Post match v Dogs....all comments here thanks

[The Phantom]

I hate it when we play so bad that this place begins to sound like a richmond site.

[Cam]

smashed today with the bulldogs missing 4-6 players with season ending injuries was a poor effort.
Even effort from the bulldogs where we had none.
do we have to rebuild by having a cleanout? 2003 was our last finals assault thats 3 years ago a lot of the players from that game are playing still do we delist/trade some of them?
Is micks time up? where are we on micks clock now?
some tough decisions to be made before next season?

Our core is too old / too slow to win a premiership. It hurts but its the truth.

[Cannibal]

[Steve86]

why do you guyz all bag lonie. He could play on half forward flank ffs, he doesn't need to play in the backline. Lonie should be on the wing or something. he would start in any other side in the afl so quit your winging, we dont need a scape goat for our team. It was obvious where our problem was. When richards was in the ruck we lost every clearance. Clearances were our only prob against the dogs. We need one or 2 decent clearance players. Id get rid of licuria before lonie. Anyway i dont want to bag them what i want to say is from 2nd last last year to 5th this year is a huge achievement, and after this we can definetly see wat we lack as a side, and im expecting an even bigger improvement next year. Only down side is that I can't watch the boys for 5 months now, im not disapointed in them.

[rocketronnie]

why do you guyz all bag lonie. He could play on half forward flank ffs, he doesn't need to play in the backline. Lonie should be on the wing or something. he would start in any other side in the afl so quit your winging, we dont need a scape goat for our team. It was obvious where our problem was. When richards was in the ruck we lost every clearance. Clearances were our only prob against the dogs. We need one or 2 decent clearance players. Id get rid of licuria before lonie. Anyway i dont want to bag them what i want to say is from 2nd last last year to 5th this year is a huge achievement, and after this we can definetly see wat we lack as a side, and im expecting an even bigger improvement next year. Only down side is that I can't watch the boys for 5 months now, im not disapointed in them.

Lonie has certainly improved his game this year. I agree he is too often played out of the positions where he could do the most damage. It is frustrating to watch him make space and wait for the pass that never comes while others chip it around for no good outcome. During the Essendon game he went right off at Heath Shaw and a couple of others after he stood in a vacant central corridor while they chipped it out wide to each other and then turned it over. He is clearly frustrated with the negative chipping style that goes on at times. And he is one of the few that choose to kick it long or positive (Thomas is another) rather than chip and allow the oppostion to get back in numbers.

Basically, Lonie needs to played in more offensive positions than he often is, where he can play to his strengths. And Malthouse needs to exert more on field discipline on the chippers. How often do you see them dragged for a spray after undisciplined short passing goes astray? (admittedly you cant have half the bloody team on the bench getting sprayed ) If he does want this bad habit out of their game, then he needs to exert more control, otherwise we'll just continue seeing it.

[lethalburns]

we have no midfield guys.

there is no point nit picking.

Most of our floggings this year have come when our mids have failed.

We probably have 2-3+ years before a flag now. Mick did not rebuild us on the fly. Complete center-rebuild needs to take place now.

Won't suprise me if all Clokes are gone soon too. Would have made no difference toady as none of them can play in the middle. But not having played a single one of them will not do much for club-cloke relations.

[Mossi]

Our core is too old / too slow to win a premiership. It hurts but its the truth.

Unfortunately Cam your spot on!
The Bulldogs at full streatch really exposed our depth ( Our ruck was found out, and no matter how we shuffled our mids around, we could'nt stem the tide. Our great servants of the past Lica, Burnsy are going to have to play second fiddle and provide depth next year to make way for our younger brigade. Bucks should take up a secondary role as a flanker or foward pocket.
Still we can't take anything away from the Dogs as they had a great game and that was one reason that made the difference.

[spoljar]

smashed today with the bulldogs missing 4-6 players with season ending injuries was a poor effort.
Even effort from the bulldogs where we had none.
do we have to rebuild by having a cleanout? 2003 was our last finals assault thats 3 years ago a lot of the players from that game are playing still do we delist/trade some of them?
Is micks time up? where are we on micks clock now?
some tough decisions to be made before next season?

Our core is too old / too slow to win a premiership. It hurts but its the truth.

Spot in Mate. The days of having Licuria, Burns, Holland and O'Bree in the Midfield are over. The reality is that the Dynamics of the side has to change for us to move forward!

[DaicosMagic]

Bahhh. What a load of hysterical, emotional, illogical cry-baby nonsense in this thread. Blaming the forward line for today's defeat is so ridiculous that the twisted logic of it wouldn't even occur to the damaged brain of a St Kilda supporter. How often did we even get the ball into the forward line?

Where we lost it was in the centre of the ground. First, foremost, and all the way. Face it Nicksters, the old midfield runners like Brodie, Licca, Burns and Bucks just haven't got what it takes to survive in the modern game, not as #1 starting midfielders. Add in our complete inability to get a ruckman who can actually ruck onto the park, and the disaster is complete.

Of course the forwards didn't do a lot; of course the backs got smashed. No forward line on the planet could kick a winning score with the ball fed to them, if at all, as badly as that. And no defense in the comp could survive either.

OK, I can understand the pain and anger, but for the love of Mike, make it reasoned and constructive pain and anger.

The only sensible thing I've read all day.

The backline held up reasonably well considering the amount of pin point ball (not to mention no pressure on the Dogs' ball carriers) they had to contend with.

The slow plodding run from half back with crap disposal inside 50m - and you expect Rocca and co. to kick goals somehow (as well as no crumbing forwards front and centre)?

If you only watched the game on TYV you shouldn't be commenting - it's a WHOLE NEW ball game when you see teh game unfold at the ground.

Tarrant (3 goals 4 behinds) ran himself into the ground.

Blame our midfielders, blame the coahing staff for not having teh intestinal fortitude to try something different. Didak finally goes on teh ball in the last 10mins? MM, that's just embarrassing. Holland finally goes up forward (where he's a noted goal kicker) in the final 10 mins? Bucks not even tried out of the square? Rocca not tried at CHF? Why not stick Tarrant in teh sqaure or on a wing? Why not stick Daisy in the guts? Or Lonie on a wing? MM is too boring for me when moves need to be made.

FFS TRY SOMETHING.

[starstruck]

Reflecting back on some of the threads and the posts that were made after some of our big wins this year. The absolute excitement that you same people were gushing forward with about our team back then. Great wins over West Coast, Sydney in Sydney and the Bulldogs in round 9....Well guess what guys....THIS IS THE SAME TEAM!!

This team played some of the best football I have ever seen from a collingwood team during the year.. In fact one of the most astute people in the game, Terry Wallace, said that he had never seen a team in all his years of football run so hard. These hard runners are the guys that are being flogged by you guys in these posts and are all essential to our future success.

We showed so much this year and I also have seen the best group of young players to appear in the black and white since a few young blokes by the name of Daicos, Brown, and Banks in the early 80's

I am as gutted as all of you about losing but lets put it in perspective, we were beaten on the day by a superb running team that was coming off a 9 day break. Lets focus on the positives and move on to next year...........

[rand corp]

Done by a team with a better group of young stars, a superior game plan, and a very smart coach. They showed a desire and intesity we seemed unable to match.

They totally put us to the torch with their run, speed and clean skills.

First 20 minutes ball wasn't bouncing their way, we'd hit a few of them hard, a few iffy frees to us and I thought it ain't their day, we've got em. Full credit to their players for hanging in and then totally turning it around. We were smashed in the end.

Richards, must now surely be some serious questions marks about his ability to mature into a top flight ruckman and play consistant top class footy?

Taz, make all the excuses you like but Blight was spot on when he said (words to the effect of) Tarrant misses a lot of relatively easy goals just when his side needs him to kick them. I'm p1ssed he kicked a couple of junk time goals to give MM an 'on-paper' excuse to defend him. I would go after a top 10 pick for him in this draft in a heart beat.

Ant, not a great day, but he brought the ball to ground many, many times. When the ball is going to land front or right of the pack 7 to 8 times out of ten, particularly on a blustery day where the ball is dropping short why do we never (NEVER) seem to have a small running to or throuh that space? (IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE!)

Lonie, perhaps the softest player in the AFL, looks good taking an easy receive out wide, loping along under no pressure and deliver a left foot 50 meter pass but, going the other way he is just not hard enough at the man or contest.

The plodders: Burns, Holland, Licca, O'B, all good honest plodders but that is a midfield for yesterday if ever there was one and the Dogs showed us a glimpse of the modern midfield.

Perhaps the saddest aspect about the day was the fact that Bux looked like an old man and surely if he goes on for one more year it will be as a permanent forward pocket.

With a group of veterans all at or rapidly approaching the end of their careers, few mid age / mid experience stars and some raw but promising kids -next year will be a very telling one for the pies.

[magpie57]

The positive we can take from all this is that we have improved dramatically from last season.Lets look to the future and hope that the recruiting committee have the wherewithall to be able to help us to put a team on the track that will not only perform well during the home and away season,but also have the ability and the integrity to perform during the finals,when the pressure is really on.

I hope that our unilateral thinking coach can also rise to the occasion.

I'll just say one thing before closing-why is Allan Didak,who is argueably the best kick at goal in the AFL not played permanently in a position where he has an opportunity to use that skill?
[/b]

[Miz]

Our midfield looks worse because we are constantly battered in the ruck and need to address that situation asap.

Egan could have thrown on a Bulldogs jumper, several times he moved out of a marking contest shepparding a team mate out of it resulting in a Bulldog mark.

Fraser was terrible, Lonie played like he always does when there is pressure on.

Bulldogs were way too quick and our guys looked unfit with only Thomas left with any energy in the last quarter while the dogs continued to run.
Rocca should not be played until he is match fit unless he is instructed to stand in and around the square all day which may not be a bad option.

Tackling was generally terrible with only R.Shaw, Holland, Burns and Rocca looking like they had the capacity to stop a player.

Umpiring at the Punt Rd end was confusing although probably favoured us overall.

[Mossi]

I'll just say one thing before closing-why is Allan Didak,who is argueably the best kick at goal in the AFL not played permanently in a position where he has an opportunity to use that skill?
[/b]

Thats a hard one, I think Dids is a player much like Daics in that he has such a great boot that you want him in two places at the same time! As a Half foward fanker so he can set up our fowards and Kick goals or as a lot would like to see in the midfield where his pin point delivery (like Bucks) we can take advantage of. Then there are a lot of things we don't know (he may be carrying an injury?) Puzzles me too why he was not brought into the fray at half time!

[jackcass]

we came from 15th to 5th

I think we actually earn 7th spot on the strength of our loss to the Doggies. Saints drop to 8th given that they finished the home and away season below us