Rnd 17 MDT. Sydney V Hawthorn. SCG. 19.20 pm.

[Cheer_Cheer]

I thought Buddy should have got a stack of frees.. Every time the ball went near him with he seemed to have a Hawthorn player holding each arm..

[aardvark]

Not to mention 3 50m penalties that resulted in 3 goals.

We know the rules. It was our stupid mistakes that lead to those penalties not the umpires bias.

[mcs]

If you want the evidence of what went wrong tonight, this is it - look at that disposal efficiency column, too many players wasting it when getting rid of it Yes it was a hot game, but that is just not good enough, even under pressure.
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[Scottee]

Hard to be too disappointed after this game. The double 6 day break obviously took its toll. We shouldn't have even been close. Also the umpiring was outrageous. Will beat them easily next time.

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[Daisi]

yes agree about Buddy, held and scragged all night...

But we expect this...

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say the AFL is hoping for a good GWS finish and for the Swans supporters to get behind them...

They live in fairyland the AFL..

[mcs]

We know the rules. It was our stupid mistakes that lead to those penalties not the umpires bias.

Its frustrating though when they pick a few out at random then ignore other ones that were clearly the same or even worse - i.e. the Burgoyne one late on as an example.

We don't help ourselves with those, but some of them are ridiculous calls. The one on Mcglynn when the hawks player clearly looked like he was going to play on was exceptionally harsh as well - a rational umpire would of told him to get on the mark and get on with it (the reaction was as much instinct as anything, it was clear the Hawks player moved in a way that looked like he was about to play on).

[troyjones2525]

We know the rules. It was our stupid mistakes that lead to those penalties not the umpires bias.

Totally agree with this. Its a cop out to blame the umpires for a loss. Yes they were bad, but you have to be able to kick the goals to win no matter how many free kicks you get! The 50 against McGlynn was obvious and hurt us badly.

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[Flying South]

Funnily enough noone to bag tonight. Other than the umpires. I knew we need just one more goal. Because the umpires always had one more goal up their sleeve to give the Hawks. Yet again.

Are you kidding. I'll bag Towers again and again. He had two options. Play on quickly to Hannebery who was screaming for the ball running inside 50. Or wait and bang it long inside 50 to a contest. But no, for whatever reason only he will know he does a dinky sideways kick to a nothing contest and we lose possesion. Blame the umpires all you like. I blame Towers.

[MattW]

So disappointing, but it did feel like it was coming. They had better composure. In the last quarter we had them on the ropes but could only kick behinds. We've got a majority of hard and smart players, including young players who are developing quickly like Rohan, Rampe, Mills, Aliir, Papley.

But Towers is so weak mentally. He's always going to be a vulnerability in big games and those are the games in which the season is won and lost. He's lost us 2-3 games this year. Select someone else and trade him.

[jono2707]

I thought all in all a gripping but poor game of footy - neither team truly got going, and while it was closing, it wasn't a high quality game of football. Sadly I don't have the same feeling from the similar match in 2012 - when walking out of the ground I said to my mate that we could win the flag, despite the loss. We are just dreadful under pressure late, and can't run down a clock to save ourselves. We have too many players susceptible to terrible decision making when it counts, and again it cost us. And like the two others we've lost at the death, it seemed tonight that at the clutch times, the oppositions would never miss. Bruce and BT are still cleaning up the commentary box about Cyril.

Going to be a long weekend now - @@@@ the @@@@ing hawks, anybody but those dickheads for mine.

This pretty much sums it up for me too - I didn't think it was a great quality game.

[Auntie.Gerald]

AA great game and Naismith also

Unleashing those two guys has been wonderful for the team

Disappointed to loose but that Hawks team is a bunch of elite kickers of the ball

Wow even the 70m volley with a 1min to go Sam Mitchell straight to his forwards ??? I mean yes wrong option by Towers but next moment just freakish by Mitchell

Amazing

[MattW]

We know the rules. It was our stupid mistakes that lead to those penalties not the umpires bias.

Yep, I winced at each of those 50s before they were given.

[Nico]

You can blame the umpiring all you want. We played through that, were set to win, only for a player to make the same stupid mistake. Towers is so indecisive with the ball it is not funny. Doesn't matter if he running with it, static or in a contest. He just had to kick the cover off the footy.

[mcs]

Hard to be too disappointed after this game. The double 6 day break obviously took its toll. We shouldn't have even been close. Also the umpiring was outrageous. Will beat them easily next time.

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My fear is nothing to do with tonight's result in isolation, its our complete inability to win the close ones. We've now lost 4 and won 1 of 5 games where the margin was 10 points or less. We were exceptionally fortunate to win the one we did (against the Lions), got royally rooted by the umpires at a critical time in one (Betts HTB against the Crows), and have choked in the other 3. In those 3 we have led within the last 2 minutes, and all 3 times brain farts have cost us the game. I know it takes time for young players to gain composure and the ability to perform under pressure, but we still have plenty of senior guys that can and should do better in such circumstances. It is where we need leadership from them, and again they failed us.

We are going to rue those games I fear at the end of Rd 23 - we may well make the 4, but more than likely just a win in 1 of them and we would of been top 2 and in a beautiful position to have 2 home finals. As it is, we will need to win our last 6 most likely to finish top 2, and face the very real prospect if we don't of a week 1 trip to Melbourne or Adelaide (best case scenario would be GWS away) - and for that we will have nobody but ourselves to blame.

[aardvark]

Towers is a good athlete but he doesn't have a football brain. He is football dumb just like Jesse White. He will never get better no matter how much he plays.