It is interesting how emotional you clearly are even the next day after a loss. I imagine the cat was well and truly kicked last night.I have no issues with separating the two every other week. I'm quite happy to vent about umpiring decisions most weeks without attributing them sole blame for our losses, but this week is the exception.
Essendon didn't stop us running the ball... Their pressure on the ball carrier, our usual bug bear, was less than Adelaide (and Essendon or St Kilda or Adelaide in previous years as well). We cut through their structures regularly, unlike against Hawthorn. We got our hands to the ball first and often, unlike against Fremantle (and previous years against teams like Sydney or Melbourne). We had plenty of good ball movement. The exception, which I lamented during the game, were bombs into the forward 50 for easy opposition marks, but that was cleaned up after the first quarter.
9 times out of 10 we win that game - but if repeated efforts of said good ball movement are cancelled out by stuff completely out of our control, and the reverse is rewarded excessively, and we lose by a goal, then lumping into the same bucket as our other ****ty losses is just trying to link up our loss to push an existing narrative and is lazy.
In response to your post I suppose I will point out a few things (sigh). We lost the tackle count 59-57. In the last the bombers won 5/6 clearances. They scored 2/3 of their goals from stoppages in the last. This doesn't paint a picture of a run and gun game- Yes we got them on the overlap a few times and yes you are correct our I50 entries in the last were poor (17 I50's in the 4th Qtr). I would say these poor entries are a reflection of high pressure entries rather than elite players choosing to bomb it in. All of this however, is a reflection that it became a contested arm wrestle and we didnt get the game on our terms.
We have been found out a little imo. If we are forced to play hard, close and contested footy we fall over. Generally that is the kind of brand we see in finals footy...
So yes.. we beat teams who let us play the way we want (ie flat track bullies) but as soon as that is taken from us... as soon as we have a hostile crowd... we seem to be establishing a habit of falling over