First Qualifying Final: Fremantle v Sydney

[i'm-uninformed2]

The biggest frustration of that is I'll be surprised if we're not too banged up to back up properly next week.

The senior guys - from Kennedy to Goodes to Shaw to Ted to Hanners and thru were terrific.

Much to my amazement Towers was terrific, Jones showed when he came on he will be a cracker, Heeney worked into it.

But to win a flag you need your best players on the field, and we've not had it all year and certainly won't for the rest.

[MarshallG]

Old guard were great, leaders through and through.

You know the stakes are high when Shaw is getting the ball north of the centre line.

[Gary]

Agree that Towers made a contribution today ... best game he has played for us ... but still don't see him as a regular first grader ... faded to more like his regular self as the game progressed apart from that snap goal in Q3 ... if only a few others had their snapping boots on ... at the end of the day their 2 small forwards won the game with 3 goals each ... Kieran and Parker would surely have snagged a couple and won the game for us. A loss that will be remembered more than most.

[stevoswan]

Franklin will not play next match.

You've heard this or you're speculating this?

Longmire stated this at the press conference, it's official.

[snajik]

I reckon we missed Smith the most..

I reckon you are dead right.

[Agent 86]

First Qualifying Final: Fremantle v Sydney

The biggest frustration of that is I'll be surprised if we're not too banged up to back up properly next week.

The senior guys - from Kennedy to Goodes to Shaw to Ted to Hanners and thru were terrific.

Much to my amazement Towers was terrific, Jones showed when he came on he will be a cracker, Heeney worked into it.

But to win a flag you need your best players on the field, and we've not had it all year and certainly won't for the rest.

Towers is improving. I think he needs to get confidence he's good enough to compete at this level. He'll be okay.

[Swansinger]

Stop saying they are brave you patronising show ponies. We were @@@@e. Bad kicking is bad football.

We have a winner !!

[Swansinger]

Freo are seriously bad though...I will take great pleasure in booing them all through the final series and look forward to them crashing out in the prelim

They will - which will deny Ross Lyon the chance to coach five GF teams,for zero wins!

[Primmy]

Nice quote by AFL in the ruler run over the players on Shaw, that he was sprinting towards the finish line.

Bet he's exhausted.

[Agent 86]

If Towers had managed to convert that late shot, I would've formally taken back the nasty things I said about him earlier in the year. Still, he has been good though, and he probably deserved a free kick after being forearmed in the head by Hill.

I'm a big fan of towers lately. Hate to say it, but he should have milked that forearm. Kudos to him for not going there, tho'.

[Nico]

I don't get the rage about Jetta. He worked so hard in the last quarter. Put his body on the line.

[dimelb]

I agree with most of what the average punter has said. If any two of those 18 behinds had gone through, our severely depleted team would have won.

The team together was amazing, shame about the few who could have put in more. One criticism I don't agree with is the bagging of Cunningham. I thought he did some really good things tonight and it's good to see him tackling hard, kicking reasonably straight most of the time, quick accurate handballs and 1% for other players. Brandon will be better for the experience. I don't know what Gary was doing for long stretches of time and I wonder if he is still NQR. If Sam doesn't come up - and for me a hamstring problem means he won't - perhaps we should throw caution to the wind and bring in James Rose.

I thought the coaches had a good game, and on the whole the umpires also, even including the 50m against Jonesy.

[707]

Smith plays - we win, simple as that. Incredibly gutsy effort, incredibly proud of the guys, so close to the big upset.

Towers for the first time actually looked AFL standard, and in a high pressure final too. There is hope he can become best 22.

Shaw and Goodes, like the Geelong retirees, still got the goods!

Think we are likely to go out in straight sets given the mounting injury toll and gruelling encounter plus the travel, but there is hope. Think Rose needs to come in for Reid, the guy has GOAL sense!

[Plugger46]

Couldn't fault their effort. We did enough to be a chance to win but missed goals and a fairly ordinary contribution from the bottom half a dozen players were the reasons we lost.

[Swannette]

Biggest disappointment for me was Rohan and Jetta. Rohan unsighted and Jetta uninterested as far as I could see. Fastest bloke on the park barely got into a canter and dobbed many passes as if he was too tired or didn't care. Rohan goes missing when the pressure is on and the oof summed up his day. So many poor decisions. And turnovers. And fumbles. Thought the umpiring was pretty fair. Clearly the personnel in the park could have got the win if they'd taken their chances. But they didn't. Sucks to be a swan.