Some facts - we lack pace - Pittonet, Marchbank, Young & Durdin nowhere near AFl standard - we need so much more from Cottrell and Cerra - O Hollands continues to make inexcusable mistakes at this level - no team can sustain the sheer number of injury prone players on our list (Martin, Cunningham, McGovern, Marchbank, Williams) - we lack young talent - we have way too much salary cap invested in too few. We need to rebalance.
We’re going to need go trade heavily to rebalance the list and cut the injury prone deadwood once and for all. We’re a long way from a premiership.
I wish I could disagree with you, but we were very slow tonight. Not first to the ball. Cerra is a shadow of himself. He probably needs time in the 2's to recover some form before the finals. Cottrell was bad, but he lowered his colours. He isn't in form yet either. We struggled to get anything from our small forwards: Owies had 6 possessions, Motlop had 7, Fog had 11 and most of those early. Ollie Hollands needs to look at his brother's disposal. Lije's kicks were like scalpels, Ollies were messy too often.
Yes, we have too many injury prone guys. We can't carry them all.
At the ground I thought Pittonrt was useless. Charlie was well beaten.weitering beat Dixon but not much else.
I don't think Pitto is 100 %. His form of late hasn't been great. He got a lot of possessions against Collingwood last week, but his ruck work was not that good. Tonight, Sweet killed him after half time and gave Port first use of the pill. That turned the game.
I think pitto was good in the ruck. I thought Charlie was good up forward. I thought weiters was good down back. I thought gov was passable. I thought Kemp and young were largely disappointing.
I can't agree with this, I'm afraid. {1} Pittonet: in the first half he was pretty good, but after half time he got smashed. Sweet gave him a lesson on how to palm the ball to advantage. Port got their hands on the ball first and got the ball out too easily. Marc did take 2 marks tonight and was one of the reasons we played as well as we did in the 2nd quarter, but after that he barely touched the ball. {2} Charlie I agree totally: he was probably our most effective player, even with the poor quality of our forward entrees. {3} Weitering dominated Dixon. Dixon had 8 possessions and got 7 of them while on the ball. Unfortunately, we could get any drive from Weitering: he was too busy. {4} Apart from one early contest, where he was out-bodied too easily, McGovern had a great night. He was reasonable in the air and his kicking wasn't bad. Not sure why he was off late: hope he has no new injury. {5} Kemp was one of the reasons we came good in the 2nd quarter: he got totally on top of his opponent and took a large number of interceptions. He took more intercepts than any other Carlton player. But, like many of his teammates, he struggled a bit after half time. When he dropped that crucial mark ... He did spend some time forward, but he struggled to get into the game there. Young was disastrous, he was even reasonable in patches, but he isn't a ruckman or a forward. It really showed.
Too many fumbles. Too slow to make decisions. Not enough 'swinging around' from vossy.
Far too accurate: we fumbled the ball a hell of a lot after half time. Walsh got run down and penalized too often. We made very slow decisions, taking the 'safe' way out, but it didn't prove to be safe.
Voting is as usual: you have 15 votes to award pretty much as you will, with the following provisos: [1] 15 votes in total, no more, no less. [2] No more than 10 votes for any one player (even Sam Walsh or Patrick Cripps) [3] Three players at least must get a mention. [4] A grade for the game, A+ (what I want to see) to F-.
B: [17] Brodie Kemp, [23] Jacob Weitering, [24] Nic Newman HB: [42] Adam Saad, [11] Mitch McGovern, [5] Adam Cerra C: [4] Oliver Hollands, [9] Patrick Cripps, [46] Matthew Cottrell HF: [20] Elijah Hollands, [10] Harry McKay, [7] Matthew Kennedy F: [8] Lachie Fogarty, [30] Charlie Curnow, [3] Jesse Motlop R: [27] Marc Pittonet, [18] Sam Walsh, [29] George Hewett Int: [2] Lachlan Cowan, [39] Alex Cincotta, [28] David Cuningham, [44] Matthew Owies, [16] Jack Carroll
Em: [37] Jordan Boyd, [25] Jaxon Binns, [33] Lewis Young
[1] Cerra was OK at HBF after half time, but he was ordinary in the 1st half. Not a position he knows a lot about. I'd rather have Boyd in. [2] What does Binns have to do to get a game? get 50 possessions? [3] Our defence looks a little more predictable, for us, than last week. At least we have enough taller players to do that jobs available. [3] We will miss Acres. He was down last week, but ...
TDK out for reminder of H&W. And will be a race at best to play any finals footy as well. Terrible news.
Massive loss. Pit while serviceable as a ruckman is a massive down ground on TDK around the ground and a non event as a forward
Injuries: Clarkson; what do they have in common? I rarely hate people, but Clarkson ... I haven't forgiven him for Ian Aitken, and probably never will.
And could potentially play as an emergency ruck....really hope he can get get his shh together because we have seen it, we know he can be a good contributor at senior level
He isn't a great ruckman, but he can do the job better than than most of our guys. Maybe he does need a game or two.
