Enjoy the win, what you are saying here is rubbish. No neutral would back up what you are saying. Nick Holland on SEN this morning reckonns Coll got a rough deal from the umps. Truth is they had no effect on the result.
If you guys are so despondent when you win I would hate to meet you after a loss
Mate, we're happy we won, but it really shouldn't have been that close.
For mine there were four factors that stopped us blowing it wide open.
First and by far most important was Collingwood's pressure. Their tackling, spoiling, shepherding and general endeavour was absolutely fantastic. Have a look at Maxwell running Ablett down on the 50 early in the third, causing a missed shot at goal, for reasons why it was close.
Second, we were just a little off the boil. Partly caused by Collingwood pressure, sure, especially late in the game, but have a look at the first 5 minutes for Tom Harley missing two uncontested overhead marks, and then a target only 20 metres away by foot from a free kick. In none of those cases was he under any real pressure, and it was too early in the game for perceived pressure from Collingwood's play. Maybe it was big game nerves. Who knows, but whatever the reason, we weren't quite "on song".
Third was our kicking for goal. The ones that I remember clearly are Mooney and Stokes in the first and Ottens, Kelly and Stokes at the beginning of the third. All easy shots, and even two of the five go through and its a different game.
A long distant fourth was three very poor umpiring decisions that made a direct three-goal difference on the scoreboard - the fifty against Selwood, the last free kick to Rocca, and Mooney getting mugged in the goalsquare by Wakelin. I very, very rarely complain about umpires - you won't find too many posts from me on here ever doing that - but I challenge any "neutral observer" around here to play back to back the footage of the last free kick to Rocca, and Wakelin on Mooney in the second quarter. Compare them directly and see which should be a free kick. I just did, and I can tell you that Wakelin ran straight at Mooney and made enough contact to stop a mark, without EVER ONCE looking at or for the ball. Harely's eyes never left the ball, and his body made glancing contact with Rocca's shoulder as he jumped towards it. If Nick Holland thinks Collingwood got the raw end of that, he's either too dumb or too blind to be worth listening to.
Anyway, you're right, it had no effect on the result, but it just made it a little more exciting than it might otherwise have been. It doesn't matter now. To err is human especially when they're decisions made in the heat of the game with 60,000 mad feral Collingwood supporters yelling at you.