One of the best criteria for judging the quality and character of a player is how they stand up under finals pressure.
We have at least two games this year to make the call. There's probably no need to call out those who didn't quite rise to the occasion. If you don't get mentioned then you have some work to do, and a game to do it in.
I'll start with two and we can add names as we go.
We're often seeking information regarding rules, status of players etc. This can usually be found with a quick search, but sometimes the information is a bit elusive. I thought it might be useful to have some of these resources in a thread where they easily accessible. We can add to it with suggestions and I'll transfer those to this opening post. Just to kick it off....
There are probably a lot of reasons for the result on Thursday night. The reality is we haven't been playing well...we could quite easily have been 0-5 (even the North game looked shaky at times)
We probably have a few issues that need addressing. Attitude, structure, injuries and depth, speed, Plan B's etc all get a mention. On weeks like this one even our strengths come under the microscope. We look at them and think they might not be quite as good as what we thought they were.
One of the ones I've noticed is a lack of strength. It's manifesting itself in two ways.
1) being pushed, too easily, out of contests. 2) failing to make tackles stick
We have a couple of big guys but even they often find themselves out manouvered. We also have more than our fair share of lightly framed guys, some with a heap of talent, who are sometimes too easily run through or pushed aside.
A loss will often bring these things into focus, and on Thursday we were clearly out muscled. These things are always a bit of a balancing act...speed and endurance emphasised over size, strength and power. I'm not sure we have the balance right because we seem to be lacking on both sides.
Obviously it's just one aspect.... What do others see as the major areas of concerns...our weaknesses? What are our strengths...and are they as good as we thought?
At this time of the year expectations are often high...even during our poor seasons we usually started off with hope that the coming year would be better. This year the expectations will be pretty high. Finals is probably the 'lowest' the bar is set and maybe, just maybe we'll go all the way.
This thread is a bit of a no-judgement thread. We may have something in the back of our mind that we think is probably unlikely but "it wouldn't surprise us" if it did happen. It can be an individual player, coach, team or club thought. It can be as wild as you like, (funny as you like), improbable as you like, good or bad.
So to kick it off... I didn't watch a lot of VFL last year but in the games I did see, one player struck me as having little impact, having few possessions and looking a bit out of his depth....but this guy was an 'almost' player. That spectacular marking attempt 'almost' came off. If only he hadn't taken that extra step, if only he'd given off the ball a little earlier, if only he hadn't fumbled. It will be interesting to see if some of these things have improved over the off-season and they do start to come off. If they do.....
It wouldn't surprise me if Dom Akuei plays senior football this year.
While last year's 'next-man-up' mentality became more of a necessity in the back half of 2022, Silvagni admitted that it gave players the opportunity to get out of their comfort zone and build some resilience.
Acknowledging the leaders within the playing group, Silvagni stated there is a real drive amongst the team to take their game to the next level.
“I think it took a group of core players to take us and drive that, to straighten us up and say ‘this is where we’re heading’,” he said.
Unlike much of the last twenty years we now have a group that seems to be full of leadership potential
The Lidia Thorpe resignation has me thinking that there will be a number of issues that will crop up in the discussion of the up coming referendum. Rather than getting mixed up with other topics in the "General Discussion" thread it probably deserves a thread of it's own
I'd suspect the majority of indigenous people support the proposal but there is some dissent. Some like Thorpe want to see a Treaty first, others would prefer that issues of disadvantage should take precedence....to me, these all seem interconnected.
The problem with referendums though is that they are often lost in the fog. If they are too vague they don't succeed. Often it's the opponents who create that fog, but the job of the proposers is to keep it simple.
Have we advertised this site? I had a casual chat to a couple of Carlton supporters at the Carlton vs Port Adelaide game (MCG) last year, and none of them knew of this site at all. Nobody had heard of it. Most of those people I would place in the 30 - 45 years bracket.
It's a great idea. I guess the question I guess is... how?
You could post a link on one of the Facebook fan pages but I doubt it would get past the admin of those pages.
We could set up our own Facebook page which would link to anyone searching for a Carlton fan page or forum and from there back to this site....we would lose a bit of personal anonymity. The plus there would be a useful back-up when the CSC site struck trouble. The problem with that is that I think the name 'Carlton Supporters Club' has already been taken.
Others more familiar with the social media the young-uns use may have some ideas for advertising on those platforms.
One idea that was suggested in the past was that we print out some business cards with the site's web address and hand them out to anyone wearing Carlton gear at the games. You'd get a pretty good coverage in an afternoon. It could be done on a home PC.
Apart from that we're probably a bit limited as to advertising options.
I was watching the Women play in the Rugby League World Cup the other day, and I've seen a couple of women's cricket games in the last week or two.
It may just be my perception but the 'gap' in skill level between the women and men in those two sports seems a lot smaller than our game.
I kind of understand the Rugby League. Women have been playing a high level of 'touch football' since Adam was a boy. That sport would have pretty solid participation levels. Skills and positioning in that game transfer easily to the game involving tackles.
Participation and the depth of the player pool are also factors. It's hard to find specific figures. AFLW is still very much in its infancy. The skill level is one reason some folks express a reluctance to embrace the game. The skills seem (to me) to be improving. Is it just a matter of being patient?
