Destiny?

[LostDoggy]

Are we always destined to be the 3rd best team when we are at our peak?

And St. Kilda destined to be the 2nd best team?

:( I Hope not

[LostDoggy]

De ja vu

[The Bulldogs Bite]

We were the fourth best side this year, but with Geelong/St. Kilda getting on in age, I think we can over take them in 2011. We've lost experience with Johnson, Eagleton, Aker and possibly Hahn - but our young crop is superior to that of Geelong's and the Saints.

We really need a good run with injuries though.

[LostDoggy]

3rd 4th. doesnt really matter. but we always end up in a prelim and saints always end up losing in a gf

[Flamethrower]

We are going through a similar phase to Central District in the 1980s and 90s.
Once they got the balance right the premierships came - 9 flags in the last 11 years.

In the AFL North did the same as us in the early 90s, losing quite a few prelims in a row before breaking through in 1996 for a flag and again in 1999.

The moral of the story is that if we continue to make prelims eventually the luck will fall our way and we will win our 2nd premiership.

[LostDoggy]

We are going through a similar phase to Central District in the 1980s and 90s.
Once they got the balance right the premierships came - 9 flags in the last 11 years.

The moral of the story is that if we continue to make prelims eventually the luck will fall our way and we will win our 2nd premiership.

That's right, 20 years I followed centrals with no success, now it's expected, they were mightily challenged yesterday and stood up through some individual gutsy efforts and sticking to the game plan.

It's not destiny, it's a bit of luck, belief and a lot of hard work on and off the field. Did we work out if we had a game plan yet? Let alone a plan b. Also, more of our guys need to get ferocious like most of the top three teams players, we only have a few.

[Mantis]

It's not destiny, it's a bit of luck, belief and a lot of hard work on and off the field. Did we work out if we had a game plan yet? Let alone a plan b. Also, more of our guys need to get ferocious like most of the top three teams players, we only have a few.

Our game plan looked very good in the 1st half against St.Kilda and if not for a couple of misses and one howler of a mistake we would have been 3 or 4 goals up at half time.

Agree that we need to get mentally tougher and need more players who are willing to fight back when we are under siege.

[mighty_west]

Our game plan looked very good in the 1st half against St.Kilda and if not for a couple of misses and one howler of a mistake we would have been 3 or 4 goals up at half time.

Agree that we need to get mentally tougher and need more players who are willing to fight back when we are under siege.

The most frustrating part of that game was watching the game slip away from the opening bounce of the 3rd term, and was though our boys were shell shocked that the Saints had seemingly decided over the half time break to blow these suckers out of the water, which they did, and was though we just sat back and watched them in almost every contest in the middle.

From the stands, it was like that they were able to mentally switch & change game styles which we just had no answers for, and watching the first GF, both teams had tried to flick a switch so to speak and create a run on, break the game open, but each time the opposition was strong enough and mentally switched on enough to make sure that didn't occur.

Like with the Collingwood final & Geelong at Etihad, we just could not stem the bleeding enough to stay in the game.

[Bulldog Revolution]

Our game plan looked very good in the 1st half against St.Kilda and if not for a couple of misses and one howler of a mistake we would have been 3 or 4 goals up at half time.

Agree that we need to get mentally tougher and need more players who are willing to fight back when we are under siege.

That said, my take would be our game plan for most of the year wasn't good and didn't hold up against the best teams.

I thought the matchups vs St Kilda were very good, but our actual style of play was again disappointing, our ball movement, our kicking skills, our stoppage set ups particularly in our forward line.

I see at as a combination of needing more players to fight back when we are under siege but also needing far better systems (being better coached).

There is no solution to our problems in my eyes that does not involve players playing better, and coaches coaching better. I dont view it as one or the other.

If either our coaches or our players dont improve then we cant win it.

[LostDoggy]

Our game plan looked very good in the 1st half against St.Kilda and if not for a couple of misses and one howler of a mistake we would have been 3 or 4 goals up at half time.



Absolutely but either we didnt stick to it or we didnt have a plan B to counter the saints in the third qtr. It was ridiculous the way they walked out of the center square after half time.

We also looked great in 3.75 quarters vs the saints early on and against Collingwood game 2 during the last qtr. The other times Collingwood(Saints for 7 minutes) scored at will. Something has to change but I think intensity is a big key.