the Daicii to the rest is stark. Yes getting a fit Jordy and Mitchell back will help, but they're just putting wallpaper over large cracks in the wall.

Anyway, that's the 2024 footy season over, the 2025 pre-season starts next week.

[Hiss]

Sorry to break this to fellow Pies fans, but IMO we now need a new Captain. This is not working out. Our 2024 season is over and our on field capitulations are embarrassing. Our Coaching needs an urgent review. Perhaps we could repeat the interventions that Eddie introduced to help Bucks. We need some really tough decisions now, particularly given the chronically ageing list and shocking lack of depth. Nothing in our Reserves to be excited about. There is no point glossing this over anymore; we are in a death spiral and things will only get worse unless radical action is taken. We need to ask some players to immediately step down. Otherwise, sackings must happen.

[think positive]

I sadly agree on the captain, not sure what’s going on but last year he was amazing, so inspiring, this year, meh, I’m not seeing it feeling it. Pendles is still directing traffic, it’s not right.

The coaching needs to go back how it was, this shared job thing is not working, it’s arrogance.

We need quality height. Marking height and talent, we pretty much get killed in the air.

And for the love of god goal kicking practice, not the fancy shit, the get in there and kick from 15 metres on every angle and step it back, kick kick damn kick! So over the shanks!

And we need a royal commission into the umpiring, it’s laughable , maddening and embarrassing. The umps clearly are not smart enough so the rules need to be dummied down. Consistency? Some times I swear I see players hold back because they might get pinged. Say something about the Nick tag, it’s total crap, and this one arm grab is going to destroy a players career, a torsional break or massive dislocation is right around the corner. Geefrickenlong did it all game.

Be interesting to sit back and watch the finals ticket debacle. Bring it on!

Go freo! Keep it way way away from me!

Well I’ll be there next week, who’s with me?

[scoobydoo]

Collingwood won the finals series/flag by a total of 12 pts(hardly dominant)
Didn’t improve the team through trading & in fact you could argue they went backwards (losing Ginnivan & Adam’s)
No Mitchell, McStay,Mihicek. JDG injured throughout the yr.
They’ve probably done as good as they could have.
Reload for 2024.

[think positive]

Adams was no loss, selfish and injury prone. Ginny, well it depends on which side of the bed he got out of.he did nothing in the GF.

Early start, shit draw, and an ever mounting injury list, we would have been straight sets.

Start planning for next year, start training for next year, goal kicking practice for a start!

[doriswilgus]

I didn’t post last night after the game because I was too angry.But even today I’m still pissed off at how we lost the that game.Pissed off at the players for blowing another big lead in the last quarter.But most of all pissed off at the umpiring.

That was without a doubt the most biased,one sided piece of umpiring I’ve ever seen.Every single 50 50 contest went the Swans way,every time the ball was knocked out or kicked along the boundary line,it was a free kick to the Swans .Every time we looked like scoring it was. a free to them.And then the final insult.The 50 metre penalty that wasn’t paid to Mcstay at the end when the Swans player was 10 METRES over the mark! it’s pretty hard to win a game when the opposition side has four extra players playing for them,all of whom are wearing yellow.

It’s those sort of biased one sided umpiring displays that turns people off football all together.It’s certainly turned me off football after what I saw last night.

[Piesnchess]

Mate, fully agree with most of your points, but just on injuries, it can impact differently on teams, depending WHO it is. Like, lets say, Bontempelli, Curnow, both go down this weekend, seriously , gone for season, the dogs would slump to dim faves for the flag, as would Blues. JDG is HUGE for us, recall his brilliant goal, last qtr in the GF, after Charlie put the Lions up, then Sidey aced the deal with his long long bomb. NO JDG , no flag , simple as that, Hes gone, an I am in NO doubt had he played yesterday, fully fit, we win, but it is what it is. I agree with you on the Swanettes, the AFLs lovechild, remember to gift them a flag, that bloody thug Hall got off, after he smashed Staker the eagle out cold, somehow, the Tribunal let the prick off ?????. Rigged to buggery, and oh yes, the yellow maggots did give em the momentum lastnight, with dodgey frees , for sure. But,, you are correct, we parked the bus, racked the cue, in last qtr, also,as we did v the Bluescum and we paid for it bigtime. Fly must drill it into our guys, as we all know, that its never over till the fat lady sings, and that, ATTACK IS THE BEST DEFENCE. NEVER LET UP, EVER.ATTACK. Yes , we are the cash cow, and the stupid AFL may well rue th day we are out of the Finals, crowds will be well down, and serve the greedy bastards right. !