What happened?

[keepzitreal]

I really don't get it. First off kudos to Brisbane, they are a f*cking great team and could easily win their fourth in a row. Unbelievable the stuff they do.

As far as we go, I really dont get it, We had been playing some great football and then I dunno what happened. That Fletcher incident was ridiculous, what was he supposed to do. Fletch hit him with his a$s for crying out loud and the b*stard gets a 50 metre penalty that turns the game.

From then on i dunno what happened. They just did it with ease. Where was the support in defence. Why was it that their blokes could keep running, but our guys were nowhere to be found.

A mate said to me during the week that we would get pumped, that we are all a bunch of front runners. After watching last night, I couldnt argue with him much. We all run to the wings and wait for a turnover, nobody is accountable. The brisbane blokes showed us how to play, keep running and be accountable. Voss, Akers, Black, Lepper and Lappin all absolutely killed us. No doubt Sheeds would have had some plan going in. But I bet our blokes didnt follow it into the second half.

It was absolutely pathetic. A lot of the boys owed the thousands of spectators who turned up a lot more.
These guys train all week, get paid thousands of dollars and they can't run out a f*ckin game. We have no freakin heart and thats what hurt us the most about losing Damien Hardwick, because he had heart, Dean Wallis has heart, John Barnes had heart. These blokes get cocky way too easy... I dunno if its the culture of the club, but every time we look like we could become a force, they throw away all their credibility with pi$$ poor performance like that.


Some questions I have from the game are:

1 - What the helll was David Hille doing when Bradshaw kicked that goal from the boundary line?

3 - Where was half the team in the second half? It seemed like they had 3 guys to 1 in the second half at every contest.

4 - How was it that the Fab 4 plus Leppers and a host of others were able to roam freely and do whatever they wanted

5 - What was James Hird doing when he was 'ignoring' the umpire?

6. Could Robert Walls be any more over-opinionated

7. With so much heat on Fletch, what is the guy supposed to do when the ball is constantly being fed to his opponent. Where was the defensive support

8. How good are NLM's hands. They guy is a great mark.

9. What do we need to do to get some acceleration into the midfield? Is there anyone on our list that can fill this void? Alvey perhaps?

10. FInally..... how rapped were you with the way we were going in the first half up until the Fletcher incident and how pis$ed off were you for the rest of the game. I'm still pis$ed!

 

[WABomber]

unfortunately i missed the game, but after hearing the half time score, going out... then coming home to see the result i was absolutely gobsmacked. It was a pretty hefty loss, seeing as there are 2 from the lineup out and 2 uncertain. doesnt give sheeds much to work with :S its gona be very interesting to see who sheeds does select for this week.

In re: to alvey after seeing him last weekend he didnt seem too confident and looked uncertain everytime he got the ball.. I cant see him coming back in soon unfortunately..

need to blood a new breed of mongrels haha ala hardwick walis moorcroft barnard etc would of been handy the last couple of weeks.

All in all a harsh weekend of footy, eagles win by a thumping, freo wins a nailbiter and essendon get flogged, mondays gona be fun

 

[Bomaz_Magic]

Simple, we stopped playing on at every opportunity and played Brisbanes style of game, and got done. Not really concerned with the loss, as there were some positives, namely Stanton and NLM, but we did show that when we back ourselves we are better than Brisbane, just need to do it for 120 minutes not 20.

 

[Bartholin Juice]

We don't run hard enough in the midfield. I don't think it's a question of raw acceleration, we have plenty of guys who are quick off the mark. And Brisbane aren't exactly a team full of speedsters. They made us look slow because they were getting plenty of uncontested possessions. We didn't man up well enough, and that's because we don't work hard enough.

Whether that's because we are lazy or unfit, I'm not sure. But you can be assured that the good sides will always be looking to expose us in that area, so if we don't improve, we will get cut up again.

 

[Bomaz_Magic]

It's because we don't get anyone on the defensive side of the back, and it happens everytime we lose. But don't be too concerned by the loss, we gave up after the Fletcher report and Brisbane went in for the kill, which displays how much they respect us (just look at how they sang the song). Real test is against Melbourne this week, without Wellman, Rioli, and possibly Peverill and Fletcher. Win this week and we are a top 4 and premiership chance. BTW wouldn't be writing us off just yet.

 

[skilts]

Excuse an interloper. I thought your blokes killed us in the first half for pure leg speed. Made us look slow. In the second half we just kept running, you didn't. It becomes more about stamina, rather than speed.

Matthews talked about "the courage to run" shown by the Lions in the 2002 premiership win. This may also be an element which is overlooked when courage is often meant to be standing your ground as a pack descends on you, or the like.

There is also the possiblity that the Lions run 'smart', because they know where each teammate is going to be and where he's going to kick it, after playing together for so long. Saves a lot of wasted effort.

One thing which may or may not be a consolation for your blokes would be that you can certainly improve. Not sure Brisbane can play much better than that.

 

[Bartholin Juice]

Originally posted by skilts
Excuse an interloper. I thought your blokes killed us in the first half for pure leg speed. Made us look slow. In the second half we just kept running, you didn't. It becomes more about stamina, rather than speed.

Matthews talked about "the courage to run" shown by the Lions in the 2002 premiership win. This may also be an element which is overlooked when courage is often meant to be standing your ground as a pack descends on you, or the like.

There is also the possiblity that the Lions run 'smart', because they know where each teammate is going to be and where he's going to kick it, after playing together for so long. Saves a lot of wasted effort.

One thing which may or may not be a consolation for your blokes would be that you can certainly improve. Not sure Brisbane can play much better than that.

I agree that we looked quick on those occasions in the first half where we won the ball in our defensive 50m and ran through the center.

It's just like you say: If you win a lot of uncontested possession, you make the opposition look slow. And often that's not so much about genuine leg speed as it is about fitness and the willingness to run hard.

I thought the first half was a case of both teams playing at their best, or near enough to it. You came out two goals up, and that extrapolates to a winning margin of about four or five goals. I think that's an accurate representation of where both teams are at their best. Our problem is that we don't play at our best consistently. We've gotten away with playing one good quarter against lesser teams, but Brisbane will wear that one quarter and put you away if you drop off.

 

[M29]

Originally posted by keepzitreal

These guys train all week, get paid thousands of dollars and they can't run out a f*ckin game.

They obviously train harder.

Some questions I have from the game are:

1 - What the helll was David Hille doing when Bradshaw kicked that goal from the boundary line?

'The Robot Man' That's what it looked like from my end.

5 - What was James Hird doing when he was 'ignoring' the umpire?

You can't really blame him for that. Everyone thought MJ was paid the mark. It was pretty loud in there. Obviously at 60 meters away I'm not going to hear the umpire yell out to Jimmy. Though I also doubt Jimmy would have 'Hird' (ha ha ha) the umpire as well as everyone at home on their tv sets.

7. With so much heat on Fletch, what is the guy supposed to do when the ball is constantly being fed to his opponent. Where was the defensive support

Let's not forget Mark Bolton. Christ he was ****e.

8. How good are NLM's hands. They guy is a great mark.

Even better if he's kept in the forward line. Why not move Lucas and Bolton?

9. What do we need to do to get some acceleration into the midfield? Is there anyone on our list that can fill this void? Alvey perhaps?

I thought Haynes was the answer, he was sort of, but Murphy went and got himself suspended last week. Misiti is too slow and past it.

I'm still pis$ed!

Can't really do much about it now. Just hope they towel up some other team so we aren't the only ones on the recieving end. I'd rather lose to them by 11 goals than St Kilda.

 

[Bomaz_Magic]

Before we fell apart, and gave in. We exposed Brisbanes weakness - QUICK MOVEMENT OF THE BALL, PLAYING ON QUICKLY AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY! This is because the Lions have a big strong, but slow backline. Don't be surprised if the Lions don't make the Grand Final.

 

[topdon]

The heat is on the teams above us. The focus is on them ... we're GONE apparently. 10 more games til finals. Whilst we have made great steps this season, we can still improve. They're the best team going around. We have another challenge on the weekend and i believe that we are more than capable of pulling off an upset (look, no one will tip us so ... JUMP ON!!). Wellman has been terribly out of form, Rioli is a loss, but hopefully we can bring in an Alvey, Dyson, or Bradley and let Cupido have a fair dinkum crack in the seniors. He is a big game player, play him on the big stage. Don't let his talent rot away at Bendigo.

 

[nonchalance]

Originally posted by skilts
It becomes more about stamina, rather than speed. ..

That and about lack of accountability.

We've lost games this year because the players stop chasing opponents, running hard, and they get lazy.

They need to be fitter and more committed to keeping up the heat.

 

[Casey]

in answer to the title of this thread "what happened"

two short words - WE LOST

time to regroup and get ready for this week

 

[hirdy_is_champ]

1. we cant play after half time
2. we arent fit enough
3. brisbane are so bloody good!
4. aker was always gonna do something special for his 200th

 

[Dan26]

I have a theroy about last weekends game, so hear me out.

The game transpired, on the field, much like a Grand Final. Notice how many of the last 14 Grand Finals have concluded with the winning team running all over the losing team, who "looked" like they weren't even trying at the end?

Remember 2001? 1998? 1997? 1996? 1994? 1992? 1991? 1990? Even 2003?

The second halves were all the same.

My theory was that both teams were as fired up, emotionally for the game as if it was a Grand Final. Both teams came out and gave 100%. They really wanted to beat us and we were very fired up for obvious reasons.

Now the mental emotion that comes with Grand Final day often means the inferior team can't keep up and are emotioanlly spent by half time. Like us in 2001. It's not a physical thing. We treated the game with the mental emotion of a Grand Final, and we had nothing left after half time. In my opinion if we played them in a Grand Final, it would have transpired alomsot identically. That last quarter just "felt" like many recent Grand Finals "feel" in the last quarter. I've been to them all.

The trick I reckon, is not not treat it like Grand Final, and that goes for the big day itself if we fluke it in there. You've got to treat the GF the way Collingwood did in 2002. Don't even worry about the score, and don't go over the top emotionally. Just treat each physical contest on the ground equally and give a four quarter effort. We wanted to win too badly and had nothing left mentally by half time, and sadly, on Grand Final day I've seen the exact same thing happen to the inferior team 9 times in the last 14 years.

We just have to treat the game like a normal game.