Autopsy Geelong defeated by Port by 16 points.

[Baudolino]

I'm most frustrated at where our fan anger is directed. We played 8 out of 10 footy in the first half and should've been 3 or 4 goals up. What we needed was a few guys to step up with a few moments that took us from controlling the game to dominating on the scoreboard. Hawkins was the obvious one who we pay well to do that and failed. Stanley stood up with a couple of big marks and kicked one. Selwood had a great moment to kick his goal and same with Tuohy for his. Rohan did a couple of great things delivering to his teammates on a platter and created great space for Hawkins and Stanley. Parfitt and Guthrie set the tone around the contest with huge pressure.

My frustration is that these are among the guys being criticised most. Meanwhile we pay Hawkins to kick goals and we pay Dangerfield to give us forward momentum and break the game open. People are complaining most about our bottom 6, our structure and our gameplan. All those things were absolutely fine in the first half. The problem was we didn't take advantage in attack and it's a bit steep to blame guys who have really important structural defensive roles (Guthrie, Parfitt, Atkins, etc) for not also dominating the attacking side of the game when we have our supposed superstar who gets a leave pass for defensive work not delivering for us yet again.

This is just contrarian hipsterdom. It's the "actually, Josh Cowan is a vital structural cog playing his role to perfection" thing all over again.

Guthrie was poor. Far worse than Danger.

 

[ATSAM]

This is just contrarian hipsterdom. It's the "actually, Josh Cowan is a vital structural cog playing his role to perfection" thing all over again.

Guthrie was poor. Far worse than Danger.

Possibly, but Guthrie is not the next best thing to sliced bread, nor a Brownlow medalist, nor talked about in hallowed terms.

 

[son of meto]

We have missed the son of meto. And even meto. What happend?

Hey thanks Seeds...sorry for first reply, didn't twig that it was you.

meto sends his LOVE to all on Geelong BF...like me he sort of got tired of the echo chamber in here.

Hope you're well mate!

 

[Footy Smarts]

This is just contrarian hipsterdom. It's the "actually, Josh Cowan is a vital structural cog playing his role to perfection" thing all over again.

Guthrie was poor. Far worse than Danger.

Go on then list some quality pieces of play by Danger. The goal from the dropped Port mark was nice. Apart from that I can't remember a genuinely good clean bit of play. I think there was a blind hack out of a stoppage that fell into Rohan's arms. Was it his shanked shot at goal near the end that feel into Hawkins's arms near the point post? I remember a centre clearance that should've been clean but he fumbled first time. Was there anything else of note?

 

[jezza1435]

Alot of folks on SEN etc... and here calling Geelong chokers, but how can last night and last years Prelim be a choke? Were not predicted by many to win either of those matches, very weird to me

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Probably a moment that was infuriating to me was duncan when he took that mark agonisingly close to 3Qtr time... He knew there wad little to no time left, he had the leg to go the journey.. instead of going back and taking it upon himself the responsibility to kick the goal which would have made it 8 points down at 3qtr time, he looked everywhere to dish the ball off and blew the chance after the siren..

This was unncepable at that point in the game. He needed to take ownership and go back.. Instead of simply didnt want it and looked for every other alternative instead of slotting it himself.

He needs a rocket up his ass for doing that

 

[foxdog50]

If we kicked straight prior to that period of the game, we'd have been 4-5 goals up instead of 7 points down...

Its true, but at the time we weren't, so we should of had the big guns in at the time

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Alot of folks on SEN etc... and here calling Geelong chokers, but how can last night and last years Prelim be a choke? Were not predicted by many to win either of those matches, very weird to me

How we actually play or if we are the better team or not is irrelevant. Its just trolls doing what trolls do.

 

[kickazz]

However...
Cats finished top 2 in 13, 16, 17, 19 and our finals record in those years is 4-7.
If you finish top 2 then you should be winning more finals than you’re losing. You say we lost to the 1st placed team, but last year we were the 1st placed team and lost.
I get your point in isolation yes we were beaten by the better team, but if you look at it over a period of time.
Then it’s just unacceptable. It’s quite clear.

Yep, and in all that time we have been underdog enough times, you'd think we'd jag a win or two based on statistical probability alone, but haven't really achieved that.

We are bloody overdue an upset finals win.

 

[someday-somehow]

Probably a moment that was infuriating to me was duncan when he took that mark agonisingly close to 3Qtr time... He knew there wad little to no time left, he had the leg to go the journey.. instead of going back and taking it upon himself the responsibility to kick the goal which would have made it 8 points down at 3qtr time, he looked everywhere to dish the ball off and blew the chance after the siren..

This was unncepable at that point in the game. He needed to take ownership and go back.. Instead of simply didnt want it and looked for every other alternative instead of slotting it himself.

He needs a rocket up his ass for doing that

I thought he was too far out - I watched the replay again and confirmed it, he wouldn't have made the distance. Good decision by him, just rotten timing.

 

[someday-somehow]

Alot of folks on SEN etc... and here calling Geelong chokers, but how can last night and last years Prelim be a choke? Were not predicted by many to win either of those matches, very weird to me

what about last years QF?

 

[someday-somehow]

How we actually play or if we are the better team or not is irrelevant. Its just trolls doing what trolls do.

I geniunly want to know your opinion on how we go about turning these results around?. Instead of saying it's not the coach it's the players what do you suggest the club needs to do to take the next step beyond a prelim?

 

[James1970]

Apologies if it's been mentioned in the past pages, but can someone remind me on the rules regarding interfering with the man on the mark?

It was an obvious ploy by the Port throughout the whole night, was never picked up by the umps even when the ball was more than 10m away and is a real blight on the game.

However, we never seem to do anything about it - our lack of genuine speed here I guess a major reason.

It's bloody annoying.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I thought he was too far out - I watched the replay again and confirmed it, he wouldn't have made the distance. Good decision by him, just rotten timing.

55m out roughly, he had the leg for it. His a big kick.

 

[frggr]

Yep maybe, but not sure ( lol, despite the evidence). Every year is not the same players. Reiwoldt made an interesting comment that for Geelong to win, our system relies on it working perfectly, no room for error- so any error is costly and things break down under pressure. Whereas teams like Richmond, and even port have a game plan that doesn’t need to be perfect to get the win, can tolerate errors, it’s just a contest. Port just keeps kicking it back in till they eventually score, it’s not on the back of a perfect bit of play. Scott needs to tweak it more proactively when things are not quite working and just let them go for it- up the guts get to goal as quickly and directly as possible.
We will beat the eagles next week and then you are in with a chance.

Yep, there gameplans are more robust and don't rely on skills as such - as much as I detest the "style" that's the way footy's played these days.

If the players were given free run as happens when we're behind and the game is mostly.gone, we've probably got the natural skill to play a style that's good enough, but we're too shackled to this defense-first bs gameplan.

 

[frggr]

Apologies if it's been mentioned in the past pages, but can someone remind me on the rules regarding interfering with the man on the mark?

It was an obvious ploy by the Port throughout the whole night, was never picked up by the umps even when the ball was more than 10m away and is a real blight on the game.

However, we never seem to do anything about it - our lack of genuine speed here I guess a major reason.

It's bloody annoying.

Especially from kickouts - definitely designed to hamper, say, Rohan closing in and presurring the kick

 

[frggr]

Yeah, it will be in, at most, two weeks time though Patrick

 

[Footy Smarts]

The structure was not fine. A crippled steve motlop was running rimgs around us cos a tall defender was playinv on him due to structural reasons. Meanwhile our foward line entries were cactus cos of a lack of tall targets. Stanley helped a bit in q1 but he was needed in the ruck. Plus in the third we couldnt run/move the ball out of defence resulting in the pressure to blow up on our defenders cos our game plan is wrong. Too slow. No risk.

The defensive chip kicking comes undone with foward finals pressure. We saw it in the tigers game. We didnt learn.

The structure in the first half was absolutely fine. We conceded a total of 6 scoring shots with 1 of them coming on the stroke of half time from a flukey shanked kick falling into the arms of a guy lying on the ground. We had 10 scoring shots plus Hawkins and Parfitt/Ablett not scoring from shots. When you play a good team away from home and have double the chances in the opening half clearly you're dominating the game and the structure is fine. Even in the 3rd quarter when they got well on top around the midfield and made lots of bad turnovers trying to be aggressive through the corridor we only conceded 3.2.20 for the quarter. Not the sign of structural breakdown. We also didn't chip it around slowly in our defence all night.

As for the forward line we had 10 marks inside 50. It doesn't suggest a forward line struggling to create opportunities.

You just don't play a good team away from home and have 4 more scoring shots plus a couple of other non-scoring chances despite making some really bad turnovers (3rd quarter mainly) if your structure is deficient.

 

[Gee Class Loco]

And yet we are also the oldest team - time for a change-up to that wouldn't you agree?

A tweak here, a shake there is all thats needed IMO.
With Harry GAJ & possibly Selwood departing at years end will help.
An addition of 1 or 2 free agents as well.
So there is our bit of a tweak and all thats needed then is a little shake.

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

I thought he was too far out - I watched the replay again and confirmed it, he wouldn't have made the distance. Good decision by him, just rotten timing.

Agree - and the kick was perfect as Hawk took the mark.......................

 

[frggr]

Besides Selwood we just don’t have any competitive beats. Any players that relish the big occasions and make the most of them. Guys that hate losing more than they like winning. Unfortunately they’re soft mentally. There were many times last night you could see the fear, like oh sh*t the ball is coming my way, what am I gonna do. It does really make you appreciate even more the mental toughness of the Chapman, Johnson, Bartel, rooke, et al. generation that lived for these moments and demanded excellence. I remember Bartel said in 2010 he wouldn’t be watching the grand final because the cats weren’t in it. He wanted to use that to drive himself to be better. It’s that winners mentality this bunch don’t have.

This 100000000%

No Scarlos, no Rookes, no Chapmans, no Hunts, no Bartels, no Lings - all that's left is Selwodo and a bunch of wet lettuces.

Richmond don't have the skilled players Geelong has, but by God they've got hard players. Competitive players. Tough players.

Zero manbuns too

 

[rocker_oz33]

Game was basically level at half time despite all tge misses. We were pantsed in the third.

We should of had a lead at HT.
Port took it to another level after HT.

 

[frggr]

In other news, it wasnt that long ago that Port were a basket case but turned it around off the back of some shrewd recruiting with a bevy of top picks. Our picks aren't quite as good, but perhaps we might have a similar trajectory

 

[rocker_oz33]

And so it was all on the Players when they won in 2011.

That felt a life time ago.

They were the days ..

 

[frggr]

You are right...it is BS. But the point is clear! Why would Esava stay at a club where he never gets a consistent run as a key forward?

The coach is constantly dropping him and then bringing him in to play a pinch hit ruckman. It's sad watching his potential get flushed away.

Scott dropped him for a vitally important Final...says it all to the kid unfortunately.

If I was Esava (which I clearly am NOT), I would be seriously looking for options elsewhere.

Mate, Esava in his current form wouldn't be getting a game for any team in finals and he'd be lucky to be getting a game in any team full stop.

I think even he has the awareness to realise he's not quite good enough yet.