Post Match. Pies Sunburnt . All comments.

[think positive]

I know it's a long pre-season, I know it's a long season
Geez, I struggle to climb the stairs in level 4 Ponsford stand but

Why during the bye do they allow small holidays away to bali, Port Douglas etc ??
Surely we need to keep the training day, match day simulation 'routine' going ?

I agree

My daughter bumped into Pendles at cafe onthe gold coast late this arvo. WTF, they just had a week off, get home and ready!

[Pies4shaw]

You've got to be concerned. If he isn't training properly, how is he ever going to string enough games together to forge a decent career for himself?

[RudeBoy]

Pendles has a shocking record of setting a bad example for others to follow. He needs to start behaving more professionally, or else he faces the real prospect of being de-listed.


In all seriousness, it wouldn't surprise me if Pendles stayed on for a day or so (with our club's blessing), to have a meeting with Damien Hardwick, about possibly joining him as an assistant coach when he hangs up his boots.

[Said by Zed]

Having been patient for the last couple of days, and keeping my powder dry if you will, I got my thoughts together and pondered hard and deeply about the Pies performance last Saturday night and the state of affairs heading into the final third of the season.

I consider myself more of a glass half full supporter than a half empty type but it’s undeniable that what we’ve been witnessing for a while now (some might say since round 20 last year) has become chronic…some of us on here had detected this for some time and have been commenting about our game style for months.

Zone defence sustained by frantic often near death effort (ala Murphy and Checkers) diving head first into packs, running to out-number at every contest, chaos hand balls (frequent no-look over the head Harlem globetrotter crap) forward, bash, crash and reliance on some Pendles class, bullocking Jordy intrusions, or Daicos magic to get it done. Otherwise, if not…deliver the ball slow and high to the disadvantage of our undersized forward line, get crunched, bring it to ground and pray for our mosquito squadron to get their hands on it to put it through for a hard earned goal…behind all this toil, effort, blood, sweat and tears belies an unsustainable system. Yes it got us a premiership (just…by the skin of our teeth) as some of you are undoubtedly screaming at the screen as you extend both index fingers to bang out a response in true keyboard warrior fashion, but the wear and tear to the machine and it’s moving parts (the players for you non-poetic types) is immense. Eventually the drop in commitment and motivation, even by a couple of percent was sure to occur…which nowadays is often enough to swing a game one way or another…and then throw in the high frequency of soft tissue and concussion injuries….and you have a recipe for impending doom.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a Fly fan and we’ve done bloody well so far considering the circumstances, but gees when your one wood starts finding the rough more often than not it’s time to reach into the bag for a low iron every now and then (a golfing reference for those non-golfer types) or you better have brought a lot of balls with you. But Fly sticks to what’s worked so many times before…for right or wrong, forced or by design, until it doesn’t…and then appears to question why. It seems obvious that when the opposition spends countless hours forensically analysing your game (as they do with all premiership sides) and they start coming at you with a rejigged slightly fresher and fiercer version of yourself, it’s time to reinvent….to improve and innovate….to zig when others are zagging…or perish. I’m sure Fly realises that biology and psychology also plays a big part in why the effort and application isn’t there for four quarters. Irrespective of the motivational sleight of hand it’s impossible for flesh and blood to maintain the demands of ‘chaos-ball’ for that long a period…the high workload takes a toll on the mind and body…and deep down the players know it. Similarly, once the endorphin fueled euphoria of a narrow come from behind victory is experienced that ‘high’ becomes addictive…to get that rush again it stands to reason the players subconsciously might be putting themselves into those positions to experience it again…and again…and again.

Watching the game live it was evident we were off from the first bounce. As has been the case for several games to date, the opposition were first to everything, the heat they were bringing at the contest was scorching, our tackles weren’t sticking, the mids were fumbly and far too cute with their disposal (dinky 10 metre kick passes, predictable soft no look hand balls, misdirected long kicks to outnumbered teammates etc), our ruck was being properly monstered and generally outplayed all over the park giving their mids first use, defenders were giving their man far too much leg rope and not enough respect, the forwards were disorganised and reactive rather than hunting proactively as a pack…our one wood was shanking badly and we were running out of balls fast.

But then with the game seemingly lost at the start of the fourth quarter something clicked and the machine started firing on all cylinders, mostly thanks to Nicky and Jordy, we were somehow in front with five minutes to go. However, instead of going on with it, the Suns were able to regroup and to their credit ‘out-collingwooded’ us. Not only did they outplay us but they knew exactly what we were going to do in those last few minutes and did it back to us…only better. That said, I reckon we would have come away with the chocolates had Maynard and Noble not gone down with injury, and all the fan angst would have been swept under the rug for another week, but surely they can’t keep doing this week in week out…eventually the wheels are bound to come flying off.

The current game style is such that at the end of the regular season, with a meat-grinder like run home, the hardest of any team still vying for finals, we will probably be so badly battered and bruised that we will more than likely go out with a whimper in the first week anyway.

But as I said earlier I’m still a half glass full kind of guy….so like the little bird that sings in the darkness before the dawn in anticipation of the light, I have faith….Go Pies!

[Boot]

Good post by Said by Zed.
I agree with what he is saying in terms of questioning the sustainability of the Collingwood style of play and the way we are getting hurt on the rebound. However the facts are we rarely get beaten by lots and we rarely beat the opposition by lots either. It's like all AFL clubs on their day will be able to take sufficient chances and have similar skills in executing the game plan to win so the result becomes down to how the bounce of the ball flows, or outrageous umpire decisions ( Fremantle Game ) that determines who wins. It's like roulette's black vs red, over a hundred rolls the odds are that the difference between black and red isn't going to be that many.

The good news is that I firmly believe Collingwood does have good coaches that are thinking how they can move the odds in our favor and I was pleased to see a change in tactics tried on Saturday night against the Suns where the kick-out from an opposition point took the game on straight down the guts as opposed to lob the kick as far down the wing as possible to a pack of talls. Unfortunately there was not a lot of smart hiding of this new tactic and the Suns quickly picked up on it so it became ineffectual. Perhaps it would have been better to limit this option to just one or two times per quarter and don't do it until the opposition have set up in their normal positions away from the central corridor. Also have just a couple of our best contested winning players e.g. Maynard or IQ as the aim for target ideally already running into open space before pulling that tactic? Whilst it didn't work so well on Saturday night, I think with some fine tuning this tactic offers some potential gains and should be persisted with surreptitiously.

[K]

'Gold Coast’s Ben Long has been smacked (pardon the pun) with a $3750 fine (with an early plea) for his hit on Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard.

It was an incident that elicited a decent reaction from fans, with Maynard, after being hit in the pec region by Long, falling to the ground and grabbing at his head.

Some compared the action to Steven May staging, which the Demon was fined for, the weekend prior.'

(The Age)

[Pies4shaw]

Long should have been deregistered - what did that have to do with playing a game of football? Scum.