AFL Grand Final Week Discussion Thread

[stevoswan]

It's simple really. Australia is a small country without the population, financial resources and level of interest to
support a balanced and fair national comp. That's why we don't have one in any football code. I suppose you could
argue the Sheffield Shield is a balanced comp in the sense that technically each team has it's own stadium.
As far as Australian Rules goes we're going to need a much bigger population, a lot more money and a lot more people
interested. But because it's only played in Australia the revenue is always going to be limited to what they can
squeeze out of the population here.

Fair assessment KT....throw in the home state 'nepotism' and it's sort of akin to how things work in small country towns.

[sprite]

Buckley?

Yes, he is a far better coach than Cameron. Give him that GWS list and he could take them to the top. Over the last couple of years he has matured into the role and is shrewd student of the game.

[MattW]

Yes, he is a far better coach than Cameron. Give him that GWS list and he could take them to the top. Over the last couple of years he has matured into the role and is shrewd student of the game.

Agreed.

[chalbilto]

I know that its too late now, but I wonder if GWS should have throw caution to the wind and reverted to the "orange tsunami" style of play, instead of the grinding safety style. I'd be interested in what do other posters think of this thought.

[KTigers]

Man, the Giants made a lot of mistakes. They were like us early in the season, couldn't hit a barn door from 20 metres away. I just think
they'd played a couple GFs in the last two weeks, and didn't have a third one in them. After awhile the score line becomes academic like
for us in ****. Will they be scarred by it? Highly unlikely, the core group at the club survived two years of floggings as children when they
started in '12 & '13 and have played ten finals in the last four years. Besides, is any club defined by one game? Nope. There is always
another game. It's called sport. They'll probably win next year, keeping the media's Richmond win-every-second-year "dynasty" intact.
Which is the main thing of course.

[AnnieH]

- 2.9 million watched the GF, the first time it’s been lower than 3 million since 2011.

- Figures were 33% lower than last year’s 4.3 million

- only 991k watched in Melbourne, the lowest in eight years

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/roo...29-p52vyd.html

Told you all no one cared!! (Barry.)
I watched the final quarter after goswanies told me that it was a bloodbath and well worth the cringe.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Did I hear right that grubbygreene did a face rub again? Oh my. That's a bit silly.
GW$' lowest score. Ever. That's a bit embarro.
My favourite meme is the one where Jack Riewoldt kicked more that the GW$ score on his own.
Hope the journo who said last week that GW$ are "pioneering" footy in Sydney has a big serve of fries with those words.

[Hotpotato]

They also seemed to channel a good behaviour code for the big occasion .
Gone was their usual aggression and mongrel.
They just sucked .

[barry]

Sure are a lot of deleted posts in this thread.

I went to my first grand final and had a ball. I kinda knew GWS would struggle with the injuries and playing an MCG tenant. The ground is no where near neutral.

Leon Cameron's selections and game style was admitting defeat before the first bounce.

[KTigers]

I went to the game and I thought GWS were quite well represented in the crowd. There was considerably more orange than I thought
there'd be. They don't have the advantage of a Melbourne link the way the Swans do. You wonder how many of the Tigers fans would
have stumped up the dollars involved in getting to a GF in Sydney if the AFL ever came to their senses and got out that contract they
stupidly signed in 2017.

[stevoswan]

I went to the game and I thought GWS were quite well represented in the crowd. There was considerably more orange than I thought
there'd be. They don't have the advantage of a Melbourne link the way the Swans do. You wonder how many of the Tigers fans would
have stumped up the dollars involved in getting to a GF in Sydney if the AFL ever came to their senses and got out that contract they
stupidly signed in 2017.

Unbelievably stupid and biased decision that just reinforces our view of just where the AFL's collective head is at.

[mcs]

Sure are a lot of deleted posts in this thread.

I went to my first grand final and had a ball. I kinda knew GWS would struggle with the injuries and playing an MCG tenant. The ground is no where near neutral.

Leon Cameron's selections and game style was admitting defeat before the first bounce.

So you are at least in theory a relatively committed Swans fan, yet your first grand final was to watch the no shows - despite the fact we have been to the big day 5 times within the last decade and a half (and as recently as 3 years ago).

- - - Updated - - -

Man, the Giants made a lot of mistakes. They were like us early in the season, couldn't hit a barn door from 20 metres away. I just think
they'd played a couple GFs in the last two weeks, and didn't have a third one in them. After awhile the score line becomes academic like
for us in ****. Will they be scarred by it? Highly unlikely, the core group at the club survived two years of floggings as children when they
started in '12 & '13 and have played ten finals in the last four years. Besides, is any club defined by one game? Nope. There is always
another game. It's called sport. They'll probably win next year, keeping the media's Richmond win-every-second-year "dynasty" intact.
Which is the main thing of course.

Would not surprise me to see the Raiders do exactly the same thing in the NRL on Sunday night. End up playing their grand final a bit early just to get there.

- - - Updated - - -

I know that its too late now, but I wonder if GWS should have throw caution to the wind and reverted to the "orange tsunami" style of play, instead of the grinding safety style. I'd be interested in what do other posters think of this thought.

It couldn't have hurt to try something different. They were already up the creek without a paddle by half time, as we were in 2014 however. Would of been good by trying the old 'don't carry buggered players into the biggest match of the season' trick too!

[KTigers]

Would not surprise me to see the Raiders do exactly the same thing in the NRL on Sunday night. End up playing their grand final a bit early just to get there.

Agree. The Souths win would have sucked a lot of energy out of them. I wouldn't mind seeing the Raiders win, but you can see the Roosters
just rolling over the top of them and the game being over pretty early.

[mcs]

Agree. The Souths win would have sucked a lot of energy out of them. I wouldn't mind seeing the Raiders win, but you can see the Roosters
just rolling over the top of them and the game being over pretty early.

I would very much like to see the raiders win (just to see all the happy faces around the office if nothing else), but just can't see anything but a roosters win. But hopefully they prove me wrong and its a good quality grand final.

[KSAS]

How different were their draft concessions? Their recruiting strategies are clearly different. GC went for the superstar, GAJ, who clearly was not a leader, and a few older established players- Nathan Bock, Harbrow. They didn't stack up that well on the leadership score. GWS went for early career players who were tough and got the best out of themselves (Ward and Davis) and cheap, older players who knew how to train and prepare and valued the second chance ( Sam Reid). They also got Sheeds to support Leon Cameron, which was a great marketing ploy, as well as taking some early pressure to succeed from Leon Cameron. I think they were prepared to play a longer game.

I couldn't exactly recall, but remember commentary at the time that GWS had received more concessions than what GCS did. Yesterday when the AFL announced their GCS rescue package, Andy Mahr on SEN reiterated that this package goes some way to make up the concession shortfall GCS had received compared to GWS at their respective startups. Andy didn't elaborate what the concessional differences were, but the general consensus is that GWS got the better hand.

[Bloods05]

I couldn't exactly recall, but remember commentary at the time that GWS had received more concessions than what GCS did. Yesterday when the AFL announced their GCS rescue package, Andy Mahr on SEN reiterated that this package goes some way to make up the concession shortfall GCS had received compared to GWS at their respective startups. Andy didn't elaborate what the concessional differences were, but the general consensus is that GWS got the better hand.

I'd always assumed they were identical. Not so, apparently.