Geelong V Western Bulldogs R11, Thursday 22/5/25 at GMHBA Stadium at 7:30pm

[The bulldog tragician]

I honestly don’t know how to feel after that game. It really sucks. We had a lot of down players, some of whom then played great moments in the fightback. It’s not a cop out either to point out the wildly inconsistent umpiring and the effect of that stupid stadium. We weren’t intense enough early and our ball movement was slow and hesitant; when we played “our way” in the second half we looked so much better.

So I don’t think we are frauds, and it’s more complicated than just being an honourable loss. It does take enormous character to keep fighting in the circumstances we found ourselves in, and that shouldn’t be underestimated. The Hawks game is now even more crucial in defining our season and how far we can go.

[angelopetraglia]

In the big moments that mattered, Geelong made us pay and we blew our chances. It hurts. But that is the difference. We drew level in the last quarter. We had our chances. Especially early in the last quarter. But we could not make them pay.

[soupman]

Close to a textbook Geelong game for us, maybe a little gentler than normal.

Crowd has nfi
They don't miss.
Umpires favour them heavily (not as egregious as it ha sbeen though)
They kick the most arsey goals.
Commentator lovefest and prolonged shots of their "stars" regardless of relevance to the game.
Random significant milestone (although Duncan is more cooked than Duryea)
We are super wasteful
We battle really hard but gallantly lose by a smallish margin

Only box we didn't tick was we didn't feed their interceptor the whole night (instead opting to turn it over before getting it there)

Thought we actually played fairly well, and it was just our inability to execute that stopped us.

Much more encouraging from Naughton this week, if we are experimenting with the idea of Duryea forward lets stop that now, really struggled to get run out of defence happening (Kardinia issue really), Lobb was immense and is such a weapon, Richards is insanely good, and having watched it only once it I blame him for popping it over Bukus head, Khamis was great including his short stint back and was close to my votes, one more goal and he's there, Kennedy is incredibly good, I thought he was going to be a poor mans Dunkley but I'm not sure he is worse, some of the young blokes are going to really appreciate the week off, English was good and aggressive again (although that did cost us).

I think Dempseys mark was close enough that I'll accept the umpires in the perfect spot opinion (the camera angle can never really judge the curved line anyway), but man it was infuriating at the time.

Still really positive about this season, but we need to snag a few wins that we aren't expecting in the run home. We are absolutely as good as anyone, but if we don't make that mean anything then its all moot.

[Vred]

Flat as a tack after that game.
Worst AFL ground in the country.

[jazzadogs]

We can add Shannon Neale to the pantheon of duds we've made

How's the tongue on that freak

[BontlowSzn]

I love the bloke and he will be great to have in the VFL, but It's time to move on from Duryea. He was absolutely shocking tonight. He was even moved forward at one point. Yuck.

JJ just as bad but his atleast had a decent few weeks.

Friejah needs the bye.

English was good in the ruck but let himself and the team down badly in the last few minutes.

The Essendon game wasn't the best preparation for tonight. First half we tried walking through tackles like last week.

Letting Holmes and Miers do as they please is an interesting strategy. Those two are so important to what Geelong do. It's akin to teams letting Dale run free, which Geelong were never going to do.

Very flat.

[Bornadog]

image.png

I know not the only reason we lost, but by George **** the umpires

[Bornadog]

Bailey Smith ran at 51% DE and 6 clangers - nothing has changed

[BiteNibbleChomp]

It's not the Cattery any more.
It's the litter box.

- BNC

[Bornadog]

The Dempsey goal seriously was marked clearly over the line and the umpire was right there. How?

Two of their last three goals. One from the ruck infringement and another from the Dempsey mark from the hot dog stand.

image.png

Look where his foot is, body and hands

[Mofra]

I can't remember a kicking performance so poor by us.
Missed goals, missed targets, and some of our discussion making was bizarre. Truck deciding not to kick inside 50 and instead take a low percentage handball that was turned over and ended up a Geelong goal?
That summed up our night.

Was it 4 posters as well? Naughton and McNeill hit the post on shots they should have kicked.

[EasternWest]

Close to a textbook Geelong game for us, maybe a little gentler than normal.

Crowd has nfi
They don't miss.
Umpires favour them heavily (not as egregious as it ha sbeen though)
They kick the most arsey goals.
Commentator lovefest and prolonged shots of their "stars" regardless of relevance to the game.
Random significant milestone (although Duncan is more cooked than Duryea)
We are super wasteful
We battle really hard but gallantly lose by a smallish margin

Only box we didn't tick was we didn't feed their interceptor the whole night (instead opting to turn it over before getting it there)

Thought we actually played fairly well, and it was just our inability to execute that stopped us.

Much more encouraging from Naughton this week, if we are experimenting with the idea of Duryea forward lets stop that now, really struggled to get run out of defence happening (Kardinia issue really), Lobb was immense and is such a weapon, Richards is insanely good, and having watched it only once it I blame him for popping it over Bukus head, Khamis was great including his short stint back and was close to my votes, one more goal and he's there, Kennedy is incredibly good, I thought he was going to be a poor mans Dunkley but I'm not sure he is worse, some of the young blokes are going to really appreciate the week off, English was good and aggressive again (although that did cost us).

I think Dempseys mark was close enough that I'll accept the umpires in the perfect spot opinion (the camera angle can never really judge the curved line anyway), but man it was infuriating at the time.

Still really positive about this season, but we need to snag a few wins that we aren't expecting in the run home. We are absolutely as good as anyone, but if we don't make that mean anything then its all moot.

Great post Soup. Agree with the lot of it.

On reflection I'm even more satisfied that we're on the right track. The Bulldogs of old would have folded and not rallied, but we're made of pretty stern stuff.

I legitimately think we're a good team and we're right in this season.

[chef]

Not a hard loss to take, we were the better team but just didn't take our chances. It happens.

We'll bounce back and charge our way to the finals with most of our games now under the lids.

[GVGjr]

Honestly if you had told me at the start of the game that Neale would kick 5 and Cameron 6 goals I would have thought we would lose by 30 points or more.
The fact that these two scored more than half of their goals and yet we were close to reigning them in takes a bit of processing.

[SquirrelGrip]

Honestly if you had told me at the start of the game that Neale would kick 5 and Cameron 6 goals I would have thought we would lose by 30 points or more.
The fact that these two scored more than half of their goals and yet we were close to reigning them in takes a bit of processing.

Also try to process the fact that many have Lobb in their best and together with O'Donnell took 13 intercept marks.