Post match. Pies down to Bulldogs. All comments please.

[bally12]

Some thoughts on players' efforts:

Jordy De Goey - fumbly, bad choices, looks tired, and needs a spell.
Fas - 20m out on your left..just bang it through mate. What's with right-foot banana crap. You have a left foot I hope? Geez we are lacking some class in the forward line. There's a Daicos coming through next yr..we can only hope.
Brody - liked what you have brought the last few weeks, although seem to suffer from ruckman-brain-fade disease. Tempted to have another look at Witts, as he had a good game in the 2's last week.
Maynard - you have similar gait to Stuart Dew. You have a powerful leg. Get a tape and watch how he used his left hand to guide the ball onto his boot and time his kicks. At the moment kicking is very wobbly. Make it a weapon.
Oxley - pretty poor again. Needs a lot more development. I guess we don't have anything better in the 2's at the moment.
Jesse White - 45m out...we needed that goal. You didn't make the distance. What to say? Outside of this, was good.
Treloar - 55m goal on the run. Yessss!!!! Boy have we missed this type of player. Will be a beauty for us.
Pendles - couple of bad errors. Forgive and forget.
Sidey - our most important player. Was a steal at pick 11 (pun intended).
Howe, Reid and Frost were great.
Coxy had some important touches. Gets involved. 1 more preseason working on agility and power, and he/we will be an unstoppable force.
Crocker - tracking nicely, lots to like.

Overall, gutsy performance today. We had the game on our terms until injuries hit. In truth, we should have been 5 goals up if we had some class in the forward half, and nailed our chances. Finals are gone I'm afraid, but at least we can go to the footy and be proud of this team.

[AN_Inkling]

[eddiesmith]

So we lost to the indoor speciallists at the MCG and everyone wants to be proud of the loss?

This is a side that has had some shocking losses, our only wins are against the 3 worst sides in the league and a lucky win against Geelong that after today no longer looks like a great win.

Freo have probably pencilled in Collingwood for their first win of the year

[Monco Matt]

This game will harden us up like no other game will guys. Believe it. We had 18 blokes out there for half an hour fighting tooth and nail against massive odds and we did not break. They won by 3 and half goals and I reckon any other team in our situation would have rolled over on the wide wings of the G with a hard running dogs team all over you. I am usually a sceptic Pies fan but I know heart when I see it.

[Mugwump]

Some thoughts on players' efforts:

Jordy De Goey - fumbly, bad choices, looks tired, and needs a spell.
Fas - 20m out on your left..just bang it through mate. What's with right-foot banana crap. You have a left foot I hope? Geez we are lacking some class in the forward line. There's a Daicos coming through next yr..we can only hope.
Brody - liked what you have brought the last few weeks, although seem to suffer from ruckman-brain-fade disease. Tempted to have another look at Witts, as he had a good game in the 2's last week.
Maynard - you have similar gait to Stuart Dew. You have a powerful leg. Get a tape and watch how he used his left hand to guide the ball onto his boot and time his kicks. At the moment kicking is very wobbly. Make it a weapon.
Oxley - pretty poor again. Needs a lot more development. I guess we don't have anything better in the 2's at the moment.
Jesse White - 45m out...we needed that goal. You didn't make the distance. What to say? Outside of this, was good.
Treloar - 55m goal on the run. Yessss!!!! Boy have we missed this type of player. Will be a beauty for us.
Pendles - couple of bad errors. Forgive and forget.
Sidey - our most important player. Was a steal at pick 11 (pun intended).
Howe, Reid and Frost were great.
Coxy had some important touches. Gets involved. 1 more preseason working on agility and power, and he/we will be an unstoppable force.
Crocker - tracking nicely, lots to like.

Overall, gutsy performance today. We had the game on our terms until injuries hit. In truth, we should have been 5 goals up if we had some class in the forward half, and nailed our chances. Finals are gone I'm afraid, but at least we can go to the footy and be proud of this team.

Yes, some good observations there. The decline of Oxley has been surprising, as he looked the goods a few weeks ago. Now he looks slow, fumbly, amd as though he has lost his confidence in the air. Sinclair will be back soon, hopefully.
De goey is hopefully just having second/third year blues. He just doesn't seem the player he was, amd promised to be, last year.
I don't see it with Maynard. He looks a turnover specialist to me, amd just to lack the required smarts at this level.

[RudeBoy]

So we lost to the indoor speciallists at the MCG and everyone wants to be proud of the loss?

This is a side that has had some shocking losses, our only wins are against the 3 worst sides in the league and a lucky win against Geelong that after today no longer looks like a great win.

Freo have probably pencilled in Collingwood for their first win of the year

You're absolutely right. Bucks lost us this game. The players clearly do not want to play for him and they have no idea of what our game-plan is. Sack the coach.

[AN_Inkling]

This was a bit of a frustrating game. Even with the injuries we could have kicked more goals and possibly just held on late, but didn't quite execute. Not horrible, as the Dogs play very good team defense and picking the right option is not easy. They had the same problem for most of the game against our defense.

Thought Varcoe was no good again. Has not played well in any game since returning from injury. Fumbly, using the ball poorly and not getting enough of it (though 17 today wasn't too bad). If we didn't have so many injuries I'd be wanting him dropped.

[Mugwump]

So we lost to the indoor speciallists at the MCG and everyone wants to be proud of the loss?

This is a side that has had some shocking losses, our only wins are against the 3 worst sides in the league and a lucky win against Geelong that after today no longer looks like a great win.

Freo have probably pencilled in Collingwood for their first win of the year

You're absolutely right. Bucks lost us this game. The players clearly do not want to play for him and they have no idea of what our game-plan is. Sack the coach.

I think Eddie may have taken one too many in the head. He probably gave 5 votes to Cloke today, as usual.

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

Disappointing to lose a game we controlled for three quarters, but can't put this one on the players, being 4 and then 5 men down made a win almost impossible.

The big positive from this game is that we again won the midfield battle and defended well (Howe and Reid in particular were excellent).

The other takeaway is that, as expected, Cox is virtually useless against a good team defense. He doesn't clunk tough marks and also struggles to hold anything up the ground on the long lead.

We badly need Cloke playing to be a serious team. Unfortunately it looks as if his return will be too late for any finals chance.

Cox wasn't virtually useless today. I thought he played well. So he didn't clunk his marks. Some weeks it comes off. Sometimes it doesn't. It was one of those days for Cox. The main thing is that he presents and offers a target which he did today.

[thompsoc]

This was a bit of a frustrating game. Even with the injuries we could have kicked more goals and possibly just held on late, but didn't quite execute. Not horrible, as the Dogs play very good team defense and picking the right option is not easy. They had the same problem for most of the game against our defense.

Thought Varcoe was no good again. Has not played well in any game since returning from injury. Fumbly, using the ball poorly and not getting enough of it (though 17 today wasn't too bad). If we didn't have so many injuries I'd be wanting him dropped.

what the hell is wrong with Varcoe?
No spark there what so ever.

[doriswilgus]

So we lost to the indoor speciallists at the MCG and everyone wants to be proud of the loss?

This is a side that has had some shocking losses, our only wins are against the 3 worst sides in the league and a lucky win against Geelong that after today no longer looks like a great win.

Freo have probably pencilled in Collingwood for their first win of the year

Wow that makes depressing reading.I feel like giving up after reading that.

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

This was a bit of a frustrating game. Even with the injuries we could have kicked more goals and possibly just held on late, but didn't quite execute. Not horrible, as the Dogs play very good team defense and picking the right option is not easy. They had the same problem for most of the game against our defense.

Thought Varcoe was no good again. Has not played well in any game since returning from injury. Fumbly, using the ball poorly and not getting enough of it (though 17 today wasn't too bad). If we didn't have so many injuries I'd be wanting him dropped.

If you want to blame someone, blame De Goey. Not suggesting he gets dropped but FFS, he's a No5 draft pick. He fumbles a couple of times in the forward line. Those are missed opportunities which could have resulted in goals. The ball then goes down the other end for Bulldogs goals. That's a four goal turnaround in my book. Crocker is a 60's draft pick in his first year and he made the most from his limited opportunities. So what's De Goey's excuse for a no5 draft pick who's not clean by hand and foot in his second year. He needs to start justifying the faith that his coach has in him.

[Woods]

[PyreneesPie]

Following on from what Buck's said about not taking out opportunities when we could, (which I agree with), Luke Beveridge has acknowledged that the Doggies dodged a bullet and were only able to overcome us in the last quarter because we had no bench.

[thompsoc]

Following on from what Buck's said about not taking out opportunities when we could, (which I agree with), Luke Beveridge has acknowledged that the Doggies dodged a bullet and were only able to overcome us in the last quarter because we had no bench.

The dogs bringing the ball into their forward half was woeful, the same as us.