I’ve been saying it about the Pies for a while, now – they give you every chance to beat them…
… if you’re good enough.
And that’s the question they ask their opponents each week – are you good enough? More often than not, the answer is a resounding no.
This team goes out and plays the way they play – they don’t come into a game thinking how they’re going to adapt to the opposition. If they did that, we would have seen some big changes in the first quarter, as the Dogs kicked the first three of the game and looked like a better team.
No, this team forces the opposition to adapt to them. They’re the number one team in the game for a reason – if you are gonna beat them, you work out how!
But they don’t work it out. They get close. They have an idea, but putting it into action always sees them fall short. This collection of Magpies possesses something that great teams do – and I know they’re not great – not yet, anyway. They have genuine belief. They have belief in their system. They have belief in each other. And they have belief in themselves. We’ve seen them get down by three or four goals so many times over the past 12 or so months, only to roar back into the game with a blast of footballing brilliance.
It happened in this one in the third quarter, as the relentless pressure saw them turn a five-point deficit into a 25-point lead at the last change. And though the Dogs would push hard late, from that point on, it felt like so many other games this season. It felt like a Magpie win.
Let’s jump into The Mongrel’s Big Questions.
Oh, what the hell? A Mongrel paywall? Yep, I believe my work is worth twenty cents per day. If you don’t, that’s fine. Don’t complain, though. Sometimes, I open these reviews up after 24 hours or so. Sometimes, I don’t. There is no favouritism… I just don’t. Want to join us and access the members’ game reviews, as well as columns like the Wingman of the Year, Recruit of the Year, and other nonsensical stuff HB comes up with each week?
