Preview 2019 Semi Final v West Coast

[Sttew]

This is the sort of final we win. Backs to the wall, coming off a loss, players out, etc.

WCE lost to the Hawks at home 3 weeks ago. They are not in scintillating form.

 

[00VicWard001]

Stanley should be playing, but what's his mental mind going to be like? When your coach doesn't rate him... So I wonder how is he going to perform.. ( I can't blame him tbh ) I really hope he comes out and kills it, but will he mentally is the biggest thing.
Some people may say his been dropped before and bounce back but this is different as this is a do or die final. Not a home and away game....

As is common with all budgie’s, Stanley’s mental mind at best is a level 2. So I don’t think he’ll have any issues.

It’s his courage heart that I’m more interested in.

Hopefully they get a mirror in front of him pre-game and during the warmup and let him preen like a pretty boy.

Then take it away from him and show him NicNat and tell him that “dreadlocked Fatso stole your mirror”.

Or if they don’t want to try this, they could just rely on the fact that he’s a professional, the game has meaning for him, he is a competitor and he loves his teammates. That should be enough I’d say (as a second option, obviously).

 

[00VicWard001]

I don't like wishing bad but a low turnout of Geelong supporters might make another statement that our delusional coach might acknowledge. He will blame the weather... I have lost any strong connection to the club and players with Scott in charge, his smart ass attitude has no place at our club. Start being a smart ass when you can at least coach our players the basics.

The one thing I like about your posts is that you go all in. No hedging your bets.

The second we lose, most of these other posters flip and flop around like toddlers having a tantrum. You would note that they start their post by apologising that they’ve always defended Scott, then whinging about things that they have the shallowest idea about (e.g. Stanley is a confidence player and he’ll have no confidence - when the truth is - who the f*ck knows if he is, all we know is that he’s an inconsistent player, he’s athletic and that he’s tall and strong) and then follow up by saying we’ll lose, then saying that maybe we’ll win.

They must disgust you with their wishy-washy opinions.

You on the other hand have stuck to your story for years, win or lose - you don’t like what you see. And I commend you for that.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Does anyone know what end the cheer squads are sitting? Wanna get tic,ets but unsure which end the eagles will be at.

 

[Marl]

Does anyone know what end the cheer squads are sitting? Wanna get tic,ets but unsure which end the eagles will be at.

Cheer squad are M33

 

[Tackle_happy]

This is the sort of final we win. Backs to the wall, coming off a loss, players out, etc.

WCE lost to the Hawks at home 3 weeks ago. They are not in scintillating form.

Well seeing as we have been pretty much one win/one loss from the bye ... then we should win based on that alone. Agree about West Coast ... but when they do come to play they are a very strong team.

 

[Pollywaffle]

This is the sort of final we win. Backs to the wall, coming off a loss, players out, etc.
WCE lost to the Hawks at home 3 weeks ago. They are not in scintillating form.

Yep, we will come out and win this then go AWOL the next game.
Deckchairs will be shuffled and 'SS Geelong' will steam on.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Cheer squad are M33

Cats or eagles?

 

[Cataholic]

The one thing I like about your posts is that you go all in. No hedging your bets.

The second we lose, most of these other posters flip and flop around like toddlers having a tantrum. You would note that they start their post by apologising that they’ve always defended Scott, then whinging about things that they have the shallowest idea about (e.g. Stanley is a confidence player and he’ll have no confidence - when the truth is - who the f*ck knows if he is, all we know is that he’s an inconsistent player, he’s athletic and that he’s tall and strong) and then follow up by saying we’ll lose, then saying that maybe we’ll win.

They must disgust you with their wishy-washy opinions.

You on the other hand have stuck to your story for years, win or lose - you don’t like what you see. And I commend you for that.

I wouldn't describe myself as 'wishy washy'........ But someone who's wavering in their belief and rapidly losing faith in Scott's ability to take us to a GF. I think that's fair enough?

And as to speculation about Stanley's confidence..... Well, you're right, it's just that. But it's also not a string leap of faith to believe his confidence is shaken..... Is it??

And as for a bet both ways on winning or not, I'd suggest that's the result of wavering confidence, rather than a total loss of it. Yet.

 

[cats_09]

Cats or eagles?

Cheer squad locations
Geelong Cats: M33
West Coast Eagles: M3

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Cheer squad locations
Geelong Cats: M33
West Coast Eagles: M3

Thanks for that.

 

[Grimoz]

Ive had a rethink about my position, yesterday i said even if we did beat West Coast we will get thumped by Richmond, now im not so sure, if we get a confidence boosting win against West Coast i expect our players to be ready for the tigers given what happened in 2017 and hit them hard at the start, they will take a little confidence from what we did to them earlier in the year and now would be determined to right the ship and make a statement (would be nothing better than knocking tiges off in a prelim), Duncan may also be back, need to beat West Coast first obviously but i still think its possible to make the big dance albeit a tough road.

We seem to be bereft of confidence at the moment and its possible that a good tough win in a final is the thing to kickstart us again.

 

[cats_09]

I don't like wishing bad but a low turnout of Geelong supporters might make another statement that our delusional coach might acknowledge. He will blame the weather... I have lost any strong connection to the club and players with Scott in charge, his smart ass attitude has no place at our club. Start being a smart ass when you can at least coach our players the basics.

We have always struggled for good crowds at Melbourne home matches on a Friday night - the clubs long acknowledged it and it's not something new.

And when you consider the added issues this year of no parking at the MCG, no Geelong trains going through to Richmond & just for fun there are no additional buses going up due to no bus parking, those are some of the reasons people won't be traveling - I've read stories from last week of it taking 2+ hours to get the MCG from Geelong, and some people aren't in a position to do that repeatedly.

Crowd numbers will be down on Friday night and some of it may be due to the coach but it's a long bow to put a low turn out as being completely on Scott, and rightly it won't be attributed to him when there are so many other factors at play. If anything, it would be more of a revolt against the AFL for refusing to schedule this match at the GMHBA when they could easily have had a sell-out crowd and what would be a much better atmosphere compared to what seems likely to be a 1/3 full MCG; curious to see how true it is but I read before that less than 39k tickets have been sold so far

 

[Play it Sam]

80% of the outrage written has been about endeavour and Scott.
Knowing the lights will go out and they'll be laughing stock might help mindset.

But can we turn around the loss of skills? Need some luck.
They did get their bearings to motor home and make it close.
Hope is frail, but at least it's there to grab.

 

[STPer18]

Ugh, excitement starting to build again. I told myself I wouldn't get invested in this one, but the club has a magical grip on my balls. Let's go Geelong.

 

[Play it Sam]

We have always struggled for good crowds at Melbourne home matches on a Friday night - the clubs long acknowledged it and it's not something new.

And when you consider the added issues this year of no parking at the MCG, no Geelong trains going through to Richmond & just for fun there are no additional buses going up due to no bus parking, those are some of the reasons people won't be traveling - I've read stories from last week of it taking 2+ hours to get the MCG from Geelong, and some people aren't in a position to do that repeatedly.

Crowd numbers will be down on Friday night and some of it may be due to the coach but it's a long bow to put a low turn out as being completely on Scott, and rightly it won't be attributed to him when there are so many other factors at play. If anything, it would be more of a revolt against the AFL for refusing to schedule this match at the GMHBA when they could easily have had a sell-out crowd and what would be a much better atmosphere compared to what seems likely to be a 1/3 full MCG; curious to see how true it is but I read before that less than 39k tickets have been sold so far

And don't the AFL know it! Never seen so many Facebook ads urging ticket sales, and have never seen "from $35" in print before. Together with Ticketek they are usually that smug they will get their $100, they don't ever mention the pricing.
Logistics are bad, but I think it's less disloyalty to coach/players and more wanting the AFL to fall on it's arse.

 

[Pollywaffle]

Ugh, excitement starting to build again. I told myself I wouldn't get invested in this one, but the club has a magical grip on my balls. Let's go Geelong.

Put 50 bucks on The Eagles
That will get you invested, and either way you win ( kind of)

 

[Stocks_go_Up]

The one thing I like about your posts is that you go all in. No hedging your bets.

The second we lose, most of these other posters flip and flop around like toddlers having a tantrum. You would note that they start their post by apologising that they’ve always defended Scott, then whinging about things that they have the shallowest idea about (e.g. Stanley is a confidence player and he’ll have no confidence - when the truth is - who the f*ck knows if he is, all we know is that he’s an inconsistent player, he’s athletic and that he’s tall and strong) and then follow up by saying we’ll lose, then saying that maybe we’ll win.

They must disgust you with their wishy-washy opinions.

You on the other hand have stuck to your story for years, win or lose - you don’t like what you see. And I commend you for that.

I just call it how I see it and have seen it for a long time. I go into every game hoping that we change things up and start doing the basics right (I was hopeful after our strong start this year but the longer the season went on the more it looked like Scott had killed any attacking flair and natural instincts of our new recruit. Scott reverted to his modus operandi of slow defensive football when things got tough instead of taking a risk and letting players use their natural ability.

 

[cynical]

We will lose this game by 50+. Scott needs to have his position reviewed, as does the board, once this happens. We have taken the strongest possible position, and converted it into a weak one. There's no way we beat West Coast this week, without Dunc, sore players and a ruckman who they don't even trust to play.

Would love us to lose by 50+ but the way we play its just very unlikely. It'll likely be another low scoring affair where the game is over but we get within 3 goals at the end.

We lost to the Pies by 10 points even though they smashed us.

 

[Shadow89]

The one thing I like about your posts is that you go all in. No hedging your bets.

The second we lose, most of these other posters flip and flop around like toddlers having a tantrum. You would note that they start their post by apologising that they’ve always defended Scott, then whinging about things that they have the shallowest idea about (e.g. Stanley is a confidence player and he’ll have no confidence - when the truth is - who the f*ck knows if he is, all we know is that he’s an inconsistent player, he’s athletic and that he’s tall and strong) and then follow up by saying we’ll lose, then saying that maybe we’ll win.

They must disgust you with their wishy-washy opinions.

You on the other hand have stuck to your story for years, win or lose - you don’t like what you see. And I commend you for that.

What a bone-headed post.

Maybe, just maybe, is it instead possible that some of us have stuck to our defence of Scott for the last 7 years, and that this Stanley debacle was the last straw? That the lies and the arrogance from the club, in one of our most important games, took centre stage over the actual game? I excused his decision to drop Menzel in 2017 (I was rightly pissed at the time), only because he was brought back in and played like crap against the Crows (his decision to burn Selwood in the 3rd when we were on a roll, and shoot from 55, reeked of a 'me first' player). This Stanley decision, IMO, was inexcusable.

Some people take a while to reach certain conclusions (I've defended him because we have made finals with a transitioning list; something that a lot of other clubs could only dream of). Just because they don't think the same from the beginning, doesn't make them 'wishy-washy', just makes them more willing to see how things play out before making a judgement call.

I personally haven't been bothered by certain losses, when I've understood why we've lost. But losing after a bye has always come with the same vitriol from me, as has losing to bottom end teams that we approach with smug arrogance - and then lose to. I've always said that it's how we lose not when we lose that bothers me the most. If we had of been competitive all game and still gone down to Collingwood, then I would be more than positive about this week. We weren't and now I'm not.

My partner also defended Scott, and has reached the same conclusion as me this week. We both wanted him gone last year, but he then signed on to 2022 the week before our finals match against the Demons. I didn't think we'd make the 8 this year, or if we did, that we'd just scrape in. To then see our focus on youth, aggression in the front half and recruitment/drafting of pace and ruggedness, was a surprise to say the least. To then also see us win 10 out of our first 11 games, when I thought we would 6-5 at best, was incredible. To see us revert back to certain old patterns like last year, and lose the aforementioned focus, alongside this whole Stanley thing, is what brought me to the 'sack Scott' position many others have been in for years. I suspect others would be in a similar boat.

To change your opinion based on evidence doesn't make you 'wishy-washy', it makes you reasoned and considered. Once the evidence and the argument then stacks up against your own opinion, then you have no choice but to accept it. It's not your place to condemn others for this, when they have tried to see the positive in a negative situation, and have now run out of positives to see.

 

[BotsMaster]

Thursday night melts is here ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Partridge]

Wouldn't be a Geelong final based in Melbourne on a Friday night without the inherent travel issues getting to the game....

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You almost wish there was a stadium that held 100,000 people nearby. The car park for that would accommodate plenty of people.

 

[Shadow89]

You almost wish there was a stadium that held 100,000 people nearby. The car park for that would accommodate plenty of people.

I seriously don't understand why the carpark is always closed. I get the weather side of it, but it's not going to rain this Friday. What do they want people to do? No wonder the crowd is going to be poor.

 

[Partridge]

I seriously don't understand why the carpark is always closed. I get the weather side of it, but it's not going to rain this Friday. What do they want people to do? No wonder the crowd is going to be poor.

I don't get it at all.

It's a car park. If it rains it gets wet.When the sun comes out it'll dry. It's very complicated isn't it? Apparently for the AFL.

 

[cats_09]

I seriously don't understand why the carpark is always closed. I get the weather side of it, but it's not going to rain this Friday. What do they want people to do? No wonder the crowd is going to be poor.

It's not about the weather anymore, it's to do with crowd safety - restrictions started being put in place after a couple of incidents in Melbourne with vehicles being used as weapons.

A key reason was to minimise the chance of that happening at a large scale event

From last year:
Cars will be blocked from parking at major sporting events at the MCG in an effort to strengthen security against vehicular terror attacks.
Yarra Park will be closed for marquee matches

full story - https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl...or-major-sporting-events-20180314-p4z493.html