Our hardness and toughness seem conditional. And Pinot is right, it's psychological for us. We have the ability and can be hard and tough but fail to do it consistently, in games and week to week.
In too many games/quarters when the opposition hits us hard we resort to safe; we go into our shells. Hardness and toughness are dialled down as confidence weakens - above the shoulders. At our best, we've plenty of hardness and toughness but it wavers far too much. Being mentally tough does not allow that to happen.
Last night I saw two sides with persistent mental hardness and toughness, from the first bounce right to the final siren. The physical hardness and toughness flowed from the psychological relentless determination and ruthless, even desperate, commitment to every contest.
We dominated the cats through all the conditions Melbourne can throw out there.
Guerrin, Hill, McKay and Sherar dominated the midfield against a Prespakis-less Cats. Bree Moody and Good dominated the ruck giving them first use.
Celine Moody and Vescio need to lift. Not getting enough from these big names.
I only saw bits and pieces but from what I did see it appeared the gal's defensive pressure was really good and they seemed to be hand-balling more into space, breaking the game open and spreading, rather than those dinky handballs into trouble? Good win.
To a person, every Bluebagger I know is at least perplexed and deeply disappointed through to still hurting and even angry. And that anger is due to most of us knowing those changes at selection last week were problematic, even silly.
Vossy attempting to justify his selections of so many suspect players having gotten through the game without injury is embarrassing. Not about that at all. Apart from TDK and perhaps H, how many of those inclusions made a strong, positive impact on the game? How could they, they were underdone and lacked match fitness and confidence.
And for Brad Lloyd to put our failure and consistent inconsistency at the feet of injury, alone, was convenient and predictable. He obviously believes members and supporters are supremely gullible. I'm betting that behind closed doors there are smarter people asking stronger questions. Well, I hope so. When accountability is avoided no meaningful change can take hold and stick.
Was The Terrier's departure the scapegoat that the failures of others needed for a collective sign of relief? 'Don't look at me, it's all his fault.'
Overall it didn't matter, but it was when we had all the momentum and would've continued that. Instead it halted it.
Not sure how you can say he didn't control it. It never hit the ground. Nobody else touched it. Its a mark.
To suggest that had that mark been paid we would have continued with the momentum and possibly won the game, is just too much of a stretch for me. You might be right, we'll never know. But it sure did look like Brisvegas were by far the better side.
Line ball? Replay showed he was 100% under it without a doubt.
Memo to umps: If you are unsure, look at what the opposition player does. If they stop and stand the mark, its a mark. If they try and jump on the player, it hit the ground first.
But didn't control it enough. K, I'm with you, I agree... but I'm looking at it from the umps POV.
But, really, in the totality of it all, it's a non issue. Ultimately, it would not have mattered whether that mark was paid and he goaled. We were an embarrassment. Confused and bereft of spirit.
It's interesting listening to various media today, banging on about our SFs and the Sub selection, neither of which had any bearing on the first 50 minutes of the game. It's low brow cheap click bait made for ratings, fed from the vitriol being spread by silly fans and trolls on social media.
The mainstream media are supposed to report from an expert base, not just behave as an echo chamber for nuffies!
Not only are many of them right, they're actually stating the bloomin' obvious! What compounds the blatant errors is that after selection many noted the baffling ins and outs. And were proven correct... no hindsight cleverness, concerns over our SFs were voiced after selection and have been for much of the season, with the exception of Owies.
Don't agree with the Midfield comments, Lloyd said the mix isn't quite right, and he stated the same about the Dogs, who with us are basically one of the most dominant Midfields in the AFL competition for the bulk of this season.
Sorry, Spotted One, as many notable footy commentators noted, we're too one paced in the midfield and lack dynamic spread. Hopefully they realise that Cinc is a mid with genuine foot speed and should spend the preseason training as such. Point is, we might be very good, but we can be much better... and need to be.
I the other finals games had small fwds doing damage, ours were a liability.
Yep. In fact small forwards in other finals were influential. What continues to gall me, and many others, is that we knew our small forwards were in ordinary form and selected them anyway... over a few blokes who were in good form.
I’m in agreement with LP about the turnovers particularly in the first 1/2. We got the ball under pressure usually and bombed it… where it was picked off and controlled, as opposed to them bombing it back. We needed to get a short kick to a target in blue instead we bombed to maroon and blue ! Make no mistake, they were waiting for our bombs and were ready to offer the short lead to allow them to control the ball.
Same old, same old NB... soon as H returned we predicted the bombing would return, and it did. Against the Weagles, we couldn't bomb and had to lower our eyes, and we did, and we scored.
The assertion people saw this coming is bullsh1t, nobody saw the once in a 50 year event coming, we were 180 seconds away from something that's never happened before in the history of VFL/AFL and nobody predicted it.
I believe the point K is making is that most saw what the MC did was problematic. No, no-one could have predicted it would be as bad as it was in the first half... but that's not the point. The point is that we took non-hackers, as evidenced by their results over many weeks, into the game when there was an option to select in-form blokes. Very big dots and very easy to join up those dots and predict an obvious outcome.
Just one example of those dots was the omission of Cinc, and, say, giving Motlop a gig. One has been delivering, the other hasn't. That's not on Motlop, that's on the foolishness of the MC.
Maybe our mistake wasn't so much not playing some of these youngsters last night....but not giving them more game time through the year. The Hawthorn youngsters have been given lots of opportunities through the season...often against tougher opposition than Lord (albeit only half a year) , Moir and Binns have experienced.
The Hawthorn mob are growing together and are ready to take on the challenge of finals.
Binns should really have a lot more than 3 games (one as sub) already. Others like Lemmey should have at least been blooded.
The kids settled OK in the final couple of H&A games but finals are different. We'll never know how they would have gone now, but it was probably as big a risk as playing underdone players...and the result may not have been much different.
No greater risk than taking out of form players into any game.
As I said pregame.... Cincotta kicks as many goals as our small forwards (when played forward, even defensively) but he can be played elsewhere as well. Rotate him through the middle. Put him down back. We lacked versatility from our small forwards and it hamstrung us.
And it really is no more complicated than that. And a few of us were adamant on just that, pre game.
It's one of those occasions when stats tell a story. We failed badly on tackles and efficiency inside 50. We had the same number of inside 50s as Brisvegas. Most other stats were competitive.
Most of knew, not 'thought' or had a hunch, that Motlop and Durdin did not have good form going into the game. Similar was Fantasia. We knew that Cinc was the perfect match-up for Zorko. Who tore us a new one and launched so many attacks from defense, especially early when the game is on the line? Zorko. He played with our small forwards... the out-of-form non-hackers.
When your forward line is dysfunctional, especially early, you just don't get scoreboard pressure... and with the scoreboard not ticking over the entire side gets no reward for effort... dopamine drained. Motivation sapped.
You never take low performing players into a game, let alone a final. Conversely, you bet on blokes with good form, regardless of age, experience or reputation.
