speaking of tackling, I heard a stat the other day which astounded me. Matty Rowell has laid 41 tackles in his last three games! Most of our blokes wouldnt lay 41 tackles in a year.
Durdin and Fogarty lay plenty of tackles... don't both the goal ump, but lay loads of tackles!!
My point is that if he’s tackle shy, we will have an instant new whipping boy, no matter how many goals he kicked… Again, I know nothing of the kid.
A slight derail perhaps but the graphic floating around touting Gresham as our new saviour doesn’t list any tackles... if accurate I cant see that ending well.
I think the De Koning situation has gone on too long. The club should have managed it better, by at least imposing a kind of decision deadline. It has created IMO too much distraction, for a club that can ill afford any more of that.
I think the club has tried to be professional about Tom but I don’t think he’s responded, if skull goes ok in the VFL I’d swap them
It's always darkest before the dawn... there's that irrepressible optimist again!I
I do think we're in with a chance this evening, provided:
TDK pulls his finger out. Deliver or FO. We've effectively with him been one down in the past few weeks. Weiters has to roll up the pouting bottom lip, and roll up the sleeves. Doc has to hit targets by hand and foot. Make Durdin the sub... then have no injuries or passengers. Motlop remains deep in the forward line. 'Good McGovern' turns up. Pitto takes his mongrel pills before the game... then shares them with Cerra, Fog & Cripps. Moir steps up and in to senior footy. Martin tears it up for four qtrs and doesn't get injured, and... Team defence shuts down the Brisvegas prime movers.
Not every North player was enamoured about Pagan and his methods. I've heard Adam Simpson describe some of his "coaching" in less than glowing terms and Corey McKernan was not a fan either - he left to come to us, and checked out again when Pagan came across to us. There's two examples straight off the bat. Kouta writes about it in detail in his book. It was 1980s hard ass coaching for a 2000s group that didn't respond to that approach. Some people would call them "soft", others would say they were independent enough to not unthinkingly swallow abuse and BS. Pagan was the kind of coach you played to spite, not to because he was your mate.
I'm 2 pages behind, so sorry if this has been mentioned... Pagan and Malthouse had long stints at their previous clubs, the entire list was "theirs" so players either bought in or withered and died. When you transplant those "old" coaches to a new environment, straight away you get 40 guys saying to themselves "he cant talk to me like that, Ive played my whole career here and hes been here 5 mins "
I think we all understand that Binns wasn’t going to come out and state the coach hates and picks on him. Binns came across as being mature and professional in his outlook to his credit.
Arguably it does Krudds but as has been said theres no hard and fast right/wrong in any of this. One player will react positively to a spray, another will sulk another might never play again, they all need a tailored relationship and coaching, so to play too many kids at once may very well damage some.
Voss was employed to build a Champion team not a list of Champions, not that we have many true Champions apart from Cripps imho anyway and some of our supposed better players are way overhyped. Looking at our opponents and reigning Premiers, Id suggest Fagan isnt a great tactical genius much like Voss but the one thing he has done well is weld that talented list into a champion team who play for each other. They are well known for being tight off the field and you never hear any bad stuff about relationships going sour with coach/players and they have overcome the player retention issues that many interstate clubs face as well as being a destination club. A lot of that has also been put down to Greg Swann running the club well but has now left and taken on a job at the AFL so it will be interesting to see if they can maintain that bond and smooth off field running.
Well aside from whatsapp photos and what not over in Vegas anyway...
None of our AA players are playing anywhere near their best. Many, if not most, never will again, as age and cumulative injuries, catches up to them. There won't be many All-Austalians from Carlton this year.
Thats not the point - the point is why are they not playing to their best and who is in a position to ensure they are managed to be at their best.
Pinot, your first question is one of the better questions you’ve asked and its answer is the holy grail of human endeavor and in particular team sport. What makes 22 blokes so much better than another 22 blokes ?
