Do you get prizes for finishing second?

Rohan · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:06 pm

The way we were talking up ourselves over the last month you think we have won 4 premierships in a row. Yes I agree we've come back from a period of failure but should supporters be content with finishing second?

The future appears very rosy but anything can happen. It seems to me us finishing second gets lost by people continually pulling the future line.

DaicosMagic · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:13 pm

ANSWER: $100,000 and a much-needed reality check!

Dr Alf Andrews · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2003 4:22 pm

Yes. As a matter of fact, there is a prize for finishing 2nd. It's the satisfaction you get from seeing your team play well enough to make the final. And that's a satisfaction 14 other clubs' supporters don't get.

In 32 years without a flag, Collingwood gave its supporters more satisfaction than any other club, by a mile. Apart from a couple of lean periods (early 60s and mid-to-late 80s) the Pies were the most succesful Club in the VFL. You have to be pretty bloody good to make Grand Finals year after year. Clubs like Carlton and Essendon might have picked up premierships here and there, but they weren't anywhere near as consistent as Collingwood at winning matches.

And that's the bread-and-butter stuff that creates quality of life for the footy fan. Winning bloody games.

Think about it.

As a footy fan, what percentage of your time is spent watching your team in Grand Finals.

Even in a year when you make the pre-season Cup Final AND the Grand Final, it only works out at about 8 per-cent.

That means that 92 per-cent of the footy watching experience, in a season in which you make the two Grand Finals, is watching matches OTHER THAN Grand Finals.

Last year we won 13 home-and-away games ... plus 2 lead-up finals. We lost 9 home-an-away plus the Grand Final. This pre-season we've won 3 games and lost the Final.

Now, that's 18 wins from our last 29 games.

That means, in recent times, we've been going home with a smile on our faces almost TWICE as often as we've been going home snarling. Just like Pie fans in the 1960s and 1970s used to do.

I'd much rather that than barracking for a club like Adelaide that picks up a premiership or pre-season Cup here and there and is absolute CRAP the rest of the time.

This "winner-takes-all" attitude is a denial of the day-to-day reality of following a footy club. You spend most of your time watching garden variety home and away games. And it's a happy fan who sees their Club win most of those.

And that's NOT settling for 2nd best ... It's called COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS ... And the Collingwood fan in 2002 and so far in 2003 has been BLESSED.

DaicosMagic · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:10 pm

People must remember that we were technically the fourth best team last year (after the home & away season). A finals campaign gave us a second chance so to speak to give the premiership one last crack. No, coming second is not good enough (for a flag, obviously) but it is good. Coming second means you have played off in a winner takes all match for the flag - if Brisbane had have had an off day (they nearly lost), I'd hardly say they were not good enough. We were not good enough on the day, just! But coming second was a good result in relative terms.

Fradam · Joined: 21 Jun 1999 Location: Bendigo, Victoria

Yes Rohan, you do get prizes for second. Every losing Grand Final player gets a medal. Thye use to present them on the ground after the game but Peter Moore threw his over the fence so they soon stopped that and they are now presented at a later date.

I'm not one who enjoys finishing second, you might as well have finished 16th. There is one winner and fifteen losers.

MarkT · Joined: 07 Aug 2001 Location: Melb

mugway05 · Joined: 17 Mar 2003 Location: London

2nd Place is the First loser

BigMac · Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Location: Melbourne

I'm concerned that again, we are getting ahead of ourselves, just as many of us did a week ago.

Last year we won 13 home and away games out of 22. That's a winning rate of about 60%. Pretty ordinary! Like DaicosMagic said, we were the fourth best team at the end of H&A, but we got a second chance at the Premiership by winning our next two games.

DO NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES. Improvement this year means winning more than 13 games of footy during the H&A season. I, like everyone who bleeds black and white, would give my right nut to see us win the Granny again, but I understand that winning more than 13 games is an improvement. Get the systems right, and the results will follow.

Making the Grand Final in 2002 doesn't give you a first class ticket to the match the following year. Be happy to win more than 13 games and make the finals. Then, when we've achieved that, be disappointed if we don't win the premiership.

But until then, its just a lot of stuff and nonsense.

AnthonyC · Joined: 09 Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Victoria

drew1602 · Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Location: Northcote Victoria

Once again Rohan as started a string to try and envoke some useless debate....If all you are concerned with Rohan is winning the premiership and nothing in between ( as per the Dr's comments)...please take a long trip interstate or overseas and come back in late September.....who knows you may finally have something positive to say about our beloved magpies !!

DaicosMagic · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 7:16 pm

Theoretically, an AFL team should win a premiership every 16 years (16 teams...) That means for 1 and a half decades, a lot of you folk lead a meaningless life.

And second place in the AFL is not the first loser. The first loser is the team that first realises their finals chances are gone (just to be technically anal - without taking into consideration their number 1 draft pick).

MarkT · Joined: 07 Aug 2001 Location: Melb

Drew, I love seeing Collingwood win H&A games.

If we are here just for that though then that's all we'll ever get and could be why we have won 1 premiership since 1958. If there is a single player at COllingwood right now that accepts anything less than a Collingwood premiership in 2003 then as far I am concerned sack 'em right now.

By and large I had a ball last season. Now I want a bigger ball. I am here to see Collingwood win the premiership. That doesn't mean I will give up on them if they don't but by Christ I have seen enough of "we did well to come second this year" to last me the rest of my life. In my life, from a 1966 one point loss to a 2002 gallant underdog 9 point loss, I have seen 8 grand finals for one win and of those I have missed only 1966 and 1970 in the flesh. I can't tell you what 1990 ment after all that late '70's/early '80's agony. We are strong again and winning the premiership is what we must and I hope are about.

Dr Alf Andrews · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 7:18 pm

mandy · Joined: 03 Jun 2001 Location: Glen Iris

It's festivas for the rest of us! Wink

Brown26 · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 10:04 am

no Rohan, second isn't good enough, and yes we are all getting ahead of ourseles presuming we will be sucessful. So I propose the alternate method:

"Man, are we going to SUCK this year! I mean, last year, what a fluke! We have no Ruck, our Full Forward, sure, a lot of promise but what has he actually done, appart from a few good games against Melbourne every year. And Josh Fraser - What a dud! Trade him now I say, while we still can - may Brisbane will atke him for Chris Johnson, we may have to throw Leon Davis in as well, no future there though. Oh, mark my words, it's going to be a lean year, I wouldn't be surprised if we lose our first five games, we won't improve on last years efforts, we will go backwards for sure! Oh, woe is me, and my football club, maybe I should BARRACK FOR RICHMOND WHERE THIS IS ACCURATE."

Hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did.

- Ben