The best teams plan and plan everything to the finest detail.
They may start resting players, but whoever the players are that go out there will go at 100%, nothing is sure because the players on the fringe of selection are battling for a spot!
Id rather face their A team who are training hard prepping for the business end of the year, than the fringe types looking to get in.
Those types will crucify us because they can sense a premiership.
I think the drop off is temporary and a product of a list that isnt in good condition.
You seem to think its at optimum capacity to perform and not performing to that potential.
There is the variance, its not about condeding or arguing who is right or wrong, but saying it was at full strength is a massive stretch. Cripps alone is playing within 50% of his top form of last season. Is he rubbish now? Or is he simply having an off year?
We dont play like this, because our squads outside game is significantly hindered by players being broken down. All our creative and running types are well down on their best so we have to stick with what our strength is, and try and generate scores that way, because we dont have another mode we can go to.
We lost to Richmond in Round 1 with close to full list.
You have said this a couple of times, but our list isnt close to being in good condition, and I debate how close to full it was, given the team that fielded that day didnt include a two time coleman medallist, and had 2 new players that hadnt played for the club before. That doesnt sound like full strength to me.
This business about "the modern game" seems to be the hottest ticket in town. I'd be curious to know what it actually is.
We arent good enough so the reason we arent good enough isnt because we arent good enough, some external factor is imposing an artifical restraint to make us look bad.
Remove the restraint, and all will be rosy.
Same old Carlton arrogance thinking we are or entitled to be, better than we are.
Thing is, its sometimes as simple as, we are not going well (theres enough evidence there to say we arent in good condition) and rather than accepting that, we need to "fix it" because old Carlton knew how to fix things, and in our hubris, we can fix it.
Thing is, game plans are game plans. There are finite things you can do in tactics. Everything old will become new again, and right now, the run and gun game style is "modern footy" with scores off intercept and rebound currently being the way to hit the opponent.
Who played like that? Ratten.
We dont play like this, because our squads outside game is significantly hindered by players being broken down. All our creative and running types are well down on their best so we have to stick with what our strength is, and try and generate scores that way, because we dont have another mode we can go to.
Everyone outside the club want us to sack him, because they know it will short circuit us and ensure another 5 years of another team not being competitive.
This is their art of war. Tear down your enemy at all costs. They know we made a prelim a couple of years back, and notice how the guys they reckon we should trade for draft capital arent playing now, and we are getting hammered? Walsh and Mackay. Is it REALLY worth trading two players in their prime for youngsters in a compromised draft this year? we shouldnt be trading anyone around the 27 year age bracket. Look at Kennedy. We put 7 years into him, just to trade him the second he started playing consistent footy at age 28.
What the hell was Austin thinking meanwhile trading both our first and second rounder this year? I understand gambling on the Hawks not backing up thinking that their rise might have been premature, but we've somehow decided that trading second rounders and ending up with Brisbanes was worthwhile after they played in back to back grand finals.
Thing is I cant even hope they fall off a cliff, because we need them to stop Collingwood thanks to Sydney being poo this season.
I know everyone wants Lemmey to play, and I personally was against him playing because I dont think he is ready, but he might give Charlie some freedom if he can get his running patterns right.
Harry O Farrell is a lot more of a mobile defender, and this week could be a good week to bring him in.
Ben Camporeale was the other who gave a good account against the North Melbourne reserves.
We will find out a bit about the youngsters in waiting tomorrow night against Port Melbourne. It probably wont be pretty. Port are a good VFL side usually but they are currently sitting 16th on the ladder out of 21 (we are 14th).
We chose this path. We removed senior players and brought in kids, keep in mind Voss wanted Dan Houston. How were we going to be stronger in 2025 than we were in 2024?
We have sown the seeds of what we see today, when we embarked on SOS strategy.
The second we got impatient and deviated, we started reacting to the current situation with minimal foresight. The move of Bolton to David Teague lacked any critical thinking, and the butterfly effect of all these decisions have been quite impactful.
You look at Collingwood. 2 premiership players from 2010 still play for them. The team that they used in 2018 that lost the grand final had a fair chunk from the previous premiership team, and at least 6 of those 2018 runners up became premiers in 2023, along with another or 7 players who were on the list but didn't play in the 2018 grand final.
Docherty and Cripps are the only players on our list that played for Malthouse in 2015. Hell, of our 2018 list (2 years into SOS rebuild) we only have the following still playing for us:
Why are they better? Here are the players that are on the list in 2023 when they win the flag, that were there in 2018.
De Goey Elliott Pendlebury Adams Sidebottom Crisp Murphy Moore Hoskin-Elliott Maynard Howe Mihocek Cox
13 players vs our 7!!!
Almost a full starting 18 remain on their list. Why is their team so much better?
Oh, they have only had 3 senior coaches to go with the above for the 26 years (could be longer, I know Malthouse was there in 99, and I know they only moved to Buckley and then Mccrae).
Do we still want to turn over yet another 25% of the list, and do we still want to sack our 3 coach in 7 years?
Same Iaj. I don't want to sack another coach but I don't see how Voss can survive. And we have zero draft picks and the tigers expect to steal Cody. We're looking at another 15 of crap.
Cody Walker isnt going in this years draft, its next years draft.
There is a lot of hyperbolic stuff going around, and partly because we have traded picks, but at least 24 players in this draft are going to next gen academies, and we have had that many draft picks, we already know, that draft picks arent the answer.
Put every single player up for trade at seasons end if the right deal is there. We dont need to worry about how that will affect the list as the list is cooked in every way and will never make the grade in the current format
Ive said it countless times massive change needed and it will need to be ruthless in order to have any longterm affect.
all this talk about minor changes and expecting a sizeable change is absolutely fantasy.
Rip the bandaid off now. like others ive lost a lot of interest - stopped my membership at end of 22. stopped going to any games. and now watch games without enthusiasm expecting nothing.
Then to hear cripps say he is happy with effort. if i wasnt a 40 year plus supporter i would call it quits on this club.
fantasy is expecting lots of changes to yield a good result.
You cant build a team, cohesion and game plan changing everything. It will leave us in the wilderness for 5 years. Horse took over from roos. Continuity of message and brand. We'll hang him in 3 years.
@kruddler continuing on that average age chat, was just doing some various mental gymnastics about sides and average ages.
It could be right, but I think its being over stated somewhat.
Off thr top of my head our oldest players today would have been cripps, docherty, Williams, saad, haynes, McGovern. Acres probably a smidgeon behind them. The rest are all under that age or thereabouts.
So it may very well be thr oldest average, but we dont exactly have a cliff coming where the rest of the side is in dire straights.
Had both teams kicked straighter they would have won by 70 points, but we could have been much closer if we hadn't missed set shots directly in front of goal.
