Are we kidding ourselves?

[Leo.J]

When we have played our best footy over the last 2 seasons we've done it with a settled team and a settled and well drilled game plan.

That is why it is pointless using the first 3/4 of this year as any sort of a form line.

We are only now starting to get to where we want to be regarding a settled team and GP.

And IMO we will get better.

Still not sure if we can beat the filth atm, but come the pointy end when there is no tomorrows I think anything is possible.

Our game plan is built for finals and we are one of, if not the most experienced finals team.

I believe we can go all the way.

[The Fireman]

[Leo.J]

Hehe

[remboy]

If we beat Carlton and Collingwood in the H&A season only then will I start believing te fluff and bubble of this thread.

I highly doubt we can beat both of them though.

Let's face it, we really need to storm home ala 1997 and have Bo more key injuries.

But as long as we beat Carlscum in Round 24 I'll be happy!

I couldn't care who we beat in the H&A season as long as we make the 8. We beat the Cats in 09 and Pies last year. Does that make everyone feel good now?
If we make the 8, play our 4 best games in the finals and have half an ounce of luck anything could happen (and heaven knows we are owed some luck in September).

[st_Trav_ofWA]

to steal the old saying .. we are taking it one week at a time ... realistically we are one loss away from being out of it again at the moment ... im enjoying the revitalised look to the team and im enjoying the wins but i cant bring myself to look further ahead then the game in front of us

[jamesmc]

We can get to a prelim and ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN THEN!!

After the Cats, we are the most hardened finals team. Fighting our way through in elimination games is our forte.

No team in AFL/VFL history, starved of success like us, has had to face the heartbreak and off-field rubbish of the last 2 seasons. That has to count for something when it counts.

I won't stop until its mathematically impossible for us to win - then I can turn off the tv and look to 2012

Couldn't agree more. Well said.

[skeptic]

We've been the dominant team over the last 2 years and with a largely unchanged team no doubt we've got the ability to beat just about any team on our day and most teams even when we're off

The issue this year is that we've largely been off and playing well below our standard. For a number of reasons, our best has looked like it's past us.
With a little bit of tweaking and changing not to mention catching up (our late off season, coaching changes and off field dramas clearly effected us) we have bounced back and are at least playing competitive football.

The question marks lie around the fact that we played the best teams when we were down and we haven't beaten any of them.
We lost to Coll by 10 goals
We lost to Haw by 10 goals
And we were competitive RE Geel + Carl but still lost

How good a team are we?

The issue is are we capable of bringing our A Game against the big boys.

IMO we haven't done it yet but look like we might be

I think going into the finals we'll have our answer

[Quixote]

We're not.

Anything can happen.

However:

a) injuries, and our depth, are at breaking point. We're still OK, but one more significant injury and it's curtains.

b) we'll need one of the first two finals to be a blow-out, an easy game. Don't think we can string 4 epics together in a row.

and c) I think to win it, we can't meet the Pies until the Granny. In a Prelim we'd go down, I reckon. At the big dance - I'd back us in.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

We're not.

Anything can happen.

However:

a) injuries, and our depth, are at breaking point. We're still OK, but one more significant injury and it's curtains.

b) we'll need one of the first two finals to be a blow-out, an easy game. Don't think we can string 4 epics together in a row.

and c) I think to win it, we can't meet the Pies until the Granny. In a Prelim we'd go down, I reckon. At the big dance - I'd back us in.

prelim or g/f what ever team thinks its a chance needs to be able to beat the magpies ...its actually easier being a saints supporter flying under the radar ..

[bigcarl]

Let me get this straight:

After years, decades of underachievement,

after the disappointment of losing a GF two seasons ago by a couple of kicks despite being the strongest team of the season all year,

after having to sack last year's star recruit before he'd even kicked a ball drawing us into a messy dispute that will linger for years,

after having one of the club's most disgusting scandals in our history dragged up all over again and fresh doubt being heaped on 2 of our finest players in Milney and Joey,

after the pain of seeing 2 of our team leaders in Max and Bally leave for nothing to a rival club who then overtook us,

after the disappointment of losing another GF (and drawing 1) to that same rival last year and watch them take the plaudits for the gameplan we pioneered,

after a scandalous pre-season that deeply humiliated the club, several key players and the captain,

after playing an exhausting gameplan that many pundits have labelled 'unsubstainable' for the last 3 years,

and after the worst start in who knows how many seasons, after being fairly written off by everyone including ourselves with several key players out for the season or deeply out of form and physically mentally and spiritually battered from the above,

we currently sit in finals contention with 6 rounds to go, yet some people on this forum are even THINKING "We'll never be premiers, might as well accept it".

All because we can't wear "greater disappointment"?

If we stop believing now, we're effectively giving up, and I don't know about you but to give up NOW after coming this far after what we've been through as a club and as supporters, I don't think we could look ourselves in the mirror. THAT would be the greater disappointment for me, getting this far and then putting our foot on the brake so as not to look foolish.

I don't think we could respect ourselves if we didn't try properly, if we didn't truly believe and give it everything, and I will take self-respect any day over the respect of others.

So let us "kid ourselves", let outsiders patronise and ridicule us for having the determination to never say die. Anyone that does that doesn't know what we've been through, or knows and ignores it because they delight in making others feel bad, a typically insecure trait. Do you care about the respect of these insecure people who look for excuses and cheap shots to belittle our proud club? I don't, I can tell you.

Anyone outside the club who knows/remembers what a football club has to go through to win a premiership and knows what a club needs to go all the way, they know we are not a joke and they will expect us to challenge all the way, and they won't respect us if we aren't 'fair dinkum' about it, nor should they, nor should we.

So NO we are not kidding ourselves. Egg on our faces? Greater disappointment? If we try and fail from where we've been and where we are, there's no shame at all there.

Well said Austinn. Should be required reading for all at the club

[spert]

As the immortal bard wrote.."to be or not to be..that is the question". We achieved little success early in the 2011 crusade and bore much ridicule from enemy forces who used a common wench to lay an evil plot to distract the galant Seaford army, but King Lyon has been cunning and patient and has now gathered the troops as one in a relentless crusade towards the MCG battlefield in September, where blood will be shed and the mighty Saint army will triumph, and silver and gold will flow to Seaford.

[asiu]

i am romanced by

... and we flash down the outside of the straight.

my heart goes pitter patter


but in relation to the question at hand , are we kidding ourselves

Yep.

... pretty succinctly expresses it.


but dead we are not .

[ralphsmith]

As long as we have hope,
we have direction,
the energy to move,
and the map to move by.
We have a hundred alternatives,
a thousand paths and infinity of dreams.




If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win but think you can't,
It's almost certain you won't.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.


Running on hope right now. We have shown a supreme level of maturity and grit to not throw this season away after the abysmal pre-season with the demoness of hell, losing Lenny and now Gwilt.

It is an elite competition whereby any team with hope and belief can roll another in the right circumstances.

I don't think we're kidding ourselves. I think a premiership is within reach this year.

I don't know what drives Ross Lyon, but some steely element of his character has been assimilated by the players. We just don't lie down and die. And i don't expect us to in the finals this year.

After the constant s*** from the media and the football world that was heaped upon on us, do you think our players are going to drop out of the finals like flies? f*** no f*** f*** no.

Anything is possible. The big dance beckons.

[Dan Warna]

this is for melbourne fans

[dcstkfc]

Let me get this straight:

After years, decades of underachievement,

after the disappointment of losing a GF two seasons ago by a couple of kicks despite being the strongest team of the season all year,

after having to sack last year's star recruit before he'd even kicked a ball drawing us into a messy dispute that will linger for years,

after having one of the club's most disgusting scandals in our history dragged up all over again and fresh doubt being heaped on 2 of our finest players in Milney and Joey,

after the pain of seeing 2 of our team leaders in Max and Bally leave for nothing to a rival club who then overtook us,

after the disappointment of losing another GF (and drawing 1) to that same rival last year and watch them take the plaudits for the gameplan we pioneered,

after a scandalous pre-season that deeply humiliated the club, several key players and the captain,

after playing an exhausting gameplan that many pundits have labelled 'unsubstainable' for the last 3 years,

and after the worst start in who knows how many seasons, after being fairly written off by everyone including ourselves with several key players out for the season or deeply out of form and physically mentally and spiritually battered from the above,

we currently sit in finals contention with 6 rounds to go, yet some people on this forum are even THINKING "We'll never be premiers, might as well accept it".

All because we can't wear "greater disappointment"?

If we stop believing now, we're effectively giving up, and I don't know about you but to give up NOW after coming this far after what we've been through as a club and as supporters, I don't think we could look ourselves in the mirror. THAT would be the greater disappointment for me, getting this far and then putting our foot on the brake so as not to look foolish.

I don't think we could respect ourselves if we didn't try properly, if we didn't truly believe and give it everything, and I will take self-respect any day over the respect of others.

So let us "kid ourselves", let outsiders patronise and ridicule us for having the determination to never say die. Anyone that does that doesn't know what we've been through, or knows and ignores it because they delight in making others feel bad, a typically insecure trait. Do you care about the respect of these insecure people who look for excuses and cheap shots to belittle our proud club? I don't, I can tell you.

Anyone outside the club who knows/remembers what a football club has to go through to win a premiership and knows what a club needs to go all the way, they know we are not a joke and they will expect us to challenge all the way, and they won't respect us if we aren't 'fair dinkum' about it, nor should they, nor should we.

So NO we are not kidding ourselves. Egg on our faces? Greater disappointment? If we try and fail from where we've been and where we are, there's no shame at all there.

Well said Austinn. Should be required reading for all at the club

Amazing post. I'm deeply moved.

As Mark Fine said last week, we should be prouder than ever at the way the team has turned it around in the face of unprecedented adversity.