I haven't actually posted on here a whole lot since the flag and I wanted to put my final thoughts on the season that was on this board rather than thinking about doing it every few weeks and then being lazy.
2021 was a pretty shithouse year for me away from footy, so I lived through the team more than just about any other time in my life. I remember posting on here if we didn't fall on the banana peel that was Freo in round 1 I could see us winning our first few games, and we didn't just win our first three but first nine! Watching us completely shut Richmond out was so impressive, then what was just as impressive was our wins against North, Sydney and Carlton where we didn't play close to our best but we held up so well defensively and were able to get the job done. That was particularly satisfying as we've been on the wrong end of trying to roll a top side and they still do it without us ever looking like we can genuinely win the game.
The first loss surprisingly didn't bother me at all, the Crows actually played bloody well that night and it still took some questionable umpiring and a last gasp goal to beat us. I knew going into that game the results against the Dogs/Lions in the following two weeks would tell us a lot more than the Crows game, and for once I was right. We bullied the Dogs and made them look awful, then the Lions probably should have been further up against us and we completely took over the second half to win convincingly.
Middle of the year our form was very up and down and happy to admit I was at the forefront of the 'we are going to miss top 4 just like 2016 North' melt brigade after we lost to GWS at the MCG. We then went to our favourite interstate ground in AO and thumped Port which saw spirits rise again (This was a seriously good performance, I feel it is almost a bit underrated as one of our best wins in 2021). The draw against the Hawks was complete garbage BUT it was still two points at least, then the Dogs got over us at the MCG. Channeling my inner TK I'll give myself a pat on the back as I remember me and Grimesy87 said post-Dogs game that we weren't that worried, a lot went their way on the night and our goalkicking was absolute shithouse. Little did we know that'd be our last loss of the year.
The final couple games were pretty uneventful, a bizarre lightning delay almost cost us that win against the Eagles but we held on. The night we beat the Cats I remember I was at my parents and my stepdad had to go to the ER due to chest pain, he left in an ambulance so I ended up watching the game with my mum like a little kid again. I even posted on here in the third quarter saying it'd be hilarious if we won, and we showed an immense amount of character to run down Geelong and truly bury Maxs goalkicking demons with that after the siren winner. The craziest final round since 1987 saw us clinch top spot and a home final with that kick, and bloody hell it meant a lot to me and my family (Stepdad ended up being fine).
Finals was a different beast entirely - I was very confident going into the Lions game as I feel they are similar to us but we are just better at what we do, however we all know in finals one bad five minutes can completely stuff your season. For the first time all year I actually had a bit of a cry when Brown kicked that first goal 15 seconds in, bit of a strange thing to get emotional at but like the Dogs game we just 'looked' on.
The prelim was the game I was the most nervous for all year - including the GF. Geelong have had so many poor finals under pressure but they are still a good side and had enough guns out there to roll us, and surely we had to have a bad game eventually? The boys said get stuffed and proceeded to demolish Geelong, with Gawns performance almost underrated now as the GF was an even more ridiculous game. I couldn't help but be a bit sad that Gawns 55m goal wasn't at the MCG as I reckon the members stand would have collapsed from the noise, but from what we could tell on TV the crowd in Perth was more than making enough noise to support the team.
In the best move the NRL ever made to help out the AFL they moved the Storm prelim to Saturday twilight which let me watch that and try not to think about the GF as its a bloody long day when you play a GF at 7:20pm. It almost felt surreal that we were going into a GF and as the favourite, but also the feeling of 'if not now, when?' was at the forefront of my mind. Literally everything had gone our way in 2021 (Despite playing a GF away from home), and although we deserved to be where we were the fear of throwing it away at the last gasp was too real.
First quarter felt like a dream - a scrappy start then our pressure was threatening to break the Dogs and it looked the Dees by how much. The second quarter went to an arm wrestle which saw the Dogs end up on top, and the anxiety came storming back. I'll admit at half time I went for a drive because I needed to not watch or think about the game for a bit. I remember thinking I could drive for an hour and not watch the second half which sounds absolutely mental but I've always hated watching our games on TV compared to live and get way more nervous - but I didn't drive for an hour. I checked score and saw the Dogs had kicked the first two goals of the third quarter and thought well *, there goes the flag. Checked it again a few minutes later and we were down by a point - the anxiety was replaced by pride. Tuned back into the game as the ball went inside F50 and spilled behind to Trac for THAT goal, and we all know what happened after that.
My overwhelming feeling at the end of the game and even now is still just that - pride. My whole life (I'm 32) I've waited for us to be a consistent, tough and watchable team. We've gotten the watchable bits at times and the tough bits at times, but we've never put all three together into a season until now. We had so many wins in 2021 that normally we would have thrown away (Too many to list, but I am going to shout out the incredibly nervy start to the Richmond game as one) and it is just so ******* awesome to know that even if your team is down 4-5-6 goals they'll still have a big crack at getting back into the game. It was almost shocking to watch how teams struggled to score against us because the coaches and players had absolutely nailed down a defensive system, like I've gone from being terrified at high balls going inside our defensive half to being very confident we'll win the ball back if they just launch it in.
I apologize if this post comes across as a bit me me me, but I haven't put my thoughts down in writing since the final siren went in the GF and just wanted to get it out there before we officially start the campaign to win another one at our home ground. I don't know if we will, but for the first time in my life I know we'll legitimately give it everything we've got, and I can't ******* wait to see them unfurl the flag and run out again in 5 weeks time. This board itself had a few issues in 2021 but as someone who has posted on here since 2004 I thought it was apt I put this writeup here, as aside from a few friends you lot are the people I've discussed footy with the most by a country mile. We did a bloody good job at making the terrible times on here humorous and enjoyable, now lets enjoy the good times we ******* deserve.
edit - I encourage all other posters to share their own closing thoughts on the season, I don't want this thread to be just about my waffling.
2021 was a pretty shithouse year for me away from footy, so I lived through the team more than just about any other time in my life. I remember posting on here if we didn't fall on the banana peel that was Freo in round 1 I could see us winning our first few games, and we didn't just win our first three but first nine! Watching us completely shut Richmond out was so impressive, then what was just as impressive was our wins against North, Sydney and Carlton where we didn't play close to our best but we held up so well defensively and were able to get the job done. That was particularly satisfying as we've been on the wrong end of trying to roll a top side and they still do it without us ever looking like we can genuinely win the game.
The first loss surprisingly didn't bother me at all, the Crows actually played bloody well that night and it still took some questionable umpiring and a last gasp goal to beat us. I knew going into that game the results against the Dogs/Lions in the following two weeks would tell us a lot more than the Crows game, and for once I was right. We bullied the Dogs and made them look awful, then the Lions probably should have been further up against us and we completely took over the second half to win convincingly.
Middle of the year our form was very up and down and happy to admit I was at the forefront of the 'we are going to miss top 4 just like 2016 North' melt brigade after we lost to GWS at the MCG. We then went to our favourite interstate ground in AO and thumped Port which saw spirits rise again (This was a seriously good performance, I feel it is almost a bit underrated as one of our best wins in 2021). The draw against the Hawks was complete garbage BUT it was still two points at least, then the Dogs got over us at the MCG. Channeling my inner TK I'll give myself a pat on the back as I remember me and Grimesy87 said post-Dogs game that we weren't that worried, a lot went their way on the night and our goalkicking was absolute shithouse. Little did we know that'd be our last loss of the year.
The final couple games were pretty uneventful, a bizarre lightning delay almost cost us that win against the Eagles but we held on. The night we beat the Cats I remember I was at my parents and my stepdad had to go to the ER due to chest pain, he left in an ambulance so I ended up watching the game with my mum like a little kid again. I even posted on here in the third quarter saying it'd be hilarious if we won, and we showed an immense amount of character to run down Geelong and truly bury Maxs goalkicking demons with that after the siren winner. The craziest final round since 1987 saw us clinch top spot and a home final with that kick, and bloody hell it meant a lot to me and my family (Stepdad ended up being fine).
Finals was a different beast entirely - I was very confident going into the Lions game as I feel they are similar to us but we are just better at what we do, however we all know in finals one bad five minutes can completely stuff your season. For the first time all year I actually had a bit of a cry when Brown kicked that first goal 15 seconds in, bit of a strange thing to get emotional at but like the Dogs game we just 'looked' on.
The prelim was the game I was the most nervous for all year - including the GF. Geelong have had so many poor finals under pressure but they are still a good side and had enough guns out there to roll us, and surely we had to have a bad game eventually? The boys said get stuffed and proceeded to demolish Geelong, with Gawns performance almost underrated now as the GF was an even more ridiculous game. I couldn't help but be a bit sad that Gawns 55m goal wasn't at the MCG as I reckon the members stand would have collapsed from the noise, but from what we could tell on TV the crowd in Perth was more than making enough noise to support the team.
In the best move the NRL ever made to help out the AFL they moved the Storm prelim to Saturday twilight which let me watch that and try not to think about the GF as its a bloody long day when you play a GF at 7:20pm. It almost felt surreal that we were going into a GF and as the favourite, but also the feeling of 'if not now, when?' was at the forefront of my mind. Literally everything had gone our way in 2021 (Despite playing a GF away from home), and although we deserved to be where we were the fear of throwing it away at the last gasp was too real.
First quarter felt like a dream - a scrappy start then our pressure was threatening to break the Dogs and it looked the Dees by how much. The second quarter went to an arm wrestle which saw the Dogs end up on top, and the anxiety came storming back. I'll admit at half time I went for a drive because I needed to not watch or think about the game for a bit. I remember thinking I could drive for an hour and not watch the second half which sounds absolutely mental but I've always hated watching our games on TV compared to live and get way more nervous - but I didn't drive for an hour. I checked score and saw the Dogs had kicked the first two goals of the third quarter and thought well *, there goes the flag. Checked it again a few minutes later and we were down by a point - the anxiety was replaced by pride. Tuned back into the game as the ball went inside F50 and spilled behind to Trac for THAT goal, and we all know what happened after that.
My overwhelming feeling at the end of the game and even now is still just that - pride. My whole life (I'm 32) I've waited for us to be a consistent, tough and watchable team. We've gotten the watchable bits at times and the tough bits at times, but we've never put all three together into a season until now. We had so many wins in 2021 that normally we would have thrown away (Too many to list, but I am going to shout out the incredibly nervy start to the Richmond game as one) and it is just so ******* awesome to know that even if your team is down 4-5-6 goals they'll still have a big crack at getting back into the game. It was almost shocking to watch how teams struggled to score against us because the coaches and players had absolutely nailed down a defensive system, like I've gone from being terrified at high balls going inside our defensive half to being very confident we'll win the ball back if they just launch it in.
I apologize if this post comes across as a bit me me me, but I haven't put my thoughts down in writing since the final siren went in the GF and just wanted to get it out there before we officially start the campaign to win another one at our home ground. I don't know if we will, but for the first time in my life I know we'll legitimately give it everything we've got, and I can't ******* wait to see them unfurl the flag and run out again in 5 weeks time. This board itself had a few issues in 2021 but as someone who has posted on here since 2004 I thought it was apt I put this writeup here, as aside from a few friends you lot are the people I've discussed footy with the most by a country mile. We did a bloody good job at making the terrible times on here humorous and enjoyable, now lets enjoy the good times we ******* deserve.
edit - I encourage all other posters to share their own closing thoughts on the season, I don't want this thread to be just about my waffling.
