Questions???

[Ronny Rotten]

I'm aware all incidents from the game affect the final result but in the dying stages of a tight contest the incidents are more heavily weighted & scrutinised however i have some questions.

MAGGOTS: Why did the maggot McBurney put the whistle to his mouth then change his mind when Dempsey ran down the player & excuted a perfect tackle. Result "play on" then ball goes to Bris. forward line? I had a perfect view of the maggot doing this directly in front of me on the wing.
Why was the "mark' paid to Bradshaw? I thought you had to hold it for longer than .02 seconds to pay a mark. Must have thought he was a Footscray player.

LONERGAN: What was he thinking? At the best of times you DON'T KICK ACROSS GOAL so why do it in a tight game when you had safer options. He telegraphed his move allowing Brown to intercept the pass, if he wanted to kick across goal he had NLM on his own further away from goal.
What he should have done is go back wait for players to mass on the wing & boot it far up the ground as possible , out of danger. We win the game.
Players appear robotic at times & don't think.

SELECTION: Please more support for Ryder, I know Bellchambers did the undisciplined thing in getting rubbed out when we are short of rucks but Hooker could have been retained for this game.

All in all this was a vast improvement on previous efforts & our future looks good when these guys gain more experience but please think clearer in tight games.
But this game will rate with the Norf, Adelaide & Richmond game as one that got away.......

[robrulz5]

I saw McBurney put his whistle to his mouth as well, he also started the arm movement for holding the ball.

We turned the ball over alot when going for the short option by hand and foot. At times some players don't seem to have the awareness around them. I think if their is nothing on short or even long they should just kick the ball as far forward as they can. There is more of a chance of a turnover going sideways an kicking short.

[MH_Bomber]

Yes Lonergan's kick was high risk BUT when McPhee took that fantastic saving mark WHY the hell didnt he ice the clock by about 20 seconds and then simply kick it 50 metres along the boundary to get it out of the danger zone. He took that great mark but played on immediately.

[billyduckworth]

It was a strange game, wasn't it? In patches, we really looked brilliant and then at other times we made the most monumentally stupid stuff ups. I have coached (and umpired) quite a bit of school footy over the years and some of the errors made last night, believe me, were more amateurish than the U10s that I have dealt with. We seem to excuse our team all the time because "oh well, they're only young" but these guys are ADULTS not kids and are VERY highly paid, so it beats me why they make so many incredibly dumb errors in a game.

(the number two favourite excuse, after youth, is "pressure" , but I would maintain that quite a few of the clangers last night were under no pressure at all)

[paddyl90]

I love the 'what if' situations, I've gone through them myself the past 24 hours

[merc_2]

Will not change the result. We might have blown it last night...but in reality we blew it against Richmond and West Coast. The way Richmond are getting slaughtered by the Swans today...proves how pathetic we were!

[s'dreams]

Biggest question from last night was why with a minute to go did the team abandon its game plane and try to milk the clock?

Last nights "what ifs" and whys (eg why was Bradshaw unmanned in the goalsquare at the stoppage, why did McPhee kick it off the ground) pale into insignificance compared to the questions from the previous two weeks. Biggest one ... Why did we lose to a rabble such as Richmond?

Last night's result was a fair result given the state of play over the whole 100 minutes (can we still say that) of the game. It hurts when we had the game in our keeping, but drawing with a potential top 4 team given the state of injuries is (hollowly) encouraging.

Cheers - STI