Been a long and eventful year. And the year went only half as long as the last quarter of the game last weekend. And I should have left earlier before the stupid uber surge pricing tripled the price of my dash to the airport...something about staying to the end, supporting the team, having travelled a long way blah blah blah stopped me.

The entire section I was in seemed unhappy all day with:

1/. The umpires
2/. The Giants

What EXACTLY did they do wrong?

The Giants were first in ALL DAY - and they got kicks because of that. They planned in front, they tackled HARD when they weren't...and sure, they layed on top of us after a tackle, bumped us/smashed into us off the ball...but that's all footy isn't it.

I know, I know. The Greene 'incident'. The Himmelberg 'incident'. The Greene one in particular didn't look great in the moment and looks even worse in the replay...but to be fair I doubt the umpires saw any of that on the day. It was crap but that's a tribunal issue - on the day/in the moment, Bont played on and was equally ineffective BEFORE and AFTER 'that' happened. Basically, whatever it was that Greene did, he didn't stop Bont (or anyone else for that matter) winning the footy and 'fighting back'. If you want to make excuses for Lipinski and Smith, fine. But to say we need Liba in order to 'fight the fight'...well, that's crap. Bont and Dunks are both high draft picks and premiership players - they have been playing footy since they were 5 and 100% know that if you get pushed, you had better well push back or pretty soon you will be laying flat on your back!

As the week goes on, I have pretty much decided that not being involved in finals past week#1 is actually pretty crap. And it is triple-crap since the Giants were just harder at it and far more willing to fight for their season than we were. And as fans, I think we have gotten carried away with the Giants/Greene 'hate' to the point where we have overlooked the fact that - with the exception of the Greene/Bont 'stuff', the Giants players/team did what we wish our players/team had...they were ready and they had a plan. We weren't ready, we had no plan and no response.

I know, I know. 2019 version won just 12 games, 2016 version won only 12. We were 'never' going to win it and 'what a great response to a poor start to the year after the bye'....But even back in 2015 we went out fighting - Walker was just too good for us in the last q that night at the MCG and that's that - we were in the game until the (very) bitter end. This year? Didn't fire a shot - and to be -40 in contested ball in an elimination game is an absolute embarrassment.