Post Match. Pies bombed. All comments.

[Piesnchess]

HEAR HEAR, WELL SAID, BRAVO. At long last, some common sense, Totally agree, mass injuries have ruined our season, second only to the Tigers, and look at them now. We do have some promising kids, and we will hit the trades hard. I wonder what the reaction would be if we beat the Cats next week, every game is different.

Good Lord. I forgot about the rose coloured glasses brigade. Now you remind me of them. That was a long time ago.

Both Noble and McCreery out this week, now Cameron and Checkers season over, THAT is not a long time ago, its ****, and it never ends.

[Haff]

They took 18 marks inside 50 (33% more than there season average)
They took 129 uncontested marks there most in over 9 years and 42 more than there season average
We laid only 43 tackles the entire game (25 under our season average) and only 4 inside our attacking 50 (they had 12)
We had 48 ineffective or broken tackles the most ever in a game under McRae
They had 279 uncontested possessions 40 more than there season average
There disposal efficiency was a tick under 80%

Good post. That is damning. Reflective of personnel either missing or underdone BUT mostly effort.

Fly is going to have “fun” working that out…

[Culprit]

Premiership Hangover, Too many passengers and the mounting injury list doesn’t help. Get games into the youngsters and those we wish to trade. Finals is a chance and in saying that, the teams struggling in all areas. Can’t afford to drop games now.

[masoncox]

Premiership Hangover, Too many passengers and the mounting injury list doesn’t help. Get games into the youngsters and those we wish to trade. Finals is a chance and in saying that, the teams struggling in all areas. Can’t afford to drop games now.

Get games into who?
Who looks worth the investment.
As I said we have lost 9 games in a row in the VFL.
Maybe some more games into Johnson????
As I have said the only player that looks at this stage that is worth it is JT.
Maybe Reef may do ok.
The cupboard is bare and we have little draft picks this year.

[Piesnchess]

^ Both Harrison and young Richards show great potential. Others like Steen, Begg, Reef, may step up yet. With retirements, according to Kayo , footy panel, we have a shit load of cash for the trades, a war chest, so lets see how that goes.

[shawthing]

Well still be ok next season, hopefully we can get Bailey to help our stuttering midfield and go again, hopefully doing a Geelong 09-11.

The are multiple holes all over the ground. With Murphy gone now take a look at our spine. We have zero KPPs. Moore isn't one! We have no CHF and Checkers (even at his best) is a poor man's FF. What I'd give to have this spine right now:

FB - Jeff Clifton
CHB - Ted Potter
C - Barry Price
CHF - Len Thompson
FF - Peter McKenna.

That is the pinnacle of greatest spines in Collingwood's history. By the way all things being equal (i.e. the 1970 players were fully professional and 2024 match fit) the 1970 Collingwood side would beat this mob by 15 goals EASILY! Hell, McKenna would kick 16 by himself!

No we are kidding ourselves if we put this problem down to just injuries. That's the final nail in our 2024 season for sure, but our list is neither balanced nor fully equipped. We have too many "good ordinary footballers" as Jack Dyer used to say. Last year is gone and thank God we won the flag.

How many years will it take us to bring together a list capable of winning again. This one isn't. Not any longer. We have been passed very quickly and by our two most hated rivals. Tough times never last, but are we tough enough as a club to make the really hard decisions on recruiting?

The most effective start to the new Collingwood list would be to send Derek Hine packing. The man is a joke. He is obsessed with midgets and that fraudulent "moneyball" theory. It never really worked for the Oakland As, and it's never worked anywhere.

But right now I would do anything to have even one key position player in place. Even our rucks aren't really ruckmen when all is said and done. By the way our ruckmen in 1970 stack up pretty well too, Jerker Jenkin and Terry Waters! And don't forget that Des Tuddenham would be tougher than any single player on our 2024 team. He ran through brick walls for fun! Just ask Peter McKenna (and that cost us the 1970 flag).

[shawthing]

With retirements, according to Kayo , footy panel, we have a shit load of cash for the trades, a war chest, so lets see how that goes.

Free agents have been staying at home in the past few years. They accept a little less money for longer term contracts. Perhaps we could get Dusty Martin for a season. I'm only joking because he is exactly the type of player we have been trading for - once great but now broken down (Mitchell anyone?). No draft picks at all and with Tassie to get all the high picks in a couple of years the draft will kill us. No other teams want to trade with us (unless they see Hine coming with a first round pick for a spud - but even he's run out of first round picks now).

No we put all our chips on the table last year and won big! That was fantastic. But as the gambling ads tell you, you lose more than you win, and right now we are shirtless in Vegas.

[Pies2016]

They took 18 marks inside 50 (33% more than there season average)
They took 129 uncontested marks there most in over 9 years and 42 more than there season average
We laid only 43 tackles the entire game (25 under our season average) and only 4 inside our attacking 50 (they had 12)
We had 48 ineffective or broken tackles the most ever in a game under McRae
They had 279 uncontested possessions 40 more than there season average
There disposal efficiency was a tick under 80%

Good post. That is damning. Reflective of personnel either missing or underdone BUT mostly effort.

Fly is going to have “fun” working that out…

There are two types of footy statistics. There is the skill related stat that revolves around quality of execution ( or not ) and there are the more important effort based stats that revolve around desire and determination in the moment. I tend to look at effort based stats as the truer indicator of where a team is at, rather than skill based. Your skills can be down for a day but you don’t lose them, more so you’re just having a bad day in office like we all do. The real issue is the recent trend of continually losing the effort based stats against our opponents. If you’re going to be successful, then maximum effort is not negotiable. We are collectively simply not applying maximum effort for anywhere near long enough.
In fairness, some of that is due to our injuries which have reached tipping point and we now forced to select players whose effort levels even at their best, isn’t good enough for long enough at AFL level. However, there is also a core of seasoned hardened players who aren’t applying the un compromised effort they were applying 12 months ago. Examining the reasons why is another conversation but the effort based stats from the few weeks don’t lie. The players, as a collective, are not delivering with the same intensity as last year.
Should we all feel cheated by this ? Well I’m certainly not because last years premiership was won by the oldest team to have done so and what we are seeing is hardly an exception to the rule. If people want to continue to be all bent out of shape because we won’t be going back to back, that’s up to them but what they were wanting is far from any reality that was ever likely to unfold ( and even more so with all the injuries we never saw coming two months ago )

[swooper]

C'mon, people. Footy is a game played over our lifetimes, and we all know many periods have been far, far worse and far, far less promising, lacking even in a brilliant season and grand final win. The organisation and culture is in a much better state than in memory to manage a challenging phase like this without throwing the toys out of the cot each and every loss.

Plenty of sides need to reload after a granny win, depending on the state of the list at the time. We've just done it once and soon enough we'll do it again. Have a little faith in what you've seen happen in recent times, and the number of players we're developing and blooding in the light of a shocking injury run.

Thank you, I feel better

[Haff]

Surely every single footy fan is taking winning a flag then falling off the next season. We’re just paying that price now. We’re all still taking it! Every single time.

[Pies2016]

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.

[RudeBoy]

Probably the most disappointing loss we've had under Fly. The worst feature was our absence of tackling pressure.

The truth is that have never really looked like the reigning Premiership team all season. Our veterans are another year older, another year slower. The most disappointing thing to me is that we don't seem to have uncovered any new gems amongst our recent young recruits. Harrison and Richards look like they'll have bright futures, but no-one else is a really standout. From what I've seen so far, neither Macrae, Sullivan, Bytel or Dean look anything but depth players, and the jury is still out on McInnes. I'm not even sure that Schultz is much good, despite my hopes he'd do well. I guess we'll know in a few weeks if Long is any good.

Overall, we look slower and less ferocious than we were last year. Obviously we've also had an injury plagued season, but notwithstanding that, we have been rather disappointing.

Of course things can turn around quickly and unexpectedly, and we may well still have some success in September, but it's looking more doubtful by the day. We may well slide further over the next 2-3 yrs, with the retirements of Pendles, Sidey, Mitchell, Howe, Checkers, Cox and the further ageing of Crisp and JDG.

I hope I'm wrong, as I normally try to see the glass as half full, but in all honesty, I can't see where our improvement can come from.

[1eyedpie]

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.

Don’t know if he is trying to spark IQ into gear or trying to hide him ( I believe the former) but IQ has been very disappointing this year and if for not the sunami of injuries he would have been dropped long ago!

He has been running around not wanting the ball a lot this year!

[Magpietothemax]

^Thanks to P2016 and QldM re the discussion on stats, and the distinction between skills based and effort based stats in assessing a team.
Interesting and significant that a seasoned core of players have their effort stats clearly down compared with last year. I think the injury crisis has totally put us out of contention anyway, but clearly our premiership last year was based on supreme and consistent effort. If the core could not produce it this year, for whatever the reason, we were never going back2back.
I would love for us to regain the effort, and at least play finals this year, but have my doubts whether that is possible due to the injuries and to the age of several of our key players.

[stui magpie]

Look, it was a disappointing result, and effort, after quarter time, but injuries have clearly cruelled our season.

Yes the Don's had a lot of inside 50's and were inaccurate, but we mainly protected the corridoor well and a lot of those inside 50's resulted in missed shots from the pockets. We forced them into low percentage areas to have their shots.

We plan to play a very role specific process driven game. With all the injuries we've had to introduce new players and others have had to change their roles to accomodate them, hence connection is lacking, players find themselves under pressure and making uncharacteristic skill errors.

We also play a game that is also very much effort based. Again, with all the new players, it's harder to maintain the effort.

We've had 9 or 10 players play their first game for Collingwood this season and most of them were playing their first AFL game. That's just ridiculous for a reigning Premier.

It's got nothing to do with fkn hubris and everything to do with the injuries and other teams going to work on our game style.

/rant