Spot on Cakewalk - they were better on the day(s) - that's it!! -- BULLET IN BOARD

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Date Posted: 09:15 02/12/24 Mon
Author: Two-Bob Man
Author Host/IP: NoHost / 110.144.17.202
Subject: Spot on Cakewalk - they were better on the day(s) - that's it!!
In reply to: Cakewalk 's message, "I'd say Geelong had a bit more to do with it than we give them credit for as well" on 08:00 02/12/24 Mon

There is very rare, if at all EVER, a single pivotal reason why a team does or doen't win a Grand Final...

We struck gold with a close one two seasons ago, but what would have been the narrative had we lost that one by less of a goal to Brisbane?

Mine would have focused on our inability to score accurately - we had significantly more scoring shots than Brisbane and the game should have, effectively, been a 3-4 goal victory but wasn't.

To blame a coach (and what he has aid or how he has operated) as a sole of even significant example of why things "Fell apart" (and particularly in a single game) is an oversimplification.

Even the call about Malthouse and his "petulance" towards the tail end of 2011 (making it 'all about himself') might, in some opinion, be relevant to how he was perceived as a responsive human, but I don't think this had the single-most relevance to losing that Grand Final.

Many of the players STILL loved him and played for him. ALL of the players who took to the field that day would have been putting in to win a Flag...they weren't distracted...they wouldn't have been "put off" by Mick, or his comments, or his behaviour.

It came down to myriad events and tiny incidents on the day, and in the game, that ultimately left us quite a bit short of Geelong's performance.

Trying to find significance in a SINGLE, most-relevant thing becomes akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.

Also, Buckley having "decimated" a playing list belies the fact that ALL coaches have the freedom to assemble a list to their own specifications - to their own way of trying to implement a style of game that they think might be successful in the AFL competition.

Some of the "list change" decisions wer forced upon Buckley - such as players who would have preferred to play under Malty and determined that they would prefer to try play elsewhere than remain at the Pies.

There was some back luck with drafting - who could forsee the tragedy of drafting two top 10 players in the same year and having both effectively never go one to have even a most AFL career (Freeman & Scharenberg).

Also, when you assess a "decimated list" you cannot look at in in isolation of what went and how it fared elsewhere. Leon and Tarrant both retired. A year later, Johnson did as well.

Wellingham was traded to West Coast where he did go on to have a decent career post that with the Pies, but Dawes probably didn't fare nearly as well at the Demons.

Into his third year as senior coach, Maxwell and Ball both retired while Didak, Jolly and Krakoeur were deslisted (and none were considered ripe for the picking up by any other AFL club).

Heater was traded to GWS where he continued to carve out a great career, but Daisy was, in fairness, only a "reasonable" player at the Blues.

If you look at the names, where they went and what they achieved AFTER their time at the Pies, there's only a minority that you can say demonstrated that we "lost a significant player"...

And, yes, I do understand that a lot comes about by the combination of moving parts, but the point is that it is hard to proclaim much of this with any certainty because the argument is akin to "parallel universe" stuff.

In frustration, I too make such cause-effect statements, probably clinging on to find "reasons" as to why things went one way or not the other.

But, in te cold light of day, it is hard to really settle on a single-most influential reason.

TBM

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So much is made of the positive effect Luke Ball made when he came across at the end of '09 -- Geek, 13:30 02/12/24 Mon

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