Watched it a few times on video and there appears to be high contact of sorts but ZW also appears to have exaggerated the force of the contact and the umpires ignored it due to the extra mayo he applied. It probably should have been a free but you cant expect to get those all the time either and he should have played through the contact and not let Geelong(Henry) have a zero contest situation. The umpires were terrible overall imo and let play go especially holding the ball/man situations and you just have to be able to read the game and how its being umpired and know that it was unlikely they would make that call as high contact imho and not gamble they might. Saying all that I have just read Henry has been charged with striking Zac Williams which I presume was the same incident so the MRO has deemed the contact severe enough and should have been a free kick to our man ....more to play out in this saga and you were justified in calling for the AFL to adjudicate on the decision.
We need to start striking blokes softly off the ball. The fines are worth it if you can get a few goals out of it.
Why can the likes of Tuohy or Guthrie take the footy run 2 or 3 steps, be tackled and then just hold onto to it unpenalised, but Hewett or Acres does that and it's holding the ball?
Watching the replay is infuriating, all those little moments go against us, we probably missed out at least 5 or 6 free kicks in and around our HFF in just a half of footy, incidents where the Handbaggers just held onto the footy after trying to break a tackle, dropped it cold, or just threw it away. Our tacklers were not rewarded at all!
Clarkson complained about this in 2016 when they were knocked out of the finals by the dogs. He asked how can you have 100 tackles and not one holding the ball? What is the point in tackling?
Our offence is fine, it's our all over the ground defence. Fogarty was ranked the best pressure forward in the comp and since we have lost him we have conceded 100, 98 and 118 points.
The likes of Carrol and Durdin offer no pressure which makes it harder for Acres, Cottrell and Hollands to give chase. Which makes it hard for Williams, Kemp and Cowan to defend.
Agree he was disappointing yesterday the media have accused him of staging for a free where he appeared to be caught high and then that passage of play produced a important goal for Geelong.
If he staged then he should be suspended. I would like the AFL to come out and say it was a free kick or he staged.
Explain to me how the whole Southern Stand saw Williams get coat hangered but not one of the 4 umpires saw it? That turned the game back in their favour.
ANATOMY OF A FORWARDLINE IN FLOW It was the six-pack in just over six minutes that won Carlton the game in a seesawing clash with GWS, and a perfect reflection of how the Blues forwardline works when at its best.
While missing Sam Taylor, the Giants had the tall timber to at least keep the Blues in check, with Jack Buckley, Harry Himmelberg and Leek Aleer all in defence. The six-goal burst – all kicked by the big three Carlton talls – that won the match in the third quarter last week came thanks to separation.
Curnow kicked the first goal, with small Corey Durdin putting in just enough of a lead – a “duel-threat pattern” – to not allow Himmelberg to come over the top, creating room for Curnow to mark over Buckley. About a minute later, Blues Matt Cottrell and Blake Acres pulled away from the dangerous room in front of McKay, allowing him to lead into open space and a chest mark, while Curnow kept well clear in the goalsquare.
The next goal came after McKay forced a turnover on the wing, with Curnow the deepest forward and with acres of space to use and mark in the goalsquare.
By now, De Koning had moved from the ruck to the forwardline and the Blues had their preferred centre bounce combination of Sam Walsh, Patrick Cripps, Marc Pittonet and George Hewett in the guts.
That quartet won 12 centre bounces and lost just one last weekend, leading to nine inside-50s and five scores.
Walsh ran clear from the bounce and De Koning kept his opponent away for just long enough for McKay to earn a free kick in a one-on-one contest with Himmelberg. Goal No.5 saw McKay and Curnow again keeping their distance, standing 20m apart inside 50, and Orazio Fantasia could clearly see Curnow in a one-on-one with Buckley.
The kick was a scrubber but Curnow was good enough to pick it up and snap truly on the left as a frustrated Buckley threw his mouthguard to the turf.
Curnow became the highest tall forward for the final goal, leaving McKay and De Koning deep and isolated, with De Koning marking on his chest after a quick rebound from defence.
In six minutes of gametime, the Blues erased a 20-point deficit and now led by 17 thanks to three Curnow goals, two to McKay and one to De Koning.
Much like how LeBron James may clear out the floor on an NBA court, telling his teammates to get their direct opponents away to let him go to work, Curnow does the same when he is feeling it.
Having kicked 165 goals in his last 54 matches, Curnow is the league’s scariest forward, and he knows when to tell others to scram. “Charlie sometimes calls ‘iso’ for himself and we open up some space and let him have one on ones,” fellow forward Tom De Koning said.
“When he is on a roll he is hard to stop. I would hate to be a defender against him when he is on a roll, he can score so quickly and just the energy he brings is amazing.”
It hasn’t always been smooth forward of centre between Coleman medallists Curnow and Harry McKay, as well as giant De Koning.
But the Blues have found their mojo with their tall attack, as shown last weekend when their forwards took down the GWS Giants in the second half of a tight encounter.
All three talls kicked three goals in the win and De Koning said the focus upfront was to run “dual-threat patterns” to get the power forwards good looks.
That terminology generally means two forwards leading in different directions to create multiple options for kickers going forward, and to ensure they separate opposing defenders.
“We are trying to run those dual-threat patterns and give them looks one-on-one because we know how good they are in one on ones and we have seen time and time again what they can do and how much they can affect our team scoring,” De Koning said.
“Those two big boys have such a big presence and when they are playing well it is hard to beat us.”
When the three talls all share a forward line, the Blues score off an extremely good 62 per cent of their inside-50s, well above the league average of 43.5 per cent. Carlton leads the competition in scores per inside-50, at a usual level of 49.1 per cent.
In past years when the three all shared one attack, the Blues battled, scoring with 36 per cent of entries last year and 35 per cent in 2022.
But this year, the taller they are the better, with Carlton scoring off 51 per cent of attacks with two talls and just 42 per cent with one big man inside-50. Curnow has been in 20 attacking one-on-one situations this year and won 42.9 per cent of them, while McKay has won 44.4 per cent of his 18 isolated battles.
The league average winning rate is just 27 per cent.
Carlton’s forward line faces a stern test on Saturday against a miserly Geelong unit who boast the league’s best defence, even with All-Australian Cat Tom Stewart out.
The Cats are top of the AFL in losing just 14.1 per cent of their defensive one-on-one contests.
Carlton's score per inside-50 percentage when Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay and Tom De Koning play forward.
No. of talls playing forward 2022 One 38% Two 43% Three 35%
