Post match. Pies down to Weagles. All comments please.

[RudeBoy]

Is it just me or is anyone else disappointed with Greenwood?

At least Crisp put in a good one today.

[jackcass]

[inxs88]

[Pies4shaw]

[jackcass]

[jackcass]

[daicos35]

Perfect seats to watch the 3rd quarter dominance close up. Signs of the future, reminders of the past. 1st and last qtrs woeful white noise. Six day break vs eight days a factor? Maybe.

Biggest lesson for a young team as it appeared to me. RUN! Play on at every opportunity. We look and play so much better when we take off and sprint. Magic happens. We explode into the forward line and look dangerous. With such a young team, this is our strength and our advantage. RUN! It's exciting for us all. Third quarter is the model. Smash carlton. Smash them.

Jeremy Howe-kick 5 goals

[Presti35]

[cityslick1]

After much excitement and anticipation after the pre season, it now feels like a perfect storm has hit this team and the club.

Many of Our supposed core senior players - Brown, Cloke, Goldy, White, Toovey, Greenwood have gone backwards, whilst senior players at hawthorn, Bulldogs and north Melbourne are thriving.

Our coaching panel is not mature or progressive enough. Harvey looks to be there on reputation as a player, and fails to impress, with cliches and generic comments and thought any time he opens his mouth. Bucks is still learning the caper and would make a v good 2IC. Rocca is our ruck coach, and jared rivers is our development coach, with zero experience and qualifications.

Our leadership team is poor, with Brown and Macaffer lucky to get a game at all, and riding high on their 'good bloke' reps. A lot of our recent draft picks have shown promise and patches of ability, but have been overawed in the contests, and just aren't showing high level composure or skills.

Skill levels across the board are poor, and nothing seems to be being done about it. Bucks has to be big on this, as you would expect from possibly the best kick to ever play the game... so does he just expect players to develop themselves, have we drafted poorly over many years, or are they just not up to it and maybe never will be...?

Rucks are learning but get soundly beaten in every game. Grundy gives away frees every week and Witts is slow, can't jump, and is a v poor decision maker. Cox looks to be our best all round player in this position, and the guy has been playing for 2 years!

Throw in the drugs saga, recent draft picks leaving or not progressing, and the injuries.... oh the injuries... the longest list in the league again? Dumb luck, bad training methods, poor recruitment of troubled but supposed 'bargain players with issues'... Or inferior players struggling at the elite level?

All in all... it's not good, and will take a lot of things to turn around... or personnel to be replaced, before our fortunes change.

[Mugwump]

Watched the replay, and the comments above probably summarise it. We have a way to go, but we can threaten. The way we fell away after the "ice follies" goal at the start of the last quarter says to me that we are too influenced by emotional reactions (hope, optimism, belief), and this is probably representative of a young side.

I presume it'll simply take time and shared experience in a relatively settled side for us to improve, but I think it'll come.

In hindsight, any team that loses Swan, Elliott and Cloke (for different reasons) year-on-year is going to find it hard to move forward immediately. Amid all of that, we are rarely playing anywhere near full-strength, with Adams, Sidebottom, Varcoe and Williams all missing at various times these past few weeks.

The slow starts are a serious malady at the moment, and it seems that our centreline struggles to get going quickly. Maybe nerves, who knows ?

I thought there were several occasions when our decision-making was poor at critical moments. Grundy and De Goey both missed simple pass-offs late in the second quarter and early in the third that would probably have resulted in goals. Both are young, and both will get better. De Goey has been a slight disappointment this year against high expectations, and I suspect he is having second year blues.

On the positive side, Cox had his second good game, and as he gets more and more comfortable I think he can become a possible match-winner. For a man of his size he is mobile and the brain impulses do not seem to take too long to travel to the arms and legs : he's got football smarts. Moore, too, will continue to improve but he's a work in progress. Given how young he is , it is remarkable that he is already capable of causing opposition concern.

Finally, it was great to see Crisp starting to get back to his best. I wonder where that form was a few weeks ago. He needed to be, as Sidebottom was unusually ineffective, I thought.

There is much to like in this young side, and I think they will gell as they play together more - but like all inexperienced sides, they badly need to iron out the slow starts and maintain their intensity as fatigue settles over the game.

[Pies4shaw]

[Culprit]

Expected loss and I wake up still peeved about the first quarter. We won't be the first team to get pumped over there and we won't be the last. Forget injuries as every team has them. We are under performing per expectations. The expectations obviously far too high. A few youngsters getting exposed to big games will help going forward. In saying that, the disposals at times is frustrating. I see better disposal at local football games.

We played last years Grand Finalist and we are not up to that level. That's the reality and you can call me Captain Obvious.

[mudlark]

[slangman]

Our senior core is hopeless and that is putting too much pressure on the younger players.

The new brigade are being thrown in the deep end with little help or guidance from the older players. De Goey should be a jet but is getting heaped with to much responsibility in his 2nd season. He really should have spent his first couple of seasons as a forward pocket the same way sidey and beams did when they arrived.

[mudlark]