Why we lost today.

[MisterMarcus]

No, just no. The succession plan was the right thing to do at the time, in 2009 when Mick had been at the helm for 9 years and Collingwood was looking like we'd have trouble getting into the finals. If Mick couldn't handle it then he should've just quit in 2009 and saved everyone some trouble. The club didn't trick him into it, it was all laid out in front of him, if he couldn't handle the situation the fault lies with Mick Malthouse, no-one else.

Well.....if Collingwood genuinely believed they wouldn't go all the way under MM then they should have made the hard call on him in 2009. Or else they should have rallied 100% behind him and publicly declared he was The Man going forward.

They needed to back him or sack him. Instead they tried to engineer this half-arsed succession plan that ended up pleasing nobody.

 

[PieBeast]

Well.....if Collingwood genuinely believed they wouldn't go all the way under MM then they should have made the hard call on him in 2009. Or else they should have rallied 100% behind him and publicly declared he was The Man going forward.

They needed to back him or sack him. Instead they tried to engineer this half-arsed succession plan that ended up pleasing nobody.

Giving him two years notice has delivered us a Flag and only the fact he is a selfish and petulant old sook has stopped us from going back 2 back.

You can piss off now.

 

[Checkside35]

Well.....if Collingwood genuinely believed they wouldn't go all the way under MM then they should have made the hard call on him in 2009. Or else they should have rallied 100% behind him and publicly declared he was The Man going forward.

They needed to back him or sack him. Instead they tried to engineer this half-arsed succession plan that ended up pleasing nobody.

The end decision lies with the individual. If he wasn't sure, he should have walked. He decided to see through a list that was still raw. Did he think his brand was too damaged after 10 seasons at Collingwood? Were there no nibbles from other clubs? Had things gone a bit too quiet? Perhaps he thought he should end it at the Pies and walk away

then

Oh Sh!t we won a flag. ****, I don't feel that way anymore, f..k the lot of you, these boys are mine, mine, mine, mine. I love coaching, how easy is this. What? Footscray's on the phone? , Melbourne's on the phone? Haha Freo? I'm still in demand! F..k you Eddie and Perty, shove the proposals up your arse, they don't look that good anymore. Bucks is an assistant until I tell him he can coach.

Have to hand it to Geelong. When Sando got the job at Adelaide, Scott wanted him to finish. Neeld gets the job at Melbourne, wants to finish and Malthouse The Mentor says 'No', escape the nest my little one. Whether Neeld came around to that type of thinking later doesn't matter. Why were Geelong so accommodating yet Malthouse says 'off you go, can't have that?

BTW, always thankful to Mick for guiding us to that elusive flag.

 

[MisterMarcus]

The end decision lies with the individual. If he wasn't sure, he should have walked. He decided to see through a list that was still raw. Did he think his brand was too damaged after 10 seasons at Collingwood? Were there no nibbles from other clubs? Had things gone a bit too quiet? Perhaps he thought he should end it at the Pies and walk away

then

Oh Sh!t we won a flag. ****, I don't feel that way anymore, f..k the lot of you, these boys are mine, mine, mine, mine. I love coaching, how easy is this. What? Footscray's on the phone? , Melbourne's on the phone? Haha Freo? I'm still in demand! F..k you Eddie and Perty, shove the proposals up your arse, they don't look that good anymore. Bucks is an assistant until I tell him he can coach.

Have to hand it to Geelong. When Sando got the job at Adelaide, Scott wanted him to finish. Neeld gets the job at Melbourne, wants to finish and Malthouse The Mentor says 'No', escape the nest my little one. Whether Neeld came around to that type of thinking later doesn't matter. Why were Geelong so accommodating yet Malthouse says 'off you go, can't have that?

BTW, always thankful to Mick for guiding us to that elusive flag.

I reckon it was put to him like this

(a) agree to the plan and be guaranteed safe until end of 2011, or

(b) don't agree...and there's no guarantees going forward, you could be sacked next week.

Now you can certainly argue Mick should have walked or spoken out if he was unhappy with this ultimatum....but my point is he shouldn't have been put in this position in the first place.

You back the coach 100% or piss him off. Eddie seemed reluctant to make the hard call either way and now the Pies have ended up with this sort of "nothing" arrangement.

 

[Checkside35]

I reckon it was put to him like this

(a) agree to the plan and be guaranteed safe until end of 2011, or

(b) don't agree...and there's no guarantees going forward, you could be sacked next week.

Now you can certainly argue Mick should have walked or spoken out if he was unhappy with this ultimatum....but my point is he shouldn't have been put in this position in the first place.

You back the coach 100% or piss him off. Eddie seemed reluctant to make the hard call either way and now the Pies have ended up with this sort of "nothing" arrangement.

Maybe but I still reckon both scenarios are feasible. No one is really going to know what happened until Eddie, Pert, Bucks writes a book.

One thing's for sure from my perspective, MM goes out looking like the sacrificial lamb to outsiders who love to see the Pies fail and to those Pies supporters who are still caught in last year's Grand Final win. I was done with the GF win at the start of the NAB cup because new seasons don't necessarily bring the same performances and rewards. The media love it because it's a scandal.

It's now a nothing arrangement because MM has walked. He's not the type of bloke who will like being in the background, he knows this so he should have walked then. I watched a sh!t load of games this year when the Pies were trying to play like millionaires, a switched on MM, honoring his contract right to the end would have been onto that in a flash. It's hard for some opp supporters to understand because many just watch highlight packages and then troll.

 

[MisterMarcus]

It's now a nothing arrangement because MM has walked. He's not the type of bloke who will like being in the background, he knows this so he should have walked then.

He might well have decided early on to walk away, but kept quiet so as not to rock the boat.

Hardly "selfish" IMO.

 

[Syphoncom]

Dunno whether this has been covered somewhere, but just thought of it. Did anyone see the play where Maxwell was running with a Geelong player to gather a loose ball, perhaps midway through the 3rd? Could've soccered it to Anvil who was in a paddock of his own out on the wing (I think he can off through the interchange) but instead tried to pick it up?

Cost us a goal for memory and looked from my position at the ground to just be poor vision and a bad decision. Unsure if I saw this correctly, but seemed like a big mistake.

Also, really made to rue their goals that came out of nothing..

StevieJ boundary kick over to Selwood (should've been put out 10x over), Jolly OOB tap (unlucky to have a ball up that close to the line, but still the big man should've known), that goal late in the 3rd when Christiansen? took that mark over Heater+1.

Few of those just never should've happened /cry.

 

[TheWoodsOf72]

But that's the problem, no side has enough depth to cover more then 2-3 of your best 22 being out.

Once we lost MaCaffer, Beams and Nathan Brown, you can't exactly go and bring in players like Wood, Goldsack, Sinclair, Buckley etc, we would have beaten by more.

We went in with what we had, it wasn't good enough due to the circumstances, but what were we supposed to do? Drop Heath Shaw, Drop Nick Maxwell, Drop Heath, Dawes, Tooves, Jolly, Reid etc etc?

Nope, we did what we had to do, and what happened was because of a run of bad luck, that's about it.

Drop Didak would have been a good start...

 

[kolchak]

Beatan by a better team, end of story.

 

[Checkside35]

He might well have decided early on to walk away, but kept quiet so as not to rock the boat.

Hardly "selfish" IMO.

yes but he was never going to accept anything proposed because it would have meant no role on match day. You, I and anybody that knows anything about the man's staunch character knows this.

If people attribute the flag to him, they must also attribute a loss to him as well then? His guidance was great but do we attribute the manic pressure of the 'press' to him and only him? Blight won back to back flags because he dared to make changes and throw things around a bit. Mick had a couple of issues and stuck by his staunch structures. In all fairness and won him games but Scott and his mates seemed to be a step ahead. Sh!t happens I guess.

Mark Neeld was pushing a press of sorts when he coached the Jets in the TAC cup as far back as 2005. I played in the early 90's and remember the coach telling us half backs and pockets to go up and help out the wall. It's nothing new so I could never understand the bullsh!t surrounding it and how Mick and he only tweaked it.

 

[Checkside35]

Beatan by a better team, end of story.

The Night Stalker? LOL

 

[Shmoses]

You lost on Saturday because the bottom five or six blokes on your list didn't stand up and Geelong's did. That tends to be the deciding factor in GFs.

 

[Snoop Dog]

Actually, if you go back to the foot show interview Mick said something that stuck with me at the time ... he said that his state of mind was not 100% due to the loss of his mother and that is why he agreed with it. I thought that spoke volumes.

that has some validity if the decision was forced upon him over 1-2 days but if you go back to the time it was being played out for much longer. Ultimately Mick had to make a decision and frankly come on to TFS as he did and suggest he had been pressured was just a cop out. He made his bed and he had to lay in it. He should be bloody grateful they (incl Bucks) gave him the 2 years in my view. To suggest Eddie and Bucks derailed it is just laughable.

Anyway he is gone now and I think the club will be better for it. Bucks showed a lot of class the last 2 years and its his show now.

 

[cats070911]

Giving him two years notice has delivered us a Flag and only the fact he is a selfish and petulant old sook has stopped us from going back 2 back.

You can piss off now.

The ball bounced right instead of left.

Otherwise utter failure.

 

[Checkside35]

The ball bounced right instead of left.

Otherwise utter failure.

yeah and if Mooney's knock out of bounds wasn't paid against Clement as deliberate in 07 prelim............if if if if. If Scarletts toe poke slewed off his boot in 09,...............

Bay 13 for trolls.

 

[Checkside35]

You lost on Saturday because the bottom five or six blokes on your list didn't stand up and Geelong's did. That tends to be the deciding factor in GFs.

Yep, can't argue with that.

 

[Gavin Excell]

The last ten mins of the second quarter was critical to the outcome.

Was fearing worst midway through the second - had pies gone to half time with a 3-4 goal lead, then that potentially changes everything.

 

[Kirby]

The last ten mins of the second quarter was critical to the outcome.

Was fearing worst midway through the second - had pies gone to half time with a 3-4 goal lead, then that potentially changes everything.

Yep, that was the critical period of the game. If we held that lead things could have been different. I actually sensed we were in trouble at the game as it seemed your players had lifted immensely.

From there we more or less just hung on in the third before you guys pulled away from us in the last. The final 5 to 10 mins of the match were rubbish as we were then spent.

 

[mattys123]

Interesting watching On the couch.

First Paul Roos says Collingwood (Malthouse more likely) changed the game plan from the prelim through to the Grand Final, then Chris Scott backs this up by saying he'd never seen Collingwood play the game style they did on Grand Final day, anytime over the past 2 years.

WTF happened, why did we completely change our gameplan for one match?

And would it have made a difference if we had of played "Collingwood football" instead of the attacking, 6 on 6 man forward line setup we went with?

 

[lgarth80]

Agree Matty, was bewildered at our attacking nature. Might have been a foretaste of life under Buckley, but unveiling it first try in a gf took guts.

I was hoping more for a 10 goal to 8 slog, and yes ugly as it would have been, a defensive game rather than a shootout could have suited us more, especially as it was how we ground Hawthorn and WCE into the dirt.

Maybe R24 was no relax, but such a smashing there was a full tactical reshape.

If so again kudos for Mick and the team to give it a go.

The game style fills me with confidence that with practice we will hone it and win under Buckley (using a mix of corridor and boundary as appropriate)

 

[Sasuke]

For mine we lost the game at the end of the 2nd quarter. We were completely on top and could have gone in 5 goals up with a bit of luck.

We also managed to allow Geelong to score numerous goals when the ball was about half a metre away from the boundary when our players could easily have pressure the ball over. Didn't deserve it. Weve hardly put together 4 quarters all year, and this time the opposition nabbed a few back.

 

[lgarth80]

Agree in part but... Cats lifted then and kept lifting their game to amazing levels as we dropped off in intensity.

Had we gone in 5 up, we could well have been over run. Imagine the Colliwobbles talk then.

I reckon 2 up was a fair reflection with the Bartel one being a decision paid in the letter not spirit of the ruck rule.

Even 2 or 3 up not enough in modern footy but might have given us belief and shaken theirs.

I still believe if we had strung two together to get 2 up late in q3 it might have broken their spirit like Hawkins and Bartel goals did ours.

Ifs and buts. They won by 38 pts haha who are we kidding

 

[Kirby]

Interesting watching On the couch.

First Paul Roos says Collingwood (Malthouse more likely) changed the game plan from the prelim through to the Grand Final, then Chris Scott backs this up by saying he'd never seen Collingwood play the game style they did on Grand Final day, anytime over the past 2 years.

WTF happened, why did we completely change our gameplan for one match?

And would it have made a difference if we had of played "Collingwood football" instead of the attacking, 6 on 6 man forward line setup we went with?

What seemed to happen is that MM panicked. Roos was openly critical as to why a team would play completely differently than they had all year.

 

[lgarth80]

What seemed to happen is that MM panicked. Roos was openly critical as to why a team would play completely differently than they had all year.

The reason could be as simple as r24 was no joke and we would have been stuffed further if we had relied on rebound from defence.

I err on the side that we had to risk to win.

If we could have broken them late q2 or early q3 then maybe throw a man back and conserve. Might have been what we tried to do though after kraks goal.

Fact is the cats are ruthless if they get first use out of the middle and a spare in defence. We could not afford rebounds all game like we saw in q4.

Unfortunately we were buggered. Too many tough games, no residual fitness against a fresh opponent which had a perfect schedule of byes and lead up games. And outside of fringe players a clean injury sheet.

In the early part of the game our run enabled us to spot up targets and make Cats defence look shaky. When the run left in q3 guts helped us stay close, but in q4 we were had it physically, emotionally and tactically.

Sadly the season was 40 mins too long.

 

[lethalburns]

I suspect any change to our gamestyle would have been to break the trend of the prior two losses (as part of one final desperate act).

There is no way Mick would have been allowed to implement a gameplan that had no merit. The coaches would have turned on him.

They implemented something on the day that they thought could get them over the line with the physical limitations we had.

In the end we had about 8 players not turn up - we probably would have won by the same margin as the 2010 prelim if Pendles wasn't playing against the whole Geelong side.