Gameday!

[Melbournehammer]

not offended at all. if you think that we are better at the mcg then demonstrate such. we are best when we can congest the ball defensively and come out through hands. we will not beat collingwood or hawthorn at the mcg. it wont happen. i doubt we could beat carlton at the mcg. our forward line cannot mark the ball and we do not have a structure which enablees us to keep it on unless we hit the boundary.

i have been to a lot of games down here in the past years and our structure just lets us down all the time.

[Nico]

The umpiring decisions were nothing compared to our numerous errors out of defence. How many times did we turn it over with failed clearances, leading to an immediate shot at goal for Hawthorn?

Agree Donners. Also I reckon they got at least 8 goals from direct centre clearances. Just not good enough. Poor centre clearance work puts so much pressure on the backs.

[lwjoyner]

UMPIRES bloody deplorable. Free kick and goal to duo and non 50 metres to sam. What a farce. Buddy in 3rd tried to push his way thru was held up but play on. Disgusting what will gesh say probable both were right.

[kangle4]

Grundy was our backline weakness in the first half. Rarely came across to assist Ted against Buddy.

He's not to blame for the loss though, centre clearances were our problem.

[longmile]

Same thing happened against collingwood when it went down to the wire in the last centre clearance we let them win it and score the match winning goal

[DamY]

Gameday!

Really we've done so much better than expected this year, it's been great so far. This was a good game and could have gone either way. The game against Collingwood was the same. We're in the finals, we may be top four...anything can happen...Congrats to the team for having a go....better to lose to the Hawks and Pies now and beat them when it counts...

Agree completely. It was a competitive performance - much better than a honorable loss. We are ahead of where we were last year. Hopefully this is 1 all for the year and when we meet Hawthorn again there is a desire to maintain our little lead on them

[Melbournehammer]

He's not to blame for the loss though, centre clearances were our problem.

i agree. grundy actually was pretty good when he was playing on someone other than roughhead, but he was simply unable to get across to help richards with anything like the regularity that was needed - and the times he did he didnt do anything - in fact a couple of times he fell over when we really needed him to take franklin out of the contest.

but again my view is that he gets found out when we play on larger grounds and on big forwards.

but then so does our centre clearance work - when they got the run on in the second quarter we couldnt get any ball out of their but we couldnt kill it either - we really needed to kill it when you get five points up with 2 minutes to play

[Bexl]

not offended at all. if you think that we are better at the mcg then demonstrate such. we are best when we can congest the ball defensively and come out through hands. we will not beat collingwood or hawthorn at the mcg. it wont happen. i doubt we could beat carlton at the mcg. our forward line cannot mark the ball and we do not have a structure which enablees us to keep it on unless we hit the boundary.

i have been to a lot of games down here in the past years and our structure just lets us down all the time.

In a open season I think we are capable to beat anyone on the day.
As far as the MCG is conserned I know our rescent form there has not been that good but we did it when it counted in 05 and were close again in 06. We beat Hawthorne in Tasie at a bigger ground then the MCG and have beaten W/C at Subi twice in 2 years, also bigger.
A win next week is on the cards that would still give us 2 finals in Sydney and hopfully straight in to the granny. Go Swanies.

[bennyfabulous]

Im generally first to say the umpires cost us the game, but this time people beat me too it. The Umpiring was a @@@@ING joke. cost us the game and they can all @@@@ing get @@@@@@.

[swansrule100]

we just needed to take one of these pies or hawks games, you cant really fault the guys too much in either, just got pipped, but just winning one of them gives us first pretty much, costly.

Umpires were @@@@house in terms of holding the ball, tackling hawthorn is a waste of time, but if your good enough you win and we didnt.

[swansrule100]

hard not to be shattered right now i hate hawthorn so arrogant

[Nico]

Coach put ROK down back when we got in front instead of in the guts to contest the footy. Mitchell and Sewell were far too determined to get the footy. A real problem when we lose the same way against 3 other contenders. Nearly lost against Essendon for the same reason. One of our rucks should have had a go at banging the ball forward. Our mids have not worked out that at more than 90% of centre bounces the ball falls at the ruckmens' feet.

[Wardy]

I'm just sad!!!

[Melbournehammer]

In a open season I think we are capable to beat anyone on the day.
As far as the MCG is conserned I know our rescent form there has not been that good but we did it when it counted in 05 and were close again in 06. We beat Hawthorne in Tasie at a bigger ground then the MCG and have beaten W/C at Subi twice in 2 years, also bigger.
A win next week is on the cards that would still give us 2 finals in Sydney and hopfully straight in to the granny. Go Swanies.

but in 2005/6 we had a forward line that could kick goals on limited opportunities. and we played against a team which didnt have a forward line. hawthorn and colliingwood have working forward lines and we are like west coast circa 2005/6 - we have a very good midfield (not as glamourous as theirs mind you but deep and full of runners) and a strong defence but the evidence is in for the whole season - we do not kick more than 50% of our goals from forwards - the midfieild kicks them - but they cant get more than 75-85 points in a final at the mcg - but i think we will concede more than that against those sides.

[swansprincess]

i think they are a 8 goal better side at the mcg than us. we are an 8 goal side better at teh scg than anywhere else.

i think we will have a straight sets exit here - lose to hawthorn at mcg and then lost to the 5/6 teams - north/geelong.

structurally we are seriously good in the midfield, but our forward line is just not good enough - and unless we keep some smalls forward of centre to lock the ball up we are stuffed.

sad but true.