Dockers matchday thread

[aardvark]

Just a minute some of you....yes we had a poor 3rd, but the opposition (Cannot speak their rotten name) had pretty poor quarter in this game as well! It WAS the umpires who caused this travesty from the very first few minutes...no idea why but have my suspicions....

Hmmm .... love a good conspiracy theory, tell us more ???????

[Cardinal]

I'm not saying we need to set up a commitee but we definitely need to have a look at how to avoid going the way of rugby union

[Swans500]

Hmmm .... love a good conspiracy theory, tell us more ???????

I am not the only one here....but...LOL...anyway...

[BSA5]

Screw being politically correct. Ray robbed us. I've only ever directly blamed the umps for a loss twice, first against the Dons in 07 (that famous McPhee incident), and this game. The other umpires were fine, quite good in fact, but Ray... Inexcusable. Simply inexcusable.

@@@@ saying the Dockers were a better side. They weren't. We were better in the first quarter, we were better in the second quarter, we were a little worse in the third and we shat all over them in the last. The better team lost today because Ray Chamberlain is a self-important, officious little @@@@@ who probably got beaten up by the footy players at school and can't stand the game.

Longmire should make an official complaint to the AFL, and use the Grundy vs Ballantyne incident as an example. Ballantyne is taking full-blooded swings at Grundy who is simply holding him off, and Chamberlain is just waiting, waiting for Ballantyne's cheek to graze Grundy's fist as he was thashing about. Unbelievable. Not to mention the free paid to Ballantyne in the first for tripping over.

Anyway, positives: we actually played pretty well. Our handpassing and spread was really good. We linked up well, we found targets with the ball. We still lacked that forward structure, but that's fine, we don't have the forwards to build a structure around. That's not a coaching problem, it's not an effort problem, it's a list issue. We were more functional than normal anyway.

McVeigh played a real captain's game. Goodes was good. Jack was great. Parker was good. Smith was great. Shane Mumford mighty. We had a lot of great players that deserved better today.

[luvina69]

Poor wet weather foot ballall year , starts at the selection table. Too tall ,no crumbers, overuse of hand ball and really bad disposle by foot. Sadly starting to become very predictable from a spectator point of veiw so must be easy for an opposition coach to plan against.

[basher williams]

The facts are we did the stupid things that gave Razor the opportunity to make the calls he did. For 3 quarters we played DUMB suburban footy and Ballantyne did a terrific job of sucking us in all day and the players who should know better fell for it.

Really really disappointing effort Swannies, one of the worst performances iv'e seem in the last 50 years.

Good comment aardvark. The skills or lack of them were by far our worst for the year. .Some poor decisions. The worst was the illegal handball ,which was legitimate.but in the context of the congested wet and frenetic last few minutes put a full stop to the momentum
Anyway it was a disappointing. In over 70 years following the Swans even when we have been flogged I"ve neverwalked out of the ground or turned off the radio or telly before the end of the game, but almost set a precedent at three quarter time today

[aardvark]

We lost the game because we got sucked in by Ballantyne and had a massive brain fade in the 3rd quarter. A really immature performance IMO.

[Panttz]

Hey at least we arent complaining about our accuracy this week :P

[ScottH]

Hey at least we arent complaining about our accuracy this week :P

Always someone has to be a smart arse!!

[bennyfabulous]

There should be some kind of investigation or atleast a complaint on our behalf, but neither will happen.

It cant be an AFL directive to screw us as its in the best interest of the AFL for us to be sucessful, so i can only assume "RAT" Chamberlain is just a self-important toss bag who feels he needs to be part of the action.

Im not usually one for physical violence, but if i see him in person, i will have to plead temporary insanity in any subsequent court case.

[Margie]

There should be some kind of investigation or atleast a complaint on our behalf, but neither will happen.

It cant be an AFL directive to screw us as its in the best interest of the AFL for us to be sucessful, so i can only assume "RAT" Chamberlain is just a self-important toss bag who feels he needs to be part of the action.

Im not usually one for physical violence, but if i see him in person, i will have to plead temporary insanity in any subsequent court case.

He makes the game about him. I can't recall the crowd ever showing so much anger against the umpiring - most particularly towards Razor.

And the booing off was deafening.

The trouble is, these grandstanding decisions (however minor technically correct they may be) swing the momentum of the game, emboldening one side and deflating the other.

Our 3rd quarter was rubbish, but with a flow-on in the final quarter anything could have happened. Next goal made it a draw. But oh no, ticky-touch decisions were made again.

[CJK]

Back from another lousy wet day at the SCG and another loss.

Starting to wonder why I bother

[CJK]

I've only ever directly blamed the umps for a loss twice, first against the Dons in 07 (that famous McPhee incident), and this game

This.

[supersall]

Umpiring was disgraceful, am thinking AFL has a it's own geometrically deranged measurement system, 2 of their 50 metre (!) penalties were about 70, maybe being short makes you a bad judge of distance.

4 Freo goals directly attributable to wrong (none of the 50-50 crap, just plain wrong) umpiring decisions in or near the goal square.

Positives though, AJ, Parker, Hannebury, Ried, and yes, even Jetta, were the guys to get us going again, real body on the line stuff, particularly on my wing. No longer is it our 'old' boys trying to get us over the line. walked away with some hope for the future.

[rojo]

I have just listened to interviews of Hanners and ROK after the game. They are shattered, not by the umpiring decisions but by the lack of a 4 quarter effort and ill-discipline of some of the team members. They are in no doubt as to reasons for the defeat and seem at a loss to understand the lack of intensity shown when it was needed, in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. I was almost in tears as they expressed their great disappointment.

For me it is not so much the players but the totally predictable game plan, the lack of or inability of runners to break the lines (Micky O's comment), and of course a forward line that is structurally deficient. The players can play their hearts out but are at such a disadvantage. When an opposing team has more runners than can be shut down, the Swans are exposed. Especially when the few Swans runners seem to be too easily shut down.

Bigger picture, I fear that we are going to struggle bigtime to get past mediocre despite the young guns coming through.