Post Match. Saints punish Pies . All comments.

[pietillidie]

This is clearly a case of being underdone. It was always going to be difficult mentally, but being that far off the pace physically makes things uglier.

My main disappointment is how the coaching staff allowed them to enter a season this underdone. Not to mention with such a nasty early fixture.

It might be they knew but couldn't do much about it given the list profile, taking the medicine and hoping to pinch a couple in this early stretch.

A flag in the hand is certainly far better than two in the bush, but the let down is rather unpleasant, that's for sure.

[think positive]

We’ll likely be 0-4 before we’re even in April. Preposterous fixturing and preposterous to have the reigning premiers off the shortest break in living memory play 4 games before anyone else, two of them on the road, and 4 games inside 20 days to start a season. F off. Contrived bullshit from AFL house as usual. Enjoy your shit crowds the rest of the way, AFL.

all of this

[Geek]

This is clearly a case of being underdone. It was always going to be difficult mentally, but being that far off the pace physically makes things uglier.

My main disappointment is how the coaching staff allowed them to enter a season this underdone. Not to mention with such a nasty early fixture.

It might be they knew but couldn't do much about it given the list profile, taking the medicine and hoping to pinch a couple in this early stretch.

A flag in the hand is certainly far better than two in the bush, but the let down is rather unpleasant, that's for sure.

Look at our final 4 weeks this year. Then, if we have qualified, it's a week off followed by September, where we will now probably have to win 4 finals

My bet is that Wade and co have decided that with us having no preseason to speak of, we can't peak twice in one season and are better focussing on peaking in August/Sept

We can't have lost that much run in 6 months from training poorly. It's like we haven't been training at all. Even our skills have deserted us.

There's no sense tanking as we once again have no first rounder. Gotta make sure we don't develop any defeatist habits.

But if I'm wrong, then footy might be a hard watch again for a few years while we sort out our next list iterationn

[doriswilgus]

We’ll likely be 0-4 before we’re even in April. Preposterous fixturing and preposterous to have the reigning premiers off the shortest break in living memory play 4 games before anyone else, two of them on the road, and 4 games inside 20 days to start a season. F off. Contrived bullshit from AFL house as usual. Enjoy your shit crowds the rest of the way, AFL.

Yes,we have been royally screwed by the AFL regarding the draw.It’s ridiculous that we’ve played three games before most sides have even played two games.And this is after having the shortest preseason of any side in the competition.

[Magpietothemax]

Well a positive is that Darcy Cameron played another fantastic game and would be a clear Copeland trophy leader at the moment.
Also Frampton was very good and provide more of a contest throughout the game.

The game was over once McCrae was named as sub. Not saying that he would’ve been the difference but it displayed the mindset and direction of the coaching staff which imho said in bold letters “SAME AS 2023”.

Yep.
I was really devastated when Fin was called sub.
As you said,such a decision shows an orientation.
Of course, if Fin had been in the playing 22, that would not necessarily have made the difference.
But the decision itself reeked of conservatism, lack of faith in the youth, desperately clinging to the past when it is being rapidly superseded.
Our coaches and selectors need to wake up to reality and adjust. Otherwise we will see a collapse into sub-mediocrity and no path forward.

[Piesnchess]

What a waste of a game.

Poor decision making, turnovers galore, allowing St Kilda to walk it up the ground into our goals.

And of courseFree Kicks 30-15. How is an ex-St Kilda player allowed to umpire a Collingwood game! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Fisher

I’m not blaming the umpires for the loss because we were woeful,but that was just about the worst umpiring display I’ve ever seen.Every 50/50 decision went their way,and every time we looked like gaining a bit of momentum the umpires intervened to give them a bit of breathing space.It was so obvious.

Agreed, umpiring was atrocious, disgusting, beyond biased But I dont blame that for our insipid effort. Cox had a red hot go, pity many of our players did not bother. Time for Fly to call a team meeting ASAP tomorrow, early, and thrash this debacle loss out, dont hold anything back. maybe a good old fashioned bake by the Coach. AND for now at least, no more Darcy grins and smiles laughs, as we take the field, that over now, i want to see us with grim determination on our faces now Time to rest sidey, Mitchell, maybe even Crisp, time to inject some more youth into our side, shake things up a bit, being in some kids, it can often re juvenate a stale team.

[Charlie Oneeye]

For those of us who have been following footy for long long time, how many times have we walked away from a few bad losses not knowing where the improvement could possibly come from.

Tonight we made a shitload of skill and decision errors,..
1 tackle inside 50!!!! to their 10 !.
We did a lot of chasing and a lot of 180's fixing our turnovers.

Yet I also saw increasing glimpses of form. Not enough to offest our bad form, but I reckon a few % better, we would have should have beaten the Saints easily.

So we improve ball movement, more options, less turnovers where it hurts, and all of a sudden the good parts of our game will look a lot better.

12 wins got you in the 8 last year.

[What'sinaname]

Dear Fly.

You trust in the process, but the process this year is delivering defects. You have yo recognise this and change the process.

[masoncox]

WOW. WHERE DO WE START:

Can't be bothered forensically examining it. OLD, SLOW, FUMBLING AND SKILL-LESS.

Yep
St Kilda are an ordinary side.
Which makes us a dud side.
Lucky we won the flag last year because it wont happen this year.

[i hate carlton]

Gutted.

Going to be hard to go back to back playing like this.

[What'sinaname]

Can someone please tell me what Beau McCreery does to warrant an automatic selection every week? Asking for a friend.

[masoncox]

Can someone please tell me what Beau McCreery does to warrant an automatic selection every week? Asking for a friend.

good tackler.
the rest...........????

[warburton lad]

Thirty frees to fifteen.

15 points down and with all the momentum- McInnes gets his arms chopped 20 metres out- no free... then Higgins kicks a goal from outside the boundary line... game essentially over...

The most one-sided display of umpiring this century.

The draw put out by the AFL condemned Collingwood to a tardy start.

We can still make the eight, but if we lose a few more, I would be doing everything to get games into: Macrae, Carmichael, Jath, Allan, Steene, Begg, Ryan and De Mattea.

Any thought of playing McStay, or rushing Murphy back should be put on more ice than Walt Disney...

Prepare for the Next Gen Magpie team.

[Jezza]

The season is almost done and dusted and it's barely started. Either we get our acts together sooner rather than later and we chase our tail for the rest of the season, or we're essentially Geelong 2023 where we have fleeting moments of brilliance, but are ultimately tired and underdone and we amount to nothing. It's really disappointing to be defending the premiership in this manner, but it's only reiterated why I've cherished the 2023 flag so much.

On the match itself, St Kilda destroyed us on turnover. The fumbles and poor use of the footy handed them the game essentially. This was the same issue that surfaced against GWS and Sydney. The opposition applies pressure and we can't handle the heat or transition out of D50 quickly enough. Some horrific turnovers from Moore, Maynard and Sidebottom that cost us dearly.

Our ability to transition from the back half and generate scores was our biggest strength in 2022 and 2023, so to see this aspect of our game go missing is really concerning. Looks like opposition clubs have studied us in depth and have identified ways to cut off our movement. I think the predictability in our style isn't helping us now.

The inclusions in Frampton and McInnes were pretty good. Frampton looked competent down back and stopped St Kilda's talls from taking easy marks inside 50 and McInnes was a honest and reliable forward option. Really disappointed that Fin Macrae started as the sub again. I don't think it's sending the right message to our fringe players and youngsters if we're not going to utilise him to his full extent.

There were small glimpses of what we can do well (halfway through the last quarter being a case in point), but it was too few and far between unfortunately. The squad looks underdone and tired. I've been worried that age is now catching up with us and our Premiership window might be coming to an end. Thankfully, we capitalised on last year before it was slammed shut and our veterans fell off a cliff metaphorically speaking.

The umpiring was atrocious and arguably killed our momentum in the last quarter, but it wasn't the reason for our defeat. It was our mistakes in the defensive 50 that cost us.

Doesn't get any easier with Brisbane next week. We're very likely to be 0-4 heading into Gather Round.

[BenBronx]

The last team to start 0-3 and make the top four was North Melbourne in 2007. The last team to do it and make the Grand Final was North Melbourne in 1976; the year before, they were 0-3 and won the flag.