Autopsy Post 2021 Grand Final Western Bulldogs game review, the good the bad and the ugly, come talk about it here!

[stefcep]

Can the coaching team also look at the video of the number of times we have two players going up for the same mark.

 

[Lukes_Beverage]

Well understandably our capitulation from midway in the 3rd quarter was very disappointing, I thought we had a damn great season.
I am very proud of the boyz for what they did in this covid year, culminating in winning finals in different parts of the country. It might have taken its toll in the end. Our deficiencies were cruelly exposed by the best side in the biz at the moment in that time.

As some our other forumites have said, it just wasn't our time. When we address our deficiencies, we can make more grand finals and win most of them.
Onwards and upwards.

Go Doggies!

 

[stefcep]

I've been moping around for a couple of days, but now I think I'm prepared to say we were never in it.
Melbourne came out hard, made some crunching tackles and looked sharp while we were uncertain and fumbly.
We scrambled our way back, thanks to Bontempelli, but got overrun in the third.
I think Melbourne embraced the historic pressure when I thought it would be the opposite.
It would be good to hear the club's assessments of how the the leadup, playing all over the country in quarantine, affected our players physically and mentally. Melbourne had their feet up while we were touring five states.
It looked like we just hit a wall. I really don't want to blame the players for a lack of effort.

It happened multiple times this year. Richmond. Port. The coaching team and the players should have been prepared for it. And once again we conceded goals in the last few minutes of a quarter. Its like we switch off looking to the break. Been happening all season.

That period when we were 19 points up and the ball was locked in Melbourne's defense was the match deciding period. We kick a goal and they are broken. They knew it too which is why they fought tooth and nail to not allow that goal. It meant the premiership.

We should have gone for broke then.

Instead we rested key players and the rest is history. That's on the coaches.

 

[DoggieStyle07]

After a couple of pretty miserable days shut off from the world (one spent with an almighty hangover and my house reeking of toxic smoke from an hour spent drunkenly trying to burn the Grand Final Footy Record in a pot in my back yard - Back to the Future 2 made it look so easy!) - I've just read through this entire thread as a bit of an impromptu therapy session and wanted to say thanks everyone for the positivity and optimism amongst our anguish.

I've decided not to regret this season - There were so many good moments along the way to what could have easily been a minor premiership with a few more things going right for us. I'll always remember the anguish of blowing our rightful top 4 place, and the massive efforts it took to go all over the country and get past Essendon, Brisbane and Port to rectify that. And another trip to the bloody Grand Final, something I dreamed about for years up to 2016, even if this one most of us could only watch on TV.

And as much as this result absolutely sucks on paper - don't let any Melbourne fan ever try to tell you they didn't think we might have just had em in the 3rd. Sure as much as we have some real deficiencies (they've all been mentioned here) we still nearly brute forced our way through and on another day we could have just as easily broke them right there rather than the other way around. That's the bit that really hurts I guess.

Melbourne were flawless, but also had a dream run in every respect. This league is incredibly tough and there's no reason why they wont get realled back to the pack next year.

Anyway I'm a big picture sort of fellow and despite everything going wrong in the world around us, what I see is another season where our one little battler of a club has only grown stronger, more fans, more members, new sponsors, and hopefully another healthy profit. We still have so much ahead of our young list and a dead set superstar in the Bont leading national commercials and backing it up on the field. Can't wait to be back at Marvel next year with the place FULL with 50K dogs members.

That's enough rambling, the worst part now is the waiting - but when this team does win a flag or two back at the G in the next few years we'll hopefully enjoy it even more and be able to look back on how important 2021 was along the way. Cede Nulis.

 

[stefcep]

I can't remember the stage in the last quarter, but it was reasonably early, but they definitely put the cue in the rack. Whether it was effort or exhaustion, they absolutely gave up.

yeah two things that that hurt the most was lack of any coaching in the middle set up when they started to get in a roll, and the players just giving up. You don't concede 100 points in a quarter and half and kick just 1 without giving up.

 

[wian]

Probably sour grapes as I honestly thought we were going to win this premiership, but if there's any consolation for all of us, one things for sure, our 2016 premiership shits all over Melbourne's one.

The main reason is we had to deal with an extremely compromised draft with Melbourne, Carlton GWS and Gold Coast raiding the picks , so we had to draft well with our picks and even from the rookie draft, and Melbourne's premiership came from being cellar dwellers , picking up a heap of high draft picks and basically being kissed on the dick.. admittedly they recruited well from trades.. I'll give them that..

So although Saturday was extremely hard to swallow, our 2016 flag shits on their one IMO.

 

[Libba39]

I honestly can't recall any part of the game after Bont's goal except for Petracca's dribbler.

Its just a blur of red and blue.

I don't intend to go back and watch either.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

yeah two things that that hurt the most was lack of any coaching in the middle set up when they started to get in a roll, and the players just giving up. You don't concede 100 points in a quarter and half and kick just 1 without giving up.

Yes there is 2 ways you can go after a defeat like that. You let eat away and destroy you or you use it as motivation for next season. As much as it hurts we need to look at in a different perspective. If we lose by a point a great game against the lions on their home ground the media say it was good effort with areas for improvement. We got over the line and pump Port on their home deck. We get in winning position in GF and then get pumped. Bevo would not publically say it but the mental and physical effort to travel around the country proved to much when we were challenged and we hit the wall.

I rate our season as an A OR A- . Improve our 2 areas of weakness in the ruck and another key defender and dogs will be barking very loudly n 2022.

 

[wian]

The other thing too is every team loses big finals games. (Except Gold Coast so far of course..) We aren't alone..

All teams have lost grand finals, lost prelims etc. Remember Essendon 1999 losing the un-losable prelim to Carlton, St. Kilda's tragic grand finals history, Collingwood's heartbrakes, Geelong choking etc. Happens to every single team..

s**t happens. You either learn from it and get motivated, or you don't..

 

[Zeno The Great]

It's still hard to fathom that we were 6 pts down with 46 secs left on the clock in the 3rd quarter, and then we're 4 goals down at 3/4 time. Game over.

Goals straight out of the guts like those are massive momentum swingers. Jackson, Oliver and petracca won them the game.

Just an overriding sense of total flatness today. Great therapy being able to read others comments.

 

[glenashley]

3 goals in 22 seconds of game time.!

Unheard of...

 

[Dogs Rule]

Probably sour grapes as I honestly thought we were going to win this premiership, but if there's any consolation for all of us, one things for sure, our 2016 premiership shits all over Melbourne's one.

The main reason is we had to deal with an extremely compromised draft with Melbourne, Carlton GWS and Gold Coast raiding the picks , so we had to draft well with our picks and even from the rookie draft, and Melbourne's premiership came from being cellar dwellers , picking up a heap of high draft picks and basically being kissed on the dick.. admittedly they recruited well from trades.. I'll give them that..

So although Saturday was extremely hard to swallow, our 2016 flag shits on their one IMO.

It was also done thousands of miles away from the MCG and there was none of the Sunday party with the fans, which was a hell of a day for us.

Next year, we're going to get there and have 100,000 in the stands at the G as we win our third flag.

 

[perro_loco]

We did as well as we could. It was Melbourne's year from the start when you think about how lucky they were with injuries. It takes nothin from their triumph. We did extremely well. we had to restructure the forward line when Bruce hurt his knee. we lost three in a row. then we recovered and played an amazing final series winning three out of four. the boys, like every fun will be hurting but they will be back with a mighty growl. WELL DONE BOYS, WE WILL WIN IT NEXT YEAR!!! P.S. BEVO, PLEASE GET A RUCKMAN AND A KEY DEFENDER. GO DOGS AGAIN!!!

 

[ManOfClay]

Well done to Macrae on the Ayres Medal. Main board downplaying it because that’s the default negativity there, plus Melbourne fans in celebration mode will stick the boots in however they like, but put some respect on Macrae’s name.

He had three good to great finals and one poor one. Like Treloar though the negative flogs will go after him based on the poor game. That’s bigfooty 101.

 

[ScragCity]

3 goals in 22 seconds of game time.!

Unheard of...

Thats incomprehensible.

 

[adogsfan5]

Can the coaching team also look at the video of the number of times we have two players going up for the same mark.

Whilst I can’t really bag our back 6 much.. our starting positions on the opposition (5-10m in front) when we were in trouble in the third was possibly the dumbest thing I’ve seen in footy. And yes, we went 2 up for marks a lot this year which resulted in easy goals.

 

[Al dente]

It happened multiple times this year. Richmond. Port. The coaching team and the players should have been prepared for it. And once again we conceded goals in the last few minutes of a quarter. Its like we switch off looking to the break. Been happening all season.

That period when we were 19 points up and the ball was locked in Melbourne's defense was the match deciding period. We kick a goal and they are broken. They knew it too which is why they fought tooth and nail to not allow that goal. It meant the premiership.

We should have gone for broke then.

Instead we rested key players and the rest is history. That's on the coaches.

it is on the coaches, and i wish they had of gone all in in that moment, but in their defense its the way we always play, Bevo never goes all in, he protects players for later in games and the long term, its why we normally finish games well and are a great last quarter team. he always backs the available players to fill in.

that philosophy hurt us in the last 3 rounds and also in the granny but i think generally its the right call. all we needed was for Melbourne to miss one or two marks or shots or ground balls and we set up again from kick out and resume our ascendency around the ground. Melbourne were just unbelievably efficient for 20 minutes and it tore the game away from us. Im not saying they were lucky but all the stars did align for them in that period, its just one of those things that can happen against a great midfield with the 6-6-6. and its easy to see why you would drop your head as a player after that period. We were also a bit lucky that Melbourne missed a few before that and we were in that position, melbourne were probably due for an efficient spell. i do think we win though if we kick one more. that one handed run through the stoppage by Baz taking the ball to the dangerous position and losing it is the moment i rue.

At the end of the day we gave up alot to melbourne in terms of injuries, game time and travel, and in the ruck (tap outs and around the ground) and it was just too much in the end. great season, there wont be scars from that loss, thats an absolute myth, the teams who have flopped after big GF losses were generally a bit lucky to get their in the first place. that was not us!

 

[inflames1919]

I don’t know how Saints supporters dealt with those 2 straight GF losses, I’m still numb from Saturday night. Seeing Dees celebrations everywhere has made me want to jump off social media for a while but happy for their club and fans who have been deprived of success for so long - I remember that feeling.

I recall Bailey Smith

6

Bailey Smith

Age

23

Ht

185cm

Wt

86kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

18.3

5star

K

8.5

3star

HB

9.8

5star

M

2.3

2star

T

3.8

5star

CL

2.7

4star

D

19.8

5star

K

9.6

4star

HB

10.2

5star

M

1.8

2star

T

3.2

4star

CL

3.2

4star

D

14.8

4star

K

7.6

3star

HB

7.2

5star

M

2.0

3star

T

3.4

5star

CL

1.6

4star

saying in the post match interview after the prelim “we have a pretty strong internal rivalry with the Dees”. I wonder how hard this will drive them to make amends next year?

 

[go you pups]

I don’t know how Saints supporters dealt with those 2 straight GF losses, I’m still numb from Saturday night. Seeing Dees celebrations everywhere has made me want to jump off social media for a while but happy for their club and fans who have been deprived of success for so long - I remember that feeling.

I recall Bailey Smith saying in the post match interview after the prelim “we have a pretty strong internal rivalry with the Dees”. I wonder how hard this will drive them to make amends next year?

Im ok with the defeat, Dees were largely the most consistent all year and had the best defence and midfields

The only thing that has annoyed me was the way our midfield and leaders did nothing to curb that onslaught before 3 quarter time

I think if 2016 didn't happen, then yes, this one would've sucked really bad, but 2016 happened plus this was interstate and we were in and out of quarantine, not at the G, we weren't at the G or watching at the Kennel with friends or going to training or grand final parade or whatever soaking it all in. If there's one to lose then it may as well be this one.

The club has gotta keep positive, look at improving the squad, get everyone fit and healthy over preseason and go hard again, it has only just begun for us.

 

[go you pups]

Well there you go

An incredible feat from their medicos and fitness staff. I think it was mentioned Darren Burgess was in charge on the fitness side.

 

[H Dolphin]

Dees got off to a flyer in the first Quarter, 'Dogs rebounded and in the third Quarter, Melbourne needed 4 goals to get the lead back. That devastating 3 goal burst immediately after Bont's second goal was devastating but shouldn't have been fatal. Why could we effect a 40 point turn around in the second quarter and not the final ? On the fringes of my screen, there appeared to be a decided drop in urgency among the players late third-final Quarter, blokes jogging after Dee players streaking off towards goal. Was it the effect of the travel or was it the devastation of those 3 goals ? What happened to the mental toughness exhibited in the second Quarter ?

 

[SPower]

Right smack back in front of us Jack Macrae had the bejesus knocked out of him in the first qtr. Felt bloody sore, was in agony, dusted himself off and tried his guts out. How he competed after that was astonishing.
Another lad , thankful and very lucky to have this fellow at the doggies,
Cheers
Stephen.

 

[stevieg1969]

If the GF was a tennis match the scores would have been 6-2 1-6 6-2 (with us winning the first 2 games) 6-0. I’ve been doing too much thinking!

 

[Doggy]

View attachment 1248045

Well there you go

An incredible feat from their medicos and fitness staff. I think it was mentioned Darren Burgess was in charge on the fitness side.

Yes he was .. and now he's gone to Adelaide

 

[LondonBulldog]

It's still hard to fathom that we were 6 pts down with 46 secs left on the clock in the 3rd quarter, and then we're 4 goals down at 3/4 time. Game over.

Goals straight out of the guts like those are massive momentum swingers. Jackson, Oliver and petracca won them the game.

Just an overriding sense of total flatness today. Great therapy being able to read others comments.

Sliding Doors Zeno, at 6 point down, we go forward to Schache he gets crunched from behind by Brayshaw head high in the back whatever you want its a free every home and away game. Schache goes back takes his time, waste some time on the clock we likely go into 3 quarter time level.

I'm sure the Dees would have swamped us in the last anyway, it was just there time. Yet it could have made the last exciting for a while.