Calm down - we lost by 4x goals.

[Sedat]

Great post. I think our emotional reactions and disappointment were related to the fact that we are so sick of losing to Geelong.

There's also the small matter of their entire starting midfield being out injured, which is the supposed area of strength for us. Could you imagine us beating Geelong with Bont, Libba and Macrae out injured?

I accepted last week's loss. But last night only reinforces our collective mental fragility. It also exposes that our system breaks down too easily against opposition who are willing and able to take away from our game plan, irrespective of their personnel.

Last night was an incredibly poor performance IMO, relative to our self-proclamations of being a top 4 aspirant.

[MrMahatma]

It?s a long season and I really just want us to be in form in Sept. We don?t seem to be a team that can win 10 on the bounce ever and that?s ok. We may just need to win 4 on the trot at the right time again.

Losing yo Geelong is predictable unfortunately.

We can def take Port.

[D Mitchell]

I guess the reason there is so much angst, is that we keep loosing for the same reasons, with no change in sight. Forward half turnovers and failure to convert scoring opportunities continue to be our Achilles heel. And yet either our players can't (or won't) learn, or the coaching staff are incapable of changing things.

We are also choosing to play TWO men short. Its one thing to invest games in young players, but put brutally, Arty and JOOD are not worth their place in the side based on current performances.

Bolded bit. Add to those, obsession with lateral movement at half back and even on entry into F 50. Gelong were able to find targets in the corridor and where everyone was covered, used handball to a fast running receiver to break up our defensive positioning. In defence of O'Donnell, he equalled Naughton, Lobb and Ugle-Hagan on the scoreboard,

[Grantysghost]

Effort isn't the only indicator.

Trying is great and all.

If we lose by ten goals next week and try I want another of these MJP

I agree though I'm not that upset.

We weren't that far away just some footy smarts.

Guess it's about expectations. I rate us 6-10.

[Rocco Jones]

There's also the small matter of their entire starting midfield being out injured, which is the supposed area of strength for us. Could you imagine us beating Geelong with Bont, Libba and Macrae out injured?

I accepted last week's loss. But last night only reinforces our collective mental fragility. It also exposes that our system breaks down too easily against opposition who are willing and able to take away from our game plan, irrespective of their personnel.

Last night was an incredibly poor performance IMO, relative to our self-proclamations of being a top 4 aspirant.

I am a combo of this and mjp's OP. A bit bipolar about us.

I think both of you make excellent points. We are bringing consistent 'effort' and ability to be at least in games. We could have easily won our last 10, a positive and a negative I guess.

My issues are less about losing in isolation as much and more about fragilities Sedat mentioned. The positive is that since making adjustments after Round 2, our default seems to be at least to be competitive.

[Topdog]

The saddest part is i told my mate in the 1st qtr that we would end up on 10.15 and lose the match.

[SonofScray]

Not calming down. I’m angrier, in fact.

It’s as simple as this. We have the requisite level of talent on the field and in the coach’s box (not my view, but seems to be consensus), despite this we can’t beat an injury plagued Geelong, or a full strength Geelong. Or a poor performed Geelong. Or a well performed Geelong.

We’ve stuffed our crack at a top 4 finish and that was the only acceptable pass mark for the regular season for mine. We’ve been treading water, below our capabilities for too long. The rare times we get up and going, we get exposed for a combination of being inaccurate and fragile.

The group, players and coaches have failed to bring a physically robust brand of footy to the table. They’re a nothing group. Not crap, not good, not anything. Just there. It’s disgusting and too many folk have been too generous with the amount of credits they’ve allowed the leadership to hold in the bank.

It can be resolved. I’d still rather be here now than a number of other clubs, but that’s not good enough. I want us in the best possible place for winning another flag. What we’re getting is nowhere near it.

[Rocco Jones]

Not calming down. I’m angrier, in fact.

It’s as simple as this. We have the requisite level of talent on the field and in the coach’s box (not my view, but seems to be consensus), despite this we can’t beat an injury plagued Geelong, or a full strength Geelong. Or a poor performed Geelong. Or a well performed Geelong.

We’ve stuffed our crack at a top 4 finish and that was the only acceptable pass mark for the regular season for mine. We’ve been treading water, below our capabilities for too long. The rare times we get up and going, we get exposed for a combination of being inaccurate and fragile.

The group, players and coaches have failed to bring a physically robust brand of footy to the table. They’re a nothing group. Not crap, not good, not anything. Just there. It’s disgusting and too many folk have been too generous with the amount of credits they’ve allowed the leadership to hold in the bank.

It can be resolved. I’d still rather be here now than a number of other clubs, but that’s not good enough. I want us in the best possible place for winning another flag. What we’re getting is nowhere near it.

Rather than 'calming down', I suggest maintaining perspective. You mention anger but I think this post also has perspective mentioning it can be resolved, we have the talent et al.

I think we it's been a tough few years as a fan, in terms of expectations and how frustrating we can be. That includes high expectations, which is great but yeah, I digress.

I feel we probably heighten expectations too much when we are going well and then get upset when things go bad. We are a constant case of never being as bad or as good as it seems. At the moment to me, as frustrating as it is, we are pretty consistent in our own way. We are a low half of the 8 side. Can be pretty good and can be pretty bad. Kinda putting the first two rounds of being pathetic in the rear view mirror.

Perhaps the most frustrating part is that are kinda close. Almost easier if we just crashed and burned on fans as means less depth of getting hurt.

[Boots]

I think MJP is bang on, especially from a coaching perspective. No win is guaranteed, and you can’t bemoan the bounce of the ball. You have to focus on what you can impact, and account for what you can’t, and unlike the first two weeks, the effort was there. I wholeheartedly agree that going off at McNeil or Gardner is pointless. Focusing on single errors, no matter how costly, is also pointless.

But the tragician has it right for me - this was GEELONG. We never beat them, especially not when we play on our own terms. They have a level of skill we cannot hope to match for some reason. Their bottom six is better at every facet of the game than ours. They have great positioning, they can run, their disposal is cleaner. Losing to them sucks because we always lose to them, but it sucks more because they show us what a disciplined and professional side look like. They make us look like a rabble, and part of my frustration is, I want to know why we look like a rabble.

[D Mitchell]

The saddest part is i told my mate in the 1st qtr that we would end up on 10.15 and lose the match.

No wonder the loss, why only 10:15 ? Aim higher on Friday night.

[The bulldog tragician]

I think MJP is bang on, especially from a coaching perspective. No win is guaranteed, and you can’t bemoan the bounce of the ball. You have to focus on what you can impact, and account for what you can’t, and unlike the first two weeks, the effort was there. I wholeheartedly agree that going off at McNeil or Gardner is pointless focusing on single errors, no matter how costly, is also pointless.

But the tragician has it right for me - this was GEELONG. We never beat them, especially not when we play on our own terms. They have a level of skill we cannot hope to match for some reason. Their bottom six is better at every facet of the game than ours. They have great positioning, they can run, their disposal is cleaner. Losing to them sucks because we always lose to them, but it sucks more because they show us what a disciplined and professional side look like. They make us look like a rabble, and part of my frustration is, I want to know why we look like a rabble.

It also feels like they are a model for what didn’t happen for us. Their breakthrough premiership launched a dynasty. The group largely stayed together. They contended and never bottomed out. When they seemed to have a ridiculous strategy of topping up with oldies they stayed the course. I don’t like Chris Scott one little bit but they are so well coached and of course attract high quality players (cough) lifestyle (cough).

They have owned us for such a long time. In 2006 I think, we were both exciting emerging teams, we won by a point, in the return match they got us by a point, but they were the ones who went on to grand finals and premierships.

Ok what am I saying? ( there was a point here somewhere). Losses to them DO seem worse. With each one the angst builds. I don’t leave games til the end but last night I did when Marra kicked out on the full. It’s irrational, emotional … such is footy. Which is why I thank mjp for his post and perspective while still feeling unbelievably frustrated with the loss when we had every chance to win.

[lemmon]

I think the expectations part of the conversation is spot on. I rate the list higher than most - I think our top-end talent is as good as anyone else's in the league, they're experienced and finals hardened, we've recruited for now and we've had a good run with injuries.

I personally don't see us making the top 4 having dropped the past two games, which for me, is a failure for this group. I understand the caveats and I understand the effort, but equally, Geelong put out a fairly average 22 and we're losing time and again in the same manner.

I'd be happy with 'the effort was there' if we were a Hawthorn or a North, but this side is past that and if it's not 'now', for this list, then I don't see when it will happen.

The skill errors, the lack of connection with our forwards and the inability to convert are independent of effort and have been consistent themes basically since Bevo came on-board. That's what will anchor us to the bottom half of the eight which for me, is a big underachievement.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Yeah I'm surprised some are 'happy' that we're bringing somewhat consistent effort, as if that's a pass mark. That's an expectation, nothing more.

I want improvement. Improvement in structure, improvement in how we defend the ground, improvement in how we score, improvement in how our mids connect with our forwards, improvement skill execution. Which of these have improved since 2016? Defending the ground improved from rounds 3-8 (or so), and has gone backwards in the last two weeks. We've bemoaned our mid/forward connection for years and do we even need to mention conversion?

The first two weeks were so diabolical that some fans are accepting of effort. No. I want what we systematically planned for - a top 4 finish, as stated by our coach and our club. We are nowhere near it.

Losing to a Geelong side with what was essentially a VFL midfield is an insult.

What I want is for our coaches and players to be held accountable for failure, but what I know I'll get is excuses and flattery of the opposition. Make no mistake about it, the last two weeks our opposition didn't beat us. We beat us.

[1eyedog]

What has happened on here in the past 24-hours?

Players and teams can't be 'in form' forever. We had a pretty good crack last night and - as I think everyone would acknowledge - our frustrating inability to 'finish our work' cost us...Geelong on the other hand had a lot (including a couple of critical umpiring decisions) go there way.

Now we're all calling for the head of Aaron Naughton (who actually seemed to be busting his arse in terms of effort, intensity, commitment etc), apparently a young player (McNeil) is now on the never to play again list because he missed a goal...Jones was poor to be sure - and he probably DOES need a rest.

The team has been 'UP' for a long time and last night was not a St Kilda type capitulation...we tried hard, we fell short...it's not grand final week. Geelong were EXTREMELY motivated having lost to the Giants last week and played incredibly focussed footy after the break...and their BEST PLAYERS (Cameron, Hawkins and Stewart) beat us. Our BEST players - Bont, Naughton, English - well, English played a ripping game. The other two? Not so much...but they still led well and delivered effort. They seemed DESPERATE to keep trying and Naughton was still competing in the air (and took a fantastic contested mark on the wing late that wasn't paid) right to the end...

It's frustrating when we don't win every week (I feel it as well) but as long as I see EFFORT I'm not going to throw darts at the players. A skill error is a skill error...you can't do much about that! Geelong kicked some goals early because of our errors...no point losing sleep over it. And no point blaming the coach for it either...if the decision made looks right (and it did last night) then what do you want Bevo to do? Kick it for them?

I honestly don't know what everyone expects right now. They busted their butts and it wasn't good enough. Their heads were in the game 100% - but skill execution wasn't QUITE there. Team cohesion wasn't QUITE there. We lost by 4-goals and were in a position to win at 3/4 time...isn't that what you want EVERY week? For the plays to bring effort and energy? Didn't they do that?

You're way too forgiving re. this mob but there's not much more we can do about it than move on.

[1eyedog]

It's losing the same way with goal kicking conversions and skill errors that sap peoples confidence.
The club needs to do something about it and potentially getting some experts in could be a good thing.
I was talking to someone last night and he said before during and after the game that we need someone like Tory Dickson to work with a few players. I'm not sure of Tory's ability to coach and teach but there must be some who could do it and add some value.

If only Two Dogs hadn't gone AWOL he would fix it in an hour.