I have not seen a single neutral supporter on any social media suggest the Dogs got a tough run.Everyone has an inbuilt bias. There are neutral supporters who thought the dogs were hard done by too.
Once you break down all the decisions and non-decisions, you usually work out it was as close to fair as the umpires could do. You could site 5 terrible umpiring decisions and so could I. Some could be of the same incident…. Our bias is what makes us not agree.
Anyway. Let’s hope Lamar and the Ravens give us some joy.
It's a tough game to umpire. Every supporter has bias. There are plenty of subjective decisions.
But your 1/2/3 analysis seemingly leaves no room for a game in which one side was helped to a win by umpires. Clearly that happens. A lot of people think that happened with this game. Plenty don't. I had a few texts from neutral mates. Some thought the umpiring was terrible in general. Some sent me unprompted texts saying we had been very hard done by. That has happened a handful of times in my life.
It's okay to say well maybe the umpires helped us, as a dogs supporter. It happens. The timekeeper clearly helped us in the last round. I thought the umpires did in the last quarter as well. The free to McStay was very iffy. On the flipside if Bailey had been paid a free kick against Geelong we wouldn't have need the extra 45 seconds, we would have been ahead of the dogs on percentage AND points!
From a dogs perspective, you had a very tough preparation, staying in Tassie, cooped up in hotel rooms. In the cold light of day we should have been good enough to be a few goals up, even with some pretty crippling injuries. We weren't and we have things to work on. That should be the club's focus. Supporters also think what could have been with a couple of difference blows of the whistle. Particularly because we as a club really needed another finals win from 3 top 4 finishes.
It's a game of swings and roundabouts. We just know we won't get any positive payback this year as our year is over.