rass

Not sure if it's just growing up in a footy mad town, but I don't mind the finals series. However I must admit that I'm finding it extremely difficult to get enthused over this season's finals. It's been done to death, but how can you even think the Grand Final is worth something when it has been so severely compromised by the powers that be. Seriously, playing a finals series around international World Cup qualifiers? Knowing the top two teams will lose over a quarter of their starting lineups? Even in isolation it's incompetent, but throw in the inevitable effects of covid and injuries, then the decision to play a finals series borders on negligence. That's a decision made by people who have severe mental deficiencies. It really is. You can draw a direct link between the Nabbout and Griffiths re-injuries to needing to play them to cover the loss of our internationals. Now their recovery is also compromised because we didn't get the full week off between the last season game and the SemiFinal because of covid. An extra few days could be the difference between them playing. We have potentially over half our starting line-up unavailable. WTF? You can argue the best team should still win and we should have the depth to cover blah, blah... But finals and winning a championship should be about the best team winning - not the team who can play enough teenagers to be able to compete. I'd be super thrilled if we even get to the GF, let alone win it. What a fucking disgrace. No wonder our league is a laughing stock. Had to post, just so frustrated with it...

Bahahahahaha, fuk i needed that laugh.

Yeah, feels a bit like a loss but when you sit back, it doesn't take away from the amazing season we're having and just how shit the fukheads are. On the offside, when Foxtel finally showed the lines, it was only millimetres. Of more interest to me was the ball looked like it has already left our passing player's foot, by a good foot.

They couldn't be any stronger today either. More pressure on them rather than us today and the teamsheets reflect this.

Exactly. Seriously now, think of the massive emotional toll Saturday night took out on all of them. To have to travel interstate after only 3 days after that and play a team fighting for their finals spot was never, ever going to end well. Nothing to read into this at all.

Nabbout looked like he was still limping during the celebrations Saturday night. Really doubt he'll be ready for finals - that adductor tear nearly split him in half.

Aah that's too bad, I know you'll be there in spirit though mate. We were actually away for the 7-0 destruction of the fukheads. Of all the games, lucky we could watch it on tv though, but sure wish we were there.

I see no excuse whatsoever for fans not to be there. Crowd sizes generally don't bother me, but I'd be seriously pissed off if people don't make the effort or use the footy etc for excuses. We've been waiting for this moment all of our existence, we need to be right there behind the boys and make them feel we're on the pitch with them.

Hmmm only one person to blame for the pen. What the hell was Garuccio thinking fouling him when he was running towards the corner. That was stupid.

I'd bring back Awer Mabil. Not happy in Denmark and yeah, even though he wants to stay in Europe, he could also view City as a stepping stone like Arzani and Mooy.

Fat chance we'll see Nabbout again this season. Is it possible to get an injury replacement for him this late?

I agree with this 100%. My take during the game was Moon had only one plan, just kick it to DJ Joey. Fuk, it looked like he didn't even bother trying to win the midfield, just as long as every ball went to Champness. So perhaps we were wary of that and as such directed play down the other flank. Tillo didn't necessarily do anything wrong, he just didn't get enough of it. It only went there when we had our defence set and no where for Joey to go.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought from where I was sitting it was O'Neill.

No Nabbout and Berenguer gets his spot back hey.. Interesting.

I think he was becoming one of our best and starting to get consistency but then with Luna coming back and O'Neill as well, has thrown him and he's lost his spot In all honesty, I'm not quite sure why he did lose that spot. Luna is a dynamo but not sure he is playing better than Flo was.

Young or not, that was just a shit effort tbh. Tillio had worked his arse off to win the ball back and that was just awful. Oh well, up to him to learn from that. On Maclaren's misses; woeful. But tbf, they were all offside anyway (2nd half).

We started getting on top of them before they took their 'best' players off. Was nice to see that as soon as we went down, we took over. Great fightback.

Very critical of Sydney's 'cheating' high defence when we best them last time. Seems like they've tightened that up today. Also, they're closing down and double teaming us as we try and play through, almost suffocating us. Very good battle.

Kills me to say but it was Berisha who won that for them with two excellent pieces of play in the space of 5 minutes. They did nothing else apart from that and their defence especially was horrid. I've never seen a team get behind another's defence as easy as we did. BUT our finishing cost us bad and you can't win if you don't take your chances. 27 to 8 scoring shots says it all. Oh well, we move on. Perhaps not the end of the world having a loss now, but frustrating as all fuck.

Anyone still interested, you can get free tickets by using code COMMUNITY21 Limited seats and probs not the best sections but free is free..

Yeah, i actually do. VAR can take forever at times. BTW, one thing i don't like about waiting till the end of that phase of play to call the offside is what if someone gets injured in that time. E.g. keeper comes flying out and takes out a player as the play is continuing. Wouldn't happen if the offside is instantly called.

Who says they were reviewing the shoulder barge?

Not at 5:35 we won't

Settle down....

Massive difference when you have a player like Nabbout in front of you. He can join in the attack when needed and just do his role, which he has been doing brilliantly. Last year, he was trying too hard at times because he had to do both his and Wales's role at the same time.