The "hard men" of the football I grew up watching wouldn't last five minutes in today's game. Even if they could achieve the level of fitness of modern day footballers, umpires all over the ground and TV cameras covering virtually every square centimetre would mean that they would be playing the same sanitised footy as everyone else ... and there's nothing wrong with that.
If you can find the footage on the club website, have a look at Matty Cottrell talking about his grandfather telling him that he should be running through his opponents. It's a vastly different game to what Len played in the late 1950s.
As G2C is fond of saying, anyone who runs out for an AFL has to be as hard and tough as all get out. Despite what some fans may think, there are no "soft" AFL players ... and it's mental toughness as a well as physical toughness.
We may have deficiencies in other areas but, if anything, we may be a little too eager to get physical, as suggested by the bit of biffo that allowed Joe Daniher an easy Joe the Goose.
Playing Binns, Lord, Moir and Cincotta would have made us more competitive. Blokes fit enough to actually get to contests. Not thinking we were winning at all but would have been more competitive. Might have been 30-0 instead of 60 with a few bloke's actually switched on. At least you'd feel some chance from there rather than hopeless. As for not beating the Saints, remember the Saints very comfortably beat Geelong the previous week. They had found their form. The 4 bloke's would have blended in with some coming back. It would not have been totally the previous week's side.
Yeah, nah!
Cincotta for Kennedy maybe. Lord would have had a crack, Binns would have been brushed aside and Moir is fit enough to play a whole game.
While I may disagree with some decisions Vossy, the MC or Nick Austin may make, I accept that they are informed decisions made by folk who are far more knowledgeable than me but don’t have the benefit of hindsight.
It wouldn’t have mattered which 23 players were selected or who was the sub, the result wouldn’t have changed, particularly if our arousal level wasn’t increased.
Our season was screwed by injuries but that provided opportunities and learnings that will make us stronger next season.
I think that's a generous description, there is very little centre remaining in either the left or the right of Aussie politics.
On the extremes. I have an associate who copped a water bottle in the head yesterday leaving the (Land Forces Expo)IWE. He was there because he is funded by the military to develop life saving "In the Field" 3D printed scaffolds for on the spot use in emergency medicine, like skull cap or bone graft scaffolds. Of course the military will pay for the all the R&D, but the main recipients of the commercialised technology will mostly likely be people in the 3rd World or Disaster zones. Ironically, if he'd been hit with something a bit harder than a water bottle, like some of the rocks and brick being randomly thrown, he might well have become a recipient of his own technology.
btw., I thought the gutless mask wearing at public protests was banned in Victoria, it seems to be making a comeback?
By all measures, the ALP is a centre-left party with probably more right-leaning parliamentarians than left-leaning. The Greens have largely captured the left.
Mask wearing isn't and has never been banned in Victoria. VicPol and PSOs have the authority to require people in designated areas to remove face coverings, but it is a very limited power.
I get that people want to demonstrate against war, and particularly in the context of Israel's disproportionate response to Hamas, but surely peaceful, orderly protests with a clever hook would be more effective ... and it would be nice if they devoted some time and energy to protest against Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
It’s interesting how the Republicans and Democrats have changed/evolved. The Republicans were the progressives who were opposed to slavery. The Democrats were pro-slavery and allied with the KKK - although prominent Republicans were also KKK members.
I guess we’ve seen similar at home with the Liberal Party becoming far more conservative than the party Menzies founded. Labor has always had a wide range of philosophies but is now firmly centre-left. Of course, that’s nothing like the dramatic changes undergone by the US parties … but we’ve never had a civil war to hone our politics.
Think back to how Aurangzeb monstered Hillary Clinton in 2016 to see how well Harris's team prepped her for this debate. Still, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the better of an extreme narcissist with cognitive decline.
There were plenty of low points but it's hard to go past:
"In Springfield, they [immigrants from Haiti] are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there."
Sadly, Aurangzeb and Vance aren't backing away from this baseless claim but, then, Aurangzeb said that he saw it on TV so it must be true.
If you look at how each player covers the ground it tells a different story.
…
This is according to the heat maps. So what happened?
Heat maps show where players had disposals, not where they were running.
In fact, 90% of Motlop’s disposals were in defence, 40% of Fantasia’s were in defence and all four of Durdin’s disposals were in the forward line. You’d have to look at the GPS data to see how much time they spent in attack and defence.
Putting that to one side, your point about them having different roles is correct. Fantasia generally has the link up role that Cottrell does so well and he had a defensive role on Zorko for some time. Motlop usually gets back in defence but Durdin rarely goes beyond the wing.
I don’t know if the distance covered stats are published anywhere but I suspect that they would show considerable variation.
Docherty is a midfielder and Williams plays as a forward. They actually used O.Hollands down back
Docherty played in defence for most of the game. If you start on the defensive 50 when there’s 6-6-6, you’re a defender and Docherty was one of our seven defender rotation.
Ollie was an extra behind the ball. He was nominally a forward but went back into defence after the centre bounces.
Williams played most of the game as a forward but also spent time in defence. That may just have been him helping out but it seemed to me that he was playing on a Brisbane forward.
Not really, we don't know if they were right or wrong because, TDK only came on after 40 minutes and still only played 50% of game time in total. So after the first 40 minutes on the bench, he spent about another 20 minutes on the bench during the rest of the game.
And that's in the normal range when we play Pitto and Tom. Pitto was only on the ground for 67% over four quarters
Tom was full of beans at the end of the game and showed no signs of tiring or favouring his injuries. We were conservative with him, and that's fine, but, with hindsight, he could have played the entire game.
Finally got through the replay. Took me three attempts. It was pretty ugly viewing. Just a few observations. 1. Cincotta should have played. We were one defender short and Cowan struggled. I think Cowan would have been better if he was the seventh defender. Another pre-season will see him improve. 2. Absolutely no run and carry in the first quarter and twenty minutes. When Carlton is struggling we go into our shells and we don't take on the game. Handball receives should be a kpi next season. 3. Not sure why everyone has been down on O.Hollands. He was serviceable in the first half and he shut down Zorko in the second. wasn't great but he was okay. 4. TDK should have started. 5. Initially I thought Cerra should not have played as I think he disrupted the midfield. However he did get better as the game went on. He needs to define role for himself. 6. William should not have played and Carrol should have been the sub. 7. Pittonet took a couple of marks and it makes him a better player. Needs to develop his marking. 8. If Carlton players are upset by the sledging and the trash talking of opposition players then don't be five goals down. If you are five goals up you won't hear a word from these clowns. 9. Hopefully with a new fitness guru we might be able to get a bit of continuity with the team. 10. Binns, Lord, Wilson, Lemmey and Moir all need to be given plenty of opportunities next year. 11. Docherty is a marvel.
How do you arrive at one defender short? Our defensive rotation was Weitering, Young, McGovern, Cowan, Newman, Docherty and Saad and I'm sure Williams also spent time in defence. I do think that Cincotta should have played, but in place of Kennedy who had no energy and hardly got out of a jog ... but that's with the benefit of hindsight.
That goes for De Koning too. The club was concerned that he couldn't run out the game and that proved to be too conservative. He would have had a crack from the opening bounce and that could have made a difference.
Docherty is a marvel but he was as rusty as all get out and probably shouldn't have played. Again, Cincotta would have been a better bet.
I think we first need to figure out if in fact there is a problem that relates to personal incompetence (as opposed to simple bad luck with injuries etc.) and we then need to figure out which individual is responsible. And that's not possible for us on the outside. I know on social media everybody knows exactly what the problems are, where they lie, and how to fix them, but in the real world.....
We have tried more senior coaches than pretty much any other club in recent years. It doesn't work. And no, it's not because "we keep picking the wrong bloke."
Under Voss we have played more consistent good footy, and if nothing else, Cripps, Weitering and Walsh have IMO clearly benefited from him as coach, all going to another level under his tutelage.
While I agree with that Paul, as Daisy Thomas pointed out, our arousal level was far too low at the start of the game. That’s largely a collective coaching responsibility but with Vossy bearing the lion’s share (oops!). The leadership group also has to take some of the blame.
I’m always impressed by Vossy’s calm demeanour, but perhaps he was too calm and needed to rev the boys up a tad more. He does seem to learn from his mistakes and I don’t expect to see low arousal levels again.
I don’t buy the criticism of Vossy’s game day coaching. He’s as good as the next coach and his planning and preparation is very good. Injuries, and the lack of depth those injuries exposed, screwed our season.
