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Furphy wrote:Where the hell did Collingwood come from? About three months ago I was hard pressed thinking of four of their players who would get a game with us.
Toovey, McCaffer, Blair, Reid etc...etc... not exactly household names!
Agree, obviously they had the tactics, not the best list but the best prepared!
Which further illustrates the point about our stellar list of 2004/2005, best list in comp but zero tactics and we came undone!
I think it was much more to do with our injuries in '04 and '05. We were a kick away from beating the eventual premiers in the Prelim in '04 and leading the eventual premiers at 3/4 time in the prelim in '05 and we had some major injury omissions.
If we'd been missing the calibre of guys we were missing at that time, this year, we'd have been absolutely spanked. If we'd had someone like Misson back then, we'd probably have romped it in for at least one flag.
Winmar7Fan wrote:
, Dawson are all well and good floating around through the season getting us over the line against lower teams but to stand up against the top one or two in the big one cost us premierships.
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We must have seena different finals series inclusie of both GF's.
I think Dawson will be better again 2011 after he regains the muscle mass that he lost last summer when he was ill.
Yeah I know what your saying I guess I'm going on overall performances and I'm not a big fan of his slow clumsy style of game. He always has my heart in my mouth but I could be being a bit hard
Theyve had many of their fringe players take the next step (Dawes, Blair, Reid, Sidebottom, Toovey, Wellingham) weve had one (Gwilt)
The difference between "coming along nicely" as our fringe players seem to do, and "stamping yourself as an automatic Best 22 selection" as theirs have..seems to be..well.. a flag
Spot on. They also had depth, which kept everyone in the senior team on their toes, knowing that if they didn't perform there were a bunch of guys waiting to take their place in the team. At the end of last year we lost/offloaded Ball, MaGuire, Hudghton, X Clarke and this year we haven't had that internal competition for spots that we had last year.
I've not seen Winmar at all. Is he in with a sniff?
Yes, Winmar is in with a sniff. He was plagued with injuries this year...early on he had serious problems with his shins...then another injury in the latter part of the year.
I spoke to Raphael Clarke at the Hall of Fame night and Raph thought he'd seen enough to suggest Nick Winmar had the skills for the game. Unfortunately we did not see much of it at Sandy where he played few games.
The way were were smashed yesterday just goes to show what a fantastic effort it was to come back last week and hit the front.
It would have been a very unlikely victory...and we almost did it.
Pies were the better team and we very nearly took it from them.
Last year we were the better team during the year and lost.
The draw now hurts twice as much - so near yet so far.
"At the end of the day, a coach and a fitness adviser doesn't make a good football team, they're not the only ones who got us to two Grand Finals." Lenny Hayes. 27/9/2011.
Winmar7Fan wrote:
No your wrong it's because they aren't good enough. Eddy, McQualter, Kosi, Clarke, Armitage, McEvoy, Peake, Dawson are all well and good floating around through the season getting us over the line against lower teams but to stand up against the top one or two in the big one cost us premierships.
Dawson was good in both GFs, particularly the first. The whole back six were great, they didn't get any support from the defence up the field in the second GF. Gwilt and Fisher were the standouts.
It's the midfield that was really found wanting in the second GF.
Our forwards were not much better.
Holder of unacceptable views and other thought crimes.
jonesy wrote:We have probably 3 to many players to carry with shocking disposal under pressure,and we still lack leg speed. If we can adress these problems,then I still think our window is right open.
This. IMO we will be down a touch next year (still make finals) and then competing again in 2012 for the major prize.
Once we get some more games into miles, simpkin, stanley, steven, hyene, winmar, geary and co. our window can open right back up.
We lost the match through the middle. Carrying Gram and Dal Santo injured and a rare poor game from Joey was enough to kill us but then they were able to hold Lenny down a bit and that was it.
Couple that with a broken arm to Eddy, and fisher doing a hammy, Gram getting picked off. We then had Gilbert look like the pain killer had got into his legs and you wonder why the times we went forward looked even worse.
We were still probably in it until Schnieder missed. Pies had a great season with no injuries of any note, they had a full team in reserve to borrow from. Us last year?
The pies will have to sign up a heap of young guys and let some older depth players go. They may be satiated and not apply their exhausting game plan another year.
We just have to pick up our bags and return to the field and reload with a nerw game plan for quicker teams.