Lost at selection?

[barrackers]

Delete

[Tannin]

Moronic posts aplenty here. In FACT, we finished the game with 22 players and very nearly won. With Moore or Reid in the side, we would not have come anywhere near so close. Not just huge injury risks, neither one had played since forever.

[think positive]

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

[mudlark]

There were no selection issues. The game was lost by those 3 green maggots who purport to be fair. The hit on Maynard in the first 1/4,,should not only have been a free kick,Ryan?? should have been reported and given a 50 mtr penalty.Cox was held and or blocked on at least 3 seperate occasions, all within range.The block on Maynard that resulted in the winning goal even had Ling saying it was clear block.Just prior to that we had the ball in our forward line,McGovern got the ball and ran off to kick and was brilliantly tackled and his foot missed the ball.Clearly incorrect disposal no more than 20 mtrs out.The one and only deliberate out of bounds was paid against Treloar and was described by the commentators as being,"Vigorously tackled and slings he kicked.What else could he have done"???This resulted in another repeat entry to west coast.Brilliant tackling by our boys was rarely rewarded and those 3 scum of the earth should hang their heads in shame, but I expect the AFL,as did the commentators will say they covered themselves in glory.Our boys were out gunned by a much too big for us unit. While I'm here I'll have my say on a few issues that cost us through player error. The first and one of the most crucial was the Eagles first goal, that fluke that hit one of their legs and led to 2 in a minute, was Langdon, who had done all the hard work in spoiling and scrambling was 1/2 mtr out from their goal and all he had to do was scramble it over the behind line, but it looked like he tried to keep it in play and managed, somehow,to push it into the square and it hit Rioli's leg as he ran onto it.As good a game as Langdon played, that was unforgiveable and they scored another almost immediately, stuffing up a premiership winning first qtr.Second was when we got the ball out of defence,3rd qtr I think, we got out and were streaming forward it got into Pendelbury's hands and Miochek led into the pocket,3 mtrs clear.As usual, Pendles kick was poor and not only did it miss Miochek and he didn't go hard, he let it bounce,McGovern swooped and they went coast to coast for a goal.I was very critical of Miochek for dropping a LOT of marks but even worse, he fell over just about every time leaving the Eagles to clear, easily. The 3rd is the DeGoey play on, in the last.He has kicked goal after goal from that position yet he played on ,could have straightened up or looked for someone in a front on spot, but wanted to do it all, which would have put us 3 goals up and in a winning position, but NO!!All pipe dreams now.I don't know where we go from here.We won't get anyone we are linked to.May appears to be out of reach, we clearly need a Key Back and a big forward.It's another lost opportunity and another grand final loss to add to the list.I have never felt such devastation before. I said I was finished here but this is my final, last hurrah.Fair well during the off season.

[Pies4shaw]

Well, I’m very interested in analysing why we lost but I don’t think it was the backline. They held up well against a forward line that had a third more inside 50s than ours did. Kennedy and Darling kicked 4 between them. They are good footballers (although Darling remains a pea heart) and will do damage if they get enough chances. Their midfield won the game - they kicked about half West Coadt’s goals, whereas Adams was our only midfielder to hit the scoreboard.

[Collingwood Crackerjack]

Backline wasn't the problem, they kicked 11 goals with all that supply, I thought the backline was epic, as was Mayne.

It was, as others have pointed out, the lack of run and spread in the last, and it was clearly because the boys were absolutely spent; that's the problem with the run and gun style, when it comes to the finals crunch of a close game, what you really need is a down the line contested marker, in fact you need 2 or 3.

Cox did very well, we just needed another

[think positive]

[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]

[Albert Parker]

^Yes, the exact same line up that lost narrowly to this team in a Qualifying Final in similar circumstances.

Again in the last quarter of that match, their midfield got on top and their tall forwards did some damage.

Moore or Reid helps mitigate that aerial edge - as the ball comes in to our defence but also as we try and take the ball out via our kick outs. We seemed to have no avenues to clear the ball out effectively in the 4Q. While Cox was doing his bit, he played a lone hand as a tall, marking option.

Anyway, this forum is not for sniping at one another (incl describing others reasonable observations, based upon observations at the past 4 weeks of training, as moronic) but to discuss what we see with respect to our common love of the Pies.

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

[Mr Miyagi]

Cox was getting whacked across the ears, blatantly. He's 211cm tall, how the **** did the umps not see that?

[Hm]

[RudeBoy]

A strong, fit and in form Moore or Reid would have certainly won us the Grannie, but the fact is neither of them had the necessary form or physical conditioning, that could be relied upon.

[John LEWIN]

This is an excellent thread, it really pinpoints what's required. I saw the team up close today as they were walking to the supporters function, very lean athletically built players. I can see how they got through 104 tackles, chasing like greyhounds. The Eagles are a strong balanced and efficient team they just managed to get past our game with some help from the umpires.

I felt we lost a key piece of the puzzle when Dunn went down and said so at the time. As I watched the players go by today it stood out. But, additionally, the general observations here about marking power around the ground are spot on as is the point about the need for a little more in the midfield, Degoey maybe, some physical prowess to push the confrontational conflict envelope and address the waning of Pendlebury's supremacy.

Clearly we played with a plan built around our depleted playing stocks but couldn't quite pull off the running game. Maybe that is because we were a little more worn than the Eagles over the journey. Perhaps Pendles was off a bit due to meningitis, which wouldn't be at all surprising.

I think it is eminently debatable that we might have played Reid or Moore instead of Aish. It would have been a lively discussion at match committee but in the end the decision to back the 22 selected can't really be criticised with any great force because a whistle against Ryan's block would have seen the Pies win.