A comforting thought

[Carter]

Folks are doing it tough today, I feel for all of you.

Half time at the Dogs / Saints game.

Neither side is preliminary final material. That’s just a fact.

Get over either one of those duds and we’re in a PF. Back on track. One game away from the GF.

We beat Port in Port last year with a bunch of kids. If I was Hardwick I’d play a montage of that famous win with Eye of the Tiger over the top.

Importantly, we are a better side than Port. Bring our A game, with Cotchin and Prestia reaching peak fitness for the year, and we win.

20 min quarters says you don’t need to worry so much about four games in a row.

I repeat - win this week against beatable opposition and we’re in a PF.

Let’s tear down our entitlement for a moment and celebrate the fact we’re in a semi-final as firm favourite to recover ourselves.

Dimma will be bringing us to ground zero, you can bet on that. Humble, hungry players, that’s what Brisbane gifted us last night.

What a gift it might yet be.

 

[mrposhman]

I'm not sure next week will be as easy as you state, but I think we should win.

Port will be very confident after their win earlier this season but that game where they dominated the midfield was without Cotchin, Edwards, Prestia and Houli. Our team will look a lot stronger if we make the prelim.

 

[Coburgtiger]

Folks are doing it tough today, I feel for all of you.

Half time at the Dogs / Saints game.

Neither side is preliminary final material. That’s just a fact.

Get over either one of those duds and we’re in a PF. Back on track. One game away from the GF.

We beat Port in Port last year with a bunch of kids. If I was Hardwick I’d play a montage of that famous win with Eye of the Tiger over the top.

Importantly, we are a better side than Port. Bring our A game, with Cotchin and Prestia reaching peak fitness for the year, and we win.

20 min quarters says you don’t need to worry so much about four games in a row.

I repeat - win this week against beatable opposition and we’re in a PF.

Let’s tear down our entitlement for a moment and celebrate the fact we’re in a semi-final as firm favourite to recover ourselves.

Dimma will be bringing us to ground zero, you can bet on that. Humble, hungry players, that’s what Brisbane gifted us last night.

What a gift it might yet be.

From the beginning we treated the qualifying final as a free hit.

And it made sense. If we win, great, all good. If we lose, we get an extra game against a bottom of the 8 side to get kilometres into Prestia, Edwards, Nank.

We selected that way too. Lynch out means we might cost ourselves a week off, but it lowers the chance of losing one our most important players to injury for the most important finals.

Prestia in was a risk, but the downside of it not paying off was more game time for Prestia.

And I'm not saying we weren't desperate to win. Just that we were aware it doesn't change that much if we didn't.

If we won, we would have had to beat three top four sides to win a premiership. Now we have to beat an also ran and two top four sides to win a premiership.

Are we in a worse position now?

An extra game for Prestia and Edwards, an extra week off for Lynch, and we still have to win three games.

We also get a chance to play a lower quality opponent to get some systems/balance right. And if we lose to them? Well then we don't deserve a cup. Let's just not think about that.

The pressure of losing a streak is gone. We've taken a punch and know what it feels like. If we're really lucky, we might even get underdog status in a prelim.

IF we use next week to really get into gear, then nothing stops us. Nothing.

 

[Rantnrave]

saints defence has been mighty tonjght..we wouldnt wanna do that sloppy bombing crap.....

 

[seven]

If we lose next week. I don’t like our chances on making the grand final

 

[TigerMad]

Maybe it was the loss we had to have?

 

[Carter]

Port has two weeks to wait for us while we get down to work.

Brisbane has two weeks to wait for the winner of Geelong and West Coast, both extremely capable, seasoned sides.

Footy has been an explosive, impactful affair in 2020. Time and again we’ve seen sides fail after long breaks.

The QF winners of 2020 won’t be sleeping peaceably.

 

[tiger76]

And I was some what buoyed by Hardwick’s press conference. He was steely and confident when stating that the areas requiring improvement are under the teams control.

I still believe the teams best is too good for any of the current finals teams, regardless of venue. Lynch was a massive out.

 

[Rancey18]

Yeah obviously I am disappointed about last night, but I am not as doom and gloom about it as some are on here.

Back our system in. No need for wholesale changes (both positionally and personnel). Make the obvious changes, but back in that our best is THE best.

It wont be easy, but we have a champion team. I am backing them in to respond accordingly.

 

[Ridley]

saints defence has been mighty tonjght..we wouldnt wanna do that sloppy bombing crap.....

We’ve gotta fix this. It has been driving me mad all year. Just consistently bombing to a packed forward line for no result. Absolute insanity and it eventually bit us on the arse last night.

 

[Smoking Aces]

saints defence has been mighty tonjght..we wouldnt wanna do that sloppy bombing crap.....

Dogs don’t have a decent key forward. Total different proposition when it’s Riewoldt and Lynch.

 

[kiwitiger]

Reading this thread is good therapy , I’m feeling better

 

[The Mole]

saints defence has been mighty tonjght..we wouldnt wanna do that sloppy bombing crap.....

Dogs don’t have a forward line

 

[Disco]

Next week will be a tough game and the Saints have shown an ability to score quickly.

 

[Baloo]

If there's another goal by the Doggies to bring it within 1 goal then no matter who wins it will be a huge rush of emotion. Their Grand Final. Which is good for us.

 

[bozo]

Ryder looks to be out next week. Crying after their win.

 

[Rancey18]

Ryder looks to be out next week. Crying after their win.

That is big for us. He was dominant today.

 

[UKTiger]

From the beginning we treated the qualifying final as a free hit.

And it made sense. If we win, great, all good. If we lose, we get an extra game against a bottom of the 8 side to get kilometres into Prestia, Edwards, Nank.

We selected that way too. Lynch out means we might cost ourselves a week off, but it lowers the chance of losing one our most important players to injury for the most important finals.

Prestia in was a risk, but the downside of it not paying off was more game time for Prestia.

And I'm not saying we weren't desperate to win. Just that we were aware it doesn't change that much if we didn't.

If we won, we would have had to beat three top four sides to win a premiership. Now we have to beat an also ran and two top four sides to win a premiership.

Are we in a worse position now?

An extra game for Prestia and Edwards, an extra week off for Lynch, and we still have to win three games.

We also get a chance to play a lower quality opponent to get some systems/balance right. And if we lose to them? Well then we don't deserve a cup. Let's just not think about that.

The pressure of losing a streak is gone. We've taken a punch and know what it feels like. If we're really lucky, we might even get underdog status in a prelim.

IF we use next week to really get into gear, then nothing stops us. Nothing.

All sounds good but if the Tigers are over confident going into the game thinking this will be easy, think again. No easy games at the sharp end of the season.

 

[year of the tiger]

Playing the saints earlier this year we had 6 players who didn’t play last night - I think our team will be much better this time around compared to round 4 knowing Lynch will be playing.

surprising that the difference to the two teams are basically to our bottom rung players though.

Higgins = Aarts.........equal
Stack = Pickett............better
Caddy = Chol...............worse
Ross = Graham..........better
Lynch = Rioli.............. Lynch will be back
Broad = Balta..............better

 

[Rfc4Ever]

That is big for us. He was dominant today.

Ryder one of the Saints best.
They might be missing both Ryder and Long and will come off with 1 less days break than us.