Yes, it turned into a very forgettable Grand Final. When no-one had scored a goal till late in the first quarter, I thought we might have a thriller on our hands but it didn't turn out that way. Oh well, they can't all be classics like last year! And 2005 and 2012!Originally Posted by erica
I don't believe in kicking someone when they're down. The GWS fans have suffered enough.
He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)
Abysmal GF losses like that can make or break a team. Freo lost badly a few years back and have not looked like it ever since. In contrast, Essendon were thrashed in the 83 GF by the Dawks and came back the next year to reverse the result. GWS have so much talent at the peak of their careers so I expect them to hit back hard next year.
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I did feel sorry for McGlynn, until after the 2014GF. He had his chance then and like most of the team just never got into the game.
You speak to any Gold Coast local and they'll tell you how hard it is for a sports club to be successful there. Most of them support the Lions and won't convert to GCS.
IMO, starting GCS and GWS were huge mistakes. It'll be years/decades before GWS are self sufficient. GCS might never be self sufficient. They should have invested this money into grass roots footy.
The 2017 Adelaide side is another example.
I'm not as confident as you that they'll bounce back. The excellent Coniglio returning will help. Hopefully for them Ward returns fully fit. Haynes enhanced his reputation.
But Greene and Cameron reverted to ugly play under pressure. The team was made to look like flat track bullies, who couldn't hack the pressure when it was turned on them. Greene is going to be under a lot more pressure next year.
Yes.
This is a football thread, on a football forum. It's for discussing football.
If you wish to make character slurs about people, unrelated to football, please go somewhere else and do it.
It was the poorest performance in a GF since 2007. Maybe it was worse than Port's in that year.
I wonder if the fact it was a GF distracted the Giants' coaching staff from the fact it was also a game of football. They didn't seem to have any plan capable of competing with Richmond, irrespective of the greater pressure of it being a grand final. Richmond play in a particular way, and they are very good at it. They are not unbeatable, but you have to have a clear way to approach a game against them. I don't think their win yesterday was due to individual brilliance. Sure, there were some moments of brilliance (especially from Martin), but that doesn't account for how one-sided the game was. Those moments of brilliance were the icing, not the cake. Richmond played in the way everyone knew they would play and GWS seemed to have no idea how to cope. It may well have been that Richmond's recent GF experience, and the fact they are so confident in their game plan, would have got them over the line even if GWS had come with a plan on how to beat them.
Picking Davis and Whitfield didn't help GWS' cause, as neither was able to play close to their normal level. But just as Longmire "gambled" with McVeigh, Parker and Mills in 2016, maybe Cameron figured whoever he replaced these two with wouldn't have done any better. Who knows.
But the lack of a tactical game plan that MIGHT work was, IMO, GWS greatest problem.
I think it is hard to predict. Because I think a lot has to go right to make a grand final.
Even looking at gws. They were in poor form in the final rounds of the season. But they got some key players back for the finals. They beat the bulldogs who were the form team and won two close finals.
Agree with you Liz about the lack of a plan to counter Richmond. Everyone thought they would start with the ugly game style but Richmond beat them to it and they couldn't counteract it
They now need a coach to take them to the next step. Cameron has been a good development coach but to me isn't a top line coach to get them a flag.
They should be targeting someone Buckley or Clarkson.
sprite
GWS have a lot of talent including some young early draft picks who did not make the GF team. Unless there is a player exodus I expect them to contend for several years yet. Their main weakness seems to be in the ruck. They have been heavily linked to Sauce Jacobs from Adelaide.
I think our list has a lot more holes in it than theirs at present (sorry to have to say that but it's my honest appraisal). We are 2-3 years away from contending now unless there is a sudden injection of established talent.
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