The persistent problem we have, and which seems to have no solution, is that too many of our good senior players are physically fragile and are unavailable for selection for long periods of time, making it impossible to have a cohesive unit.
On the rare occasions when most of them do play on the same day we are given a glimpse of what is possible. Then the injuries start again.
Unfortunately it is possible that where we are now on the ladder is as good as it gets with this list.
Spot on Macca, as soon as we get some back, they drop like flies again, and by that I mean the usual suspects.
We badly miss Docherty. He is a steadying influence and he does the clutch things that win and save games.
We miss Jack Silvagni, because he can do all sorts of the jobs. Our 3 tall forwards are not the problem in themselves, although I was bitterly disappointed in Charlie tonight. He doesn't work hard enough when he doesn't have the ball. It was really obvious. And when he could have stood up, he was beaten in one on ones and the ball left our forward line too easily. The problem with our forward setup is that our smalls are not keeping the ball in and they're not being dangerous. H played a great game, but his last kick into the forward line probably lost us the game. Had he been able to get his kick to advantage of one of our players, we would have won the game than and there. Instead, he turned it over and the ball went up the other end. Hell, if he'd bombed it and he scored a point, it might have been enough. But just giving it away was lethal.
One of the things that was really obvious was our lack of leg speed. Another was that we didn't tag Nick Daicos. Smother Daicos and they lose that midfield drive.
Charlie seems very clumsy at the moment, he is horribly out of form. His touch seems to have abandoned him. He used to turn blokes inside out at will. Still, hard to pot superstars when you have so many non contributors.
Team for tomorrow looks better than it has for a while, but it is still short of class:
B: Lachie Young Sam Durdin Harry Lemmey HB: Billy Wilson Dom Akuei Brodie Kemp C: Ollie Hollands Jaxon Binns Tom Phillips HF: Ned Cahill Rob Monahan Ashton Moir F: Liam McMahon Luke Nelson Alex Mirkov R: Hudson O'Keefe Jack Carroll Zavier Maher Int: Darcy Hogg Wil White Michael Lewis B Lambert Heath Ramshaw
Em: Archie Stevens Kristian Ferranato Jess Gedi Hayden Gill C Verrel L Prout Blake Kuipers Jack Lefroy
Alex Mirkov has really struggled since his return and is obviously a long way off the pace at the moment. On the other hand, he needs time on ground to get some form and fitness back. Dom Akuei looks a long way off the pace. he has gone backwards and won't be on the list next year. Spots will be wanted, and he doesn't have the intensity to make it. I'd be tempted to play Durdin next week for Young, if he gets through this game. he knows how to use his body, which Young doesn't. Kemp also has a chance to impress: there is a spot there if he does the right thing. I like what I see from Rob Monahan, but he is a long way off at the moment, especially in the key forward spot. He does have the pace and the intensity to make it.
Young just seems plain timid and frightened to go near the ball (ie scared or knows he'll make a blue). There was one passage of play where he flat out looked at the ball and didn't pick it up thinking another Carlton player would (might have been Cottrell maybe?). He was clearly closer to the footy and should have attacked it and ran off with it, instead, he filled his shorts.
re: Williams......a nervous player when played down back and and when you add Young plus two inexperienced defenders in Cowan and Cincotta it puts a lot of pressure on Weitering to be the glue thats holds the backline together. I think Williams has to play on the weakest small forward and never on the last line close to goal and my preference if he has to play is on the wing where he use his skillset to carry the ball and deliver and be removed from having to mind a man. I cant see him in the team when we have our full crew back and ditto for Fantasia and Durdin.
He doesn't have the engine or the brute strength to play the modern wingers role (ie Acres and Cottrell).
Pies played the big moments well, leading tackle makers were Pendlebury, Nick Daicos and Crisp which would surprise a few people but probably showed even their showboat players like Daicos worked a bit harder than we thought they would. Both teams had a lot of non contributors but I felt some of ours did nothing at all unlike a few of their quiet stars who at least competed. Backline worries me when Weitering is out of the play and we are relying on the likes of Williams, Young, Cowan and Cincotta. Need Saad and McGovern back to provide stability and Kemp is a better player than all four I mentioned and dropping him was dumb imho. Not the end of the world and when we get our main troops back including Martin and Motlop we will be ok. Fantasia and Durdin might not as well have been playing as their contributions were zero.....
I though Cincotta did very well on Hill. Of the Ins, I thought he gave us something, they rest were witches hats. He and Weiters were out best defenders by a very long way. The rest were awful. Charlie is an interesting one at the moment. Doing the extraordinary extraordinarily well but is not the basics very poorly. Fumbling, looking slow.
The better team won, simple as that. More disciplined, more attacking, more everything. We just had passengers all over the ground. Walshy needed to be tighter at that stoppage, he just sat off Daicos.
