Carlton Supporters Club

I was never a fan of it (the rebuild) because it is a lie, but i got abused for two years on here for suggesting we are going nowhere under this coach and board etc.  Now interestingly, my critics have disappeared under the woodwork. We are a putrid club with a putrid coach and putrid administration. We are an embarrassment and will continue to be until change occurs. 

re: Kennedy....still not convinced, 1st quarter was terrible, just handed the ball to Hawks players but did improve as the game went on...not a frontline mid IMO..more your Blue Collar 4th mid who needs some class around him to make up for his rough disposal....

Weitering played his best game for a while and apart from one or two mistakes was good today... true but still too slow
Harry needs new boots.....
Kennedy battled on after a poor start where his disposal was terrible but he did improve... probably his best game this year but still can't run or kick
Polson...not a fan but he had a better game and tried... showed up more but needs to do so in more games
Lobbe...did well and gives some leadership, probably a bit more physical than Kreuzer and Philips... was very competitive in the ruck but that's about it
Shaw.....lost vs Bruest, Poppy..... being 3rd string behind O'Shea and Mullett says it all but I think he could improve more than either of the others
Cripps....fought on well after being decked by Howe
Graham....one of his better outings error wise but low impact.. one of our more competitive players so probably back to the VFL next week
Charlie...quiet by his standards but supply was poor... yep
Wright....ok when he got the ball but nowhere near enough
Jack...ok down back, yep
Simpson...ok..not great - still one of out better players
Murphy...got a few kicks but low impact. - clearly not fit
Levi...very poor
Harry.....kicking was putrid and looked a bit lazy... always looks lazy but looked energetic compared to Levi
Pickett....exciting run and does some good stuff but nowhere near enough.
Obrien....didnt see much of him.
Dow....didnt see much of him - even less than O'Brien
Fisher...missed  his input a lot - looked better than ever until Howe kicked him in or around the ankle
Jones....missed as well - outstanding before he was injured - especially some of his tackles
Marchbank...still rusty....
Ed...ok on Smith and battled on, needed to be on Mitchell... good job on Smith who must be about the biggest whinger in the AFL - bleats to the umpires ever time he doesn't get his own way

John Barker is Head of Strategy and High Performance.

I refuse to blame Bolton for this predicament, although his dogmatic, generic coaching shtick is wearing thin.   The players are equally culpable.   Effort,  application and execution of basic skills,  nothing beyond them in those demands.

What kills us every week is that the opposition moves the ball so much better than we do.
They hit targets more regularly by hand and foot and run to space instinctively because they're confident their team mates won't cough it up.
We look timid because we don't have the skills which allow us to take risks, so we play safe, and get exposed.
McKay spotted up Marchbank with a lovely ball, Marchbank took the set shot and kicked it out of bounds.
It destroys confidence, and it's contagious.

I agree with what you say re coughing up the ball. We are very inconsistent with our kicking.
What I will say though, is our pressure when we are defending is almost non existent, and that allows the opposition to look a lot better than they probably are.
2 weeks ago, I counted at least 3 times where the opposition had a kick in from a behind, 6 uncontested marks resulting in an easy shot on goal. 1 of those was 2 marks inside 50. Resulted in 2 goals and a behind.
Last night, watch the vision of Hawthorn coming out of defence, our guys would mark space, the ball runner runs to our guy, handballs over the top to an unmarked player (his opponent marking space 3-4 metres away), then runs on past our next guy for the next Hawks ball runner to rinse and repeat. Coast to coast with uncontested possessions.
Our forwards are not at all defensively minded, FFS they wont work hard enough when we have the ball let alone when we don't. Our midfielders don't work hard enough in defense, and then the defense stand 5 metres off their opponent and wonder why their opponent takes an easy mark.
People are going to say, "well we had 2 rotations down, our guys were cooked", what about the games when we weren't? Same result.
Our guys are lazy and don't work hard enough.


Why is that?

It's been a crap year for sure.  No denying it.  Most of us thought the previous 2 years were reasonable all things considered. There has been no continuity as a team this year.  Judging the 3 years as a whole and taking everything into consideration i'm not jumping ship yet.  less confident than i was at the start of the season, but not keen on bringing out the pitchforks for now. i will judge them at the end of next season so they have a chance to reply for this season. lots of teams have hiccup years it's just that ours is coming off a very low base so we look bloody awful. we have totally stunk it up this year.

That imo is a classic symptom of a bad collapse in team morale, see my previous post.

I refuse to blame Bolton for this predicament, although his dogmatic, generic coaching shtick is wearing thin.   The players are equally culpable.   Effort,  application and execution of basic skills,  nothing beyond them in those demands.

I'll say it again...it's not so much your opinions that you get attacked for because your disappointment and views are shared by a few folk.
It's the way you express it.

We're not a great club at present, Bolton may prove not to be a great coach...and the admin... well we're not too sure who they are from day to day at the moment... but putrid is just over the top.