People are just trying to cope with the reality that the magpies are the real deal
They really could go all the way.
The belief they have cannot be bottled.
Credit to Macrae and Leppa,
The magpies play like the tigers did at their best.
Irrepressible. Watch them interact with each other, this is real unfortunately.
Exactly. As much as we all might hate to admit it, Macrae and Leppa have taken our system to the Skunks and almost every player - gawd even look at that dorky Yank - is playing far better because of it. Plus they're getting plenty out of their worst six role-players (just we did for flags).
AFL is just another time and space game, along with efficient disposal and scoring. The premiership team is the one that denies its opposition time and space, then capitalises on that through efficiency and scoring. Exactly how we succeeded, with our intense pressure, tackling, speed and turnover game. Smelbourne learnt and trained how to do this best in '21, having studied us closely, and we collapsed late last season, worn out by our own success.
Now the Skunks are perhaps doing it as well or better than anyone. Their pressure around the ball, tackling, shutting down and denying space, time and movement is really suffocating teams and forcing them into costly errors. It's like Colonwood have an extra player, always seem to outnumber the opp around the ball, win the ground-ball contests, get it going into space; mark it by playing in front or bring it to ground, repeat until someone can score - with some good finishers.
Unlike us, umps are actually onboard for them which really helps too. They have huge belief now, their crowd is back out following them, creating affirmation so ordinary players have 'grown another leg' now.
Really hate to say or admit it, but I can't see why they can't win it. Probably only the Moggs can stop them at the G, but we all know how prone Geesuck can be to show their age and lose heart and belief at the G in finals, under the blowtorch of a team that plays like this.