Post Match. Pies bombed. All comments.

[Ronnie McKeowns boots]

^ .....we have a shit load of cash for the trades, a war chest, so lets see how that goes.

We finally gonna get The Big Fish this year you reckon? We need a whole shoal of 'em

[ANNODAM]

Ahhh yes, its always makes a Pies loss a bit more easier, when the arrogant cocky Bluescum lose too, did my heart good to see those cheating flogs go down badly tonight, after leading by 6 goals. They havent won the flag yet, far from it.

You just better be right Jock, you just BETTER be right!


It felt good even though we slip further down the ladder…

It’s very hard to win interstate these days, these interstate sides just need a couple of home finals & they’re set up nicely.

What would make me elated is seeing a couple of Scum KPP go down with injuries.

Where’s that voodoo doll…

[Piesnchess]

^ Brownlow cheater Cripps doing an ACL would be lovely indeed. NO sympathy for me for those Blue bastards, their fans always wish the worst on our Pies. Stuff em.

[Gerry Cooper]

^ Brownlow cheater Cripps doing an ACL would be lovely indeed. NO sympathy for me for those Blue bastards, their fans always wish the worst on our Pies. Stuff em.

So the pain etc Cripps would go through in rehab would be lovely to you would it? I dont like him and if Maynard hit him hard I would cheer but celebrating a serious injury to anyone is going too far.

[ANNODAM]

^ You reckon they’re not laughing their bloody heads off with our injury woes?

Just a few injuries so they can lose all their finals, not asking for much.

[piffdog]

While I don’t feel the need to criticise the reigning premiership coach, I found one of Flys explanations particularly bemusing. Fly talked about the disconnect between players and players not knowing where to go. I would have thought starting Quaynor on the wing and Howe in the forward line is only encouraging that type of confusion. If I was at his post match presser, the first question I would ask is why did Quaynor play as a winger ? They will have a “ sound “ reason but for the life of me, I can’t see any gain in Quaynor playing on the wing, particularly when they are such a systems based team. Those two moves have effectively taken away 33% of that system driven zone he strives for every week.

I thought that was odd. You have Checkers, Kreuger in the forward line and still feel the need to play Howe up there?? I think its because they wanted to get Dean in to keep his development going. I think they played Quaynor on the wing to see if he has some potential there OR to try and shake him out of whatever funk he's in thats delivering a cr8p season. I dont think they have guiven up on the season, but feels like the coaches are allocating a little more attention to the future. Why else have you played just about everyone on the list this year? Jiath? Long? DeMattia and Eyre will absolutely play before the year is out - I think because its about their development.

[piffdog]

Tough loss - but thoroughly outplayed. The scoreline flattered us I think, even though we missed a couple absolute sitters that in theory could have snuck in a win for us.

I'm not one for a complete meltdown - however - I do usually have one game every year where you reality hits and you go from being all chips in on a flag, to where reality hits and you realise that it wont be your team. It was probably round 12 in 2020. It was probably round 7 in 2021 when we lost to GC to go 1-6. In 2022 I came crashing down after that heartbreaking prelim loss, and, well, there wasnt tha't moment last year.

For me that game - where you go from planning your movements around September, and digesting every column inch and radio minute about your team to getting on with the rest of your life - was Friday night. It wont be us this year, and its too debilitating on the rest of my life to get completely cut-up when you lose because you have invested so much in the team's performance.

We need to be building momentum now not trying to kick start something. There are other teams that are gathering steam (although there were also upsets galore on the weekend), while we are coughing and spluttering. Injury is clearly a factor - as it is for most teams who have a protracted run. So is form, as is the desire for the rest of the competition to improve. I am of the crowd that thinks the differences between most teams is marginal and the difference between most injury-free teams is really between the ears. We had that covered last year, but it feels like that's gone now - its someone else's turn to 'believe' the flag is theirs.

For our team, its now up to the coaches to troubleshoot their way through this. I thought it was instructive that our two best were the two oldest guys. We need to figure out how to win without Nick having 30 and kicking 2 goals, because other teams have figured out that they can forgo a player to tag him and the net loss to our side is greater than the net loss to their team.

Of course we want to win - but the reality is that you dont win every game. I'll be following the team with a different mindset: how do we engineer the list and game style that will put us in the position we were in at round 12-14 last year? We wont be the team we were in 2023 ever again - I have adjusted my expectations accordingly (which is always painful).

[David]

^ Great post, and completely agree. I could take the Gold Coast loss because we almost pulled it out of the fire and it would have been an impressive win (as well as maintaining our aura of invincibility around last-quarter comebacks). But the game on Friday night was the first time since Rounds 1 to 3 that I'd felt we just weren't good enough to be a premiership contender this year.

[Haff]

^post of the year piffdog for mine. Perfectly summed up and exactly where I’m at. You won’t see too many match day thread rants from me.
I’ll watch every game but the expectation of a flag or even win is gone. I said before this game that this was the defining moment and we came up short (more than the 12 points really).
That’s fine, not every team can win the flag and back to backs are even harder, this was never a generational team. More of a brilliantly coached, rag tag, moneyball, last chance short of team.
I might even switch to the radio and get some of the painting / gardening done.

[Boot]

Tough loss - but thoroughly outplayed. The scoreline flattered us I think, even though we missed a couple absolute sitters that in theory could have snuck in a win for us.

I'm not one for a complete meltdown - however - I do usually have one game every year where you reality hits and you go from being all chips in on a flag, to where reality hits and you realise that it wont be your team. It was probably round 12 in 2020. It was probably round 7 in 2021 when we lost to GC to go 1-6. In 2022 I came crashing down after that heartbreaking prelim loss, and, well, there wasnt tha't moment last year.

For me that game - where you go from planning your movements around September, and digesting every column inch and radio minute about your team to getting on with the rest of your life - was Friday night. It wont be us this year, and its too debilitating on the rest of my life to get completely cut-up when you lose because you have invested so much in the team's performance.

We need to be building momentum now not trying to kick start something. There are other teams that are gathering steam (although there were also upsets galore on the weekend), while we are coughing and spluttering. Injury is clearly a factor - as it is for most teams who have a protracted run. So is form, as is the desire for the rest of the competition to improve. I am of the crowd that thinks the differences between most teams is marginal and the difference between most injury-free teams is really between the ears. We had that covered last year, but it feels like that's gone now - its someone else's turn to 'believe' the flag is theirs.

For our team, its now up to the coaches to troubleshoot their way through this. I thought it was instructive that our two best were the two oldest guys. We need to figure out how to win without Nick having 30 and kicking 2 goals, because other teams have figured out that they can forgo a player to tag him and the net loss to our side is greater than the net loss to their team.

Of course we want to win - but the reality is that you dont win every game. I'll be following the team with a different mindset: how do we engineer the list and game style that will put us in the position we were in at round 12-14 last year? We wont be the team we were in 2023 ever again - I have adjusted my expectations accordingly (which is always painful).

Good post.
The season looks lost due to injuries, inconsistency and poor form of senior players (e.g. Darcy Moore). The last two weeks have crippled us in terms of injuries sustained and losses that have cost us the chances to be ensconced in the top 4 and without key players available the hard draw (there aren't that many easy games atm) makes it unlikely to enable us to be competing at the business end of the season which is terribly disappointing after the joy and success of 2023.
I too thought it strange to have Howe playing forward with Mihocek and Kreuger already in the forward line. Maybe getting games into Charlie Dean is the reason. I think Dean is a positive at the moment and would be happy to see him continue to get games for the remainder of this year.
Still looking at the other positives from the weekend - Nathan Kreuger is gaining some experience at the AFL and is managing to not only stay on the park for an extended time but is showing some of the promising form that we all have hoped for ever since he was recruited to the club. I hope the club resigns Kreuger for one more year to reward him for his efforts so far but also to ensure he stays well motivated to keep doing what he's done for the last few weeks.

Ned Long - Looked comfortable enough at the AFL level. Probably needs to improve his tank between now and next season a bit to be able to compete with the best for longer. I wonder if his lack of tank was why he was used as the sub for his first game with Collingwood? Potentially Ned Long will be a nice pick-up to the list and I feel Long offers more than Lachie Sullivan who I think has too many limitations to be a top-liner at AFL level.

Harvey Harrison - 2 goals is a good contribution and his pace is a weapon we definitely need. Has performed well this season and hopefully will continue to develop further over the next 18 months to become a real offensive weapon for us.

Hard to find too much else to be positive about at the moment, but hopefully the team will be able to bounce back and defeat Geelong this week.

[Pies2016]

^^^
Some good measured posts above. I will just add to the above theme by saying, in footy, it’s not necessarily about who you play but more so, when you play them. When we played GCS, they had one injury on their entire list ( Weller ) and when we played the Bombers, although they had a handful of injuries, only one may have added to their best 23 and that was Parish. In an equalised competition where so many early picks are coming in better prepared than ever, it’s extremely difficult to compete against a full strength list, when one third of your entire list is off the table for a month or more.

[K]

Sheesh... I know without watching what they're gonna harp on about on Footy Classified tonight...

Leaving Zach Merrett free all the time. In acres of space. While Nick Daicos gets a hard tag. And the week after Geebung showed: shut down Merrett -> shut down Ess.

...
Why start Long as sub when we needed inside mid pressure ? He could have been given a run with role on Caldwell who would have taken him to the contest and at least he could have made him work hard for his ball. Crisp let him run free
...

I just wanna punch Caldwell in the face.

...
Think our top 4 hopes are gone and we’ll be fighting for a spot in the bottom half of the 8 now.

And prolly our flag defence hopes with them....

[Presti35]

And prolly our flag defence hopes with them....

Just hold on

[Piesnchess]

^ Brownlow cheater Cripps doing an ACL would be lovely indeed. NO sympathy for me for those Blue bastards, their fans always wish the worst on our Pies. Stuff em.

So the pain etc Cripps would go through in rehab would be lovely to you would it? I dont like him and if Maynard hit him hard I would cheer but celebrating a serious injury to anyone is going too far.

Horseshit, if you have seen the terrible things Bluescum fans say about our guys , for yrs, on social media, etc, they dont give a flying **** what happens to our guys, real nasty stuff, they joked but Pants passing, sick jokes. wake up.

[David]

"But mum, he did it first!"