I watched the replay this morning, we played well in moments but were too comfortable about it, like we could pick and choose when to go hard. It's a horrible mindset to have, it sets you up for failure on the biggest stage, we'll be the team who could have if we had chosen to!
Back in our glory days, the era of Dominator and Doull, we never let up, we went harder at it for longer than the opposition and set a standard that intimidated opposition. It become a meme in our 3rd quarters, and ear worm for the opposition that they could not escape. But make no mistake about it, it was driven by the likes of Dominator and Doull, who hit the playing surface every week wishing to obliterate the opponents, not just have a well-managed win.
I'd love to know what Davies and Wright are thinking right about now.
If you search for it there was an interview with Davies just late last week, I think it was either SEN or Fox Footy, that had Davies basically ruling a line through Fraser stating he has some deficiencies and is not yet ready for senior coaching.
What's interesting to me is that this raises the question, why then is the current setup working? Is it on the players, or is a less autocratic model perhaps the real solution, a solution that most in the AFL can't accept?
We can't know, but I truly suspect Davies comments indicate that at the moment the weekly result is an unsustainable team effort, who'd have thunk it?
To me that's old world thinking, corporate mentality, the opposite of war, and it flies in the face of the concept that a champion team defeats a team of champions. The most effective unit in the military is the small independant unit SAS model, the opposite of Trump's war on Iran, smart and agile is better than overwhelmingly powerful.
AFL is war, break the game down into a set of small independant battles to win, and you are well on the way to victory in any circumstance!
I think fans are measuring the result against our recent history, so it looks extremely positive, it's like having a meat raffle win when you are a pauper, the win is a feast.
But it's the wrong relative measure, it should be measured against competition wide results, we aren't supping on lobster just yet, really it was the sort of minimal result we should be expecting if we are any good at all!
We sit in the wildcard spot for the next 3 hours!!! Collingwood playing Richmond will kick us out again unfortunately.
We really needed a big percentage booster today, as good as it was to win it was a bit of an opportunity missed.
It's not going to be good enough to finish on par with the Filth, because they might be injury ravaged but they have an easier run home. Us, Norp and the Suns have a tougher run home.
A bit of a lull in the middle of the last, but the boys are coming home strong.
West Coast have been pretty competitive in the last few weeks. This is a great effort by the boys. Well done to all concerned. Some more accuracy on goal and it could've been 10 goals +.
Agreed, didn't get to watch it today but I'm happy and yet disappointed at the same time. This week was our chance to come out of this round with a percentage equal to the Filth or Norp.
As I've said before until we start to slaughter sides like Wet Toast we aren't really going anywhere near the top end. I was hoping for 10+ but fearing a defeat today, my fears are allayed and it's a good sign, but we didn't hurt that bunch of spuds in the way we should have.
Winning comfortably is the problem, the comfortable part, it doesn't give me confidence we have the killer instinct we need to go hard against the top end when the going gets tough.
PS; If you want to know the definition of disappointing, it's only being able to get MMM reception and the first person you hear is BT! FFS, he spent 1/2 of the game discussing police surrounding the coach's bench! He should hand back his pay cheque for today, if he doesn't want to be at or call Carlton games, then please BT do not bother to show up because you are accepting a paycheck fraudulently!
Weiters didn't complete his fitness test so we're going with an unchanged lineup.
Weiters does seem to struggle with sofe tissue injuries - perhaps a consequence of having humungous muscles.
Well, I suppose everything comes at a price, and he's certainly not Joe Average in the strength stakes. I remember when fans were throwing rocks at him for being too small to stand gorillas!
I also remember when the club mismanaged SpecialK, and turned the AFL's most hardened aerobic ruck beast into a 120kg chandelier.
I can't say I'm a big fan of Matthew Guy, the bloke lacks something, but if that circulated clip is the alleged "assault" on Moira Deeming, then her credibility is also shot! Opportunity knocks.
Also, the Victorian Liberal Party. It's either mind numbingly stupid or ridiculously toxic, maybe both. Because at a bare minimum this appears to be acting in bad faith on several fronts, about as bad as it gets!
I'm not confident this week, after watching the replay of the GWSD match I saw signs of the team work ethic slipping, in respect to reverting to some bad habits that have largely been absent for the last few weeks. Against CheatsFC it was just ugly execution by both teams, but moments in the GWS game saw a bit of selfishness returning and to me that's a bad indicator after only a handful of wins.
Believing their own hype maybe?
Wet Toast will think we are cherry ripe for the picking after seeing some of the old stuff creep into the GWS game.
I feel conflicted only giving Cripps 3 votes, but watching the replay I felt Walsh and Hewett had more influence over the outcome. I can only give the Team a B because I noticed some old bad habits starting to slip into the execution. This week will be interesting, the squad might be starting to relax and that could lead to an unexpected result.
All players suffer it to some degree, it's a consequence of increased scrutiny.
Picking Daicos as an exception doesn't work as his worst year statistically was his 2nd season, so he isn't one of the handful of exceptions. Nick Daicos career to date on FinalSiren
But my comment is more about the stupid things fans blame on the coach. (Actually, they are right to blame a coach, just that they blame the wrong coach, it's the opposition coach who is at fault!)
The next year Cripps won the Brownlow, Curnow kicked 64 goals and we recruited Hewitt and Cerra - How good a coach was Voss? Did Teague get any credit for player development?
Of course he did, at least he did from anyone not blinded by hate or rage.
Did Teague return, no, will Voss return, no, does Voss deserve some credit, absolutely he does!
