Review QF: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Collingwood

[Ham]

 

[TheLeftFist8]

Dawson is an overrated inside mid.

I’d start Laird at clearances, Dawson half back then switch once general play starts. Could get Dawson off the chain.

 

[1990crow]

Dawson is an overrated inside mid.

I’d start Laird at clearances, Dawson half back then switch once general play starts. Could get Dawson off the chain.

Dawson is an All Australian mid. Come on. He had a bad game.

 

[Mattrox]

No but it wasn't Rankine's fault. It was the squeelers in black and white and the coaching who instructed them to hassle him all game long. How would you react if someone was nagging, pressuring you for 2 whole hours eh?

The AFL has clearly indicated that an elbow to the ribs might get you a game or two. That is much less than words.

Since action speaks louder than words a sharp elbow in the ribs is going to be a way way more effective retaliation and will draw less controversy.

I don't make the rules....

 

[Ham]

Dawson is an All Australian mid. Come on. He had a bad game.

I think he said he’s playing with an injury too

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Dawson is an All Australian mid. Come on. He had a bad game.

Was also injured during the game.

Hopefully gets his body right for Friday.

 

[skam85]

That’s harking back to the old selfish Keays when he was trying to establish himself here.

He really wanted it to be the old 'it might not be your game but it can be your moment' moment

However it was neither

 

[radiojake]

The AFL has clearly indicated that an elbow to the ribs might get you a game or two. That is much less than words.

Since action speaks louder than words a sharp elbow in the ribs is going to be a way way more effective retaliation and will draw less controversy.

I don't make the rules....

I posted awhile ago that Rankine should have just belted someone and got three weeks instead and not nearly the amount of public backlash

 

[skam85]

I thought I had fully recovered from the 2017 GF, but then when Collingwood kicked those 5 goals and took the game away, and every goal I could see and hear the roar of the opposition fans, it all came flooding back.

I fully understand and appreciate now why people need time to recover from a traumatic breakup

 

[CrowBloke]

Can we understand one thing - everyone and I mean everyone, has a level of racism in them, the difference is some have greater degrees than others.
To think otherwise is being totally ignorant.

TLDR summary for those who dislike long posts:
I have never understood racially-motivated abuse or hate, or on the basis of religion for that matter.

True story, late one night at a NSW Outback Motel, about 10 years ago.
Well after midnight, (sounded like) 2 blokes were sitting outside their room having a drink and talking/laughing very loudly, keeping me awake.
I went outside (in my jocks and T-shirt) to ask them to quieten down or take their party inside. I didn't know them or see them before I went outside.
They were Indigenous. I didn't know and I didn't care.
I spoke very calmly and quietly and asked them to keep it down, please, or maybe go into their room.
One of them abused me straight away, called me a white c**t, told me to **** off.
I've worked on trucks and in truckie warehouses, on building sites and in towns with a high % of Indigenous people. It wasn't the first time I'd been called a c**t, or a white c**t or told to **** off.
When people are drunk, they say dumb stuff, white or black.

I said, "Mate, this has got nothing to do with black or white. It's just one man asking two other men to be considerate and a bit quieter".

The other bloke was very nice/considerate, apologised to me and said to his mate "Let's go inside", but his mate gave me more abuse. I ignored the abuse, stayed calm, thanked his mate, then I said ok, we can do this easy or hard. I'd be appreciative if they quietened down or went inside. Or I could call the cops, what did they prefer?
The abusive bloke stood up to confront me but his mate held him back, told me they'd go inside, apologised again and that was good enough for me. I went back inside my room.
I heard more yelled abuse from the aggro one for a short while, then I heard them go inside.

I didn't know or think what I'd have done if they both had a go at me. It didn't come to that
I didn't, not for a second, think their behaviour was typically "Aboriginal" or race-related, even after being called a white c**t. It was just angry, drunken behaviour by one of them. My guess later was that they had been unfairly racially profiled and abused previously but I had made it clear it was not about race, nor did I return the abuse.

I'm no saint, nor am I trying to paint myself as one. I just wanted to sleep.
P.S. follow-up ... the following morning, I was woken up around 0530 by one of them singing and whistling raucously, happily, in the shower.
The song?
You'll never guess it.

"Treaty" (Yothu Yindi)?? Nope.

"Beds are Burning" (Midnight Oil)?? Nope.

I got up.

Closed my bathroom door (the rooms bathrooms were adjacent), blocking out Rod Stewart's "You're in my heart" , and went back to sleep, smiling.

I have never understood racist or religious discrimination, or cordoned it.
I'm the son of white, WW2 European refugees, a Boomer, abused back then for being a Nazi of whose behaviours and ideas I was totally ignorant. Maybe 5 years old, I remember asking my Mum what a "Nazi" was.
Made no sense to me.

I barracked for West Adelaide, but my earliest memories of Indigenous players go back to David Kantilla (South Adelaide) and Michael Graham (Sturt) and because I also played Basketball my hero at the time was Michael Ah Matt whose skills were flashy, wizard-like.
Kantilla, lanky/smooth/silky/fluent, jaw-droppingly good. Graham, freakish, tough, McLeod-like.
McLeod himself was footy-genius personified and a fine individual/man; humble, unassuming.
If I had a son, I'd hope he'd play any sport and carry himself like McLeod.

All my life, I've been bewildered by racism, and the abuse (and sometimes horrors) it generates.
I just don't get it.
The booing of Qaynor, seriously, wtf was that about? I have no ****ing idea.
His skin colour, Ghanaian heritage? Surely not?
Nobody knows for certain what he said or did but plenty in here have judged and condemned him. For what, ffs?

Please keep in mind, Rankine who is brilliant, inhumanly good at footy, is no saint, either. I've seen him being lippy often and his flattening of Starcevich last year is weirdly similar to Houston flattening him about 5-6 weeks later. Coincidence? Who knows?
I dgaf.
Here's what we should do about Houston, Rankine and his dumb expletive and consequences, Qaynor, the whole thing.
Let it go.
Move on.
We've all done and said dumb stuff.
(There goes my Saturday morning, ha! lol@me )

 

[CrowBloke]

Except from what I’ve seen we weren’t a player short last night we were just completely out coached and played

Not "a player short"? Rankine and Rachele, both Best-22, for starters, but you're right.
Outcoached and outplayed.

Weren't you amazed at how many players were off their game on Thursday night?
Every game, every team has 4-6 players who don't rise to the challenge of that particular game. Nobody stars every week (nobody gets 66 Brownlow votes).
I was stunned by how hesitant and fumbly so many of our blokes were on Thursday night. Under Collingwood's manic pressure about two-thirds of the side went to water, even some of our usually-best and cleanest ball-handlers which suggests to me that something is fundamentally and drastically wrong between their ears.

Too many of our blokes lost the plot for it to be an off-night.

Another poster suggested that Nicks strong reversion to the early 2024 game plan (after we annihilated PA in Round 20) has confused the layers somehow.
I tend to agree. The Round 20 and QF Crows look and play like different teams.
The Crows have not played that well (4 full quarters of pressure and run-on energy) since then.

 

[CrowBloke]

My night included getting to the corner of Morphett and Hindley Street and my wife realising that she had lost her phone.

We managed to log into her google account and track her device (thankfully it was still at the ground) so we had to run back to Adelaide Oval against the flow of foot traffic to get back there before they shut the gates to get her phone which was thankfully on the ground near where we sat.

Yeah it was fun night

Wow, lucky to get her phone back mate.

 

[FR0GGY]

Not "a player short"? Rankine and Rachele, both Best-22, for starters, but you're right.
Outcoached and outplayed.

Weren't you amazed at how many players were off their game on Thursday night?
Every game, every team has 4-6 players who don't rise to the challenge of that particular game. Nobody stars every week (nobody gets 66 Brownlow votes).
I was stunned by how hesitant and fumbly so many of our blokes were on Thursday night. Under Collingwood's manic pressure about two-thirds of the side went to water, even some of our usually-best and cleanest ball-handlers which suggests to me that something is fundamentally and drastically wrong between their ears.

Too many of our blokes lost the plot for it to be an off-night.

Another poster suggested that Nicks strong reversion to the early 2024 game plan (after we annihilated PA in Round 20) has confused the layers somehow.
I tend to agree. The Round 20 and QF Crows look and play like different teams.
The Crows have not played that well (4 full quarters of pressure and run-on energy) since then.

I’ve only seen bits of the game and don’t plan on watching it

 

[CrowBloke]

VERY interesting, thanks.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

Dawson is an All Australian mid. Come on. He had a bad game.

The key word was ‘inside’.

Clearly a gun but we need to use him better.

 

[CrowBloke]

Our leading goalkicker and difference maker, running to an open goal, for a goal we desperately need to get us back with a chance, looks behind him and passes to the worst shot for goal on our list. If Keays was calling for it, he can get stuffed. Everyone knows he doesn't have a right foot, he's barely got a left foot. But even with Keays calling for it, Thilthorpe should've ignored it. Your 200cm arse is in the team to kick goals.

This (plus the handball was not only unnecessary but shit).
Great post.

 

[CrowBloke]

Let me ask you this, if you had people scragging, pulling, and mouthing off at you for a couple of hours, what would you do?

Sorry, but the question is disingenuous.
If it was a stranger next to me at a game I wouldn't have tolerated it for a couple of hours and probably would've done worse than Rankine's poor choice of abuse.

If I was a 100-game AFL player earning high, six-figure $s for playing, I'd have to ignore it --- or go mad, every week.

Those blokes see it, hear it, do it and cop it for a couple of hours every game, for years (and they know, a big deal is made of it in meetings and player education, that racism/homophobia are the big no-nos).
The better they are as players, the worse they cop.

It's a part of every game, every match-up, every 2 hours they're on the field and most give as good as they get.

People who boo Houston for his hit on Rankine last year (August 17th) have forgotten that Rankine did a nearly-identical blindside hit on Starcevich just under 6 weeks earlier (July 7th., concussed, taken off + Rankine got 4 games for that).

Rankine has dished it out previously, physically and verbally, and will likely get it back in spades because he's one of our best players.
Every time he loses control and crosses the line we lose him, for weeks; it's within his control and it's his responsibility to rein that shit in. Maybe after this, he will.

 

[davos44]

Let me ask you this, if you had people scragging, pulling, and mouthing off at you for a couple of hours, what would you do? A word is just a word and should have been left out on the bloody field. Grow a pair people.

I get that, it was said in frustration and anger. Which is why you forgive, educate and get better/move forward etc. after your punishment.

I wouldn't want the person doing the right thing and reporting it to be ostracized like IQ was.

 

[AFC979810]

Obviously it makes the job harder, but are you saying what he did has impacted the other players’ individual performances?

Absolutely.

The knock on affect of Rankine not being out there is massive. If Rankine plays - it changes absolutely everything.

 

[AFC979810]

No but it wasn't Rankine's fault. It was the squeelers in black and white and the coaching who instructed them to hassle him all game long. How would you react if someone was nagging, pressuring you for 2 whole hours eh?

They aren't mutually exclusive.

Rankine isn't the first professional athlete to be targeted both physically and mentally. He handled it stupidly.

But on the other hand - a 5 game suspension is stupid. Should be a fine and some community service.

 

[1990crow]

The key word was ‘inside’.

Clearly a gun but we need to use him better.

You said move him to half back. That's ridiculous

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Dawson is an All Australian mid. Come on. He had a bad game.

He's a great player but he's not a stoppage mid

We lack a Sam Mitchell type

 

[CrowBloke]

That bloke's analysis really got me thinking. He's right.

Collingwood defend very smart, all over the ground.
ONE of their blokes takes on the oppo player with the ball. Others attend to potential receivers.

So our bloke with-the-ball is under pressure
AND
our blokes without-the-ball are going to be under pressure if they receive it.
That enables them to execute pressure act after pressure act in close, causing fumble after fumble until the last resort is a panicked hack-kick out of the trouble our blokes are in.
Their other players say THANKS VERY MUCH , because they've set up to intercept that hack-kick forced by their mates.

I gotta say, that's brilliant Coaching by McRae and well-drilled execution by the not-so-Mug-pies.

By contrast, our blokes (drilled in second-to-the-ball defence defence defence) take on the ball-holder two or three at a time, allowing fumbles or released ball to be mopped up by free/open Collingwood players around the contest
AND
off they go!
We pay too much attention to the ball-holder and not enough attention to potential outside receivers.

Has anybody got close ties with anyone-who-has-influence at the Club?
moogerfooger , do you?
Please, send that video analysis to Nicks/Davis. Please.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

You said move him to half back. That's ridiculous

It's ridiculous in our structure, because we're not set up to utilise damaging outside players.

But it's very sensible in a better structure. Whitfield, Pendlebury, Hodge, Mitchell, Daicos, McLeod... all spend/spent time at half back with their teams getting the ball into their hands at every opportunity

We don't do this.

In fact, when Dawson did play in defence for us we allowed him to be dragged back to the goal square and become completely ineffective.

 

[footy4ever]

Thanks.
Even when we were 9-5, I never imagined that we'd finish 18-5 and Minor Premiers, so my expectations have been far exceeded. I enjoyed the ride.
I feel flat after Thursday's loss, but not devastated.

I was devo for a couple of hours but started thinking back to our better performances. We're so much better than the nervous tentative indecisive rubbish we produced Thursday night.