Carlton Supporters Club

This would have to be one of the most infuriating match reports I've ever read:

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/patrick-cripps-was-outstanding-but-sydney-too-good-for-carlton-as-swans-record-first-win-of-2019/news-story/008280d51685c5cbc6266e0ef3351e18

I won't post the whole thing but here are some highlights:
1. Rarely has a football team been built so exclusively around one player. Cripps isn’t just the heartbeat at Carlton, he’s the entire aorta and the lungs as well.

2. Bolton revealed the Blues had made a conscious effort not to over-coach Walsh. “We haven’t over-coached Walshy. It can be a real trap where you get a young guy in with a real free mind and spirit. It’s so important he keeps playing with the freedom and run he does.”

3. (Bolton)“Our ability to adjust in-game was a conversation. Another conversation was we had an extra scoring shot, but in set-shots we kicked 4.6. There’s a set of fundamentals that add up."

Jones was BOG.

I feel like I have literally watched a replay of every time we've lost to the Swans for the last 10 years.

Our mids refuse to man up for the entire match. Zone / 10-15m away from their opponents and the Swans just chip the ball through us all day.

It was one of the most disappointing matches I think I've ever watched and I include 90+ point hammerings in that. It's like we have no understanding of the most basic elements required to win a game of football. If you're sitting there on the coaching panel watching the way the Swans very simply chipped their way through our team over and over and over and did nothing to stop it - what are you doing there.

Forget talent/age - this has nothing to do with that - it's just effort. If the coaches instruction is to run that extra 10m to shut down the only option the Swans ball carrier has and the player doesn't follow that instruction then the coach should be dragging you and send you to the VFL the next week and finding someone else to do it.

My suspicion is our coaching performance was seriously sub-par. I have practically never criticised Bolton but this game was winnable and I don't know if Bolton knows how to extract the performance required to win a game any more.

Does Wallsy sit in the coaches box? Just sayin...
I always thought SOS would've been a good coach.

There was an artical in the HS by Mark Robinson. Listed below are some of the points of the artical. Its a god read and if anyone has a login they may like to post some more details.

Not in thre couches box, however he's at the club 3 times a week getting up ay 5.30 am on thoses mornings to be at Ikon park at 7.00am, staying until about 2.30pm. He's at every training session, sometimes on the track with players and oftens sits in on coaches mettings. He also watches VFL games. Walls is to be a sounding board for BB and the other 10 assistant  coaches. He has gained the trust of all coaches, often the assistant  coaches tap him on the shoulder for advice and tap into his knowledge.

Apologies if I repeat earlier comments (late to the forum) but just another one of those "what if" games and like most here, I'm about over these honourable losses and Bolton's post-game waffling. For mine, he'll be lucky to keep his job until the end of the season. You can spin it all you want but we've won one of our last 34 games....some ridiculous stat I heard mentioned.

For the multitude of high draft pick players we've got, is it just me or are youngsters just not developing quick enough? Would SPS or Zac Fisher be into their 3rd seasons at a Geelong or Hawthorn and still be drifting along? For all of our high end draft picks, I can't think of one player on our list with what you would call "elite" kicking skills...not one! We were positive last year with some of the games by Paddy Dow but how many times did he butcher it yesterday...ditto O'Brien. McKay's contested marking was a highlight but seriously, if you can't kick straight from 15m out directly in front it's a worry. We were damn lucky that Ed Curnow managed to kick a few freakish goals yesterday.

Walsh played another great game but unlikely to get the Rising Star nomination because of Rozee's 5 goal game. But even his kicking let him down at times.

Nothing personal but Polson and Gibbons are not up to AFL standard at the moment. If Polson was playing a defensive forward role, can someone tell me who it was on so I can check if they got over 30 possessions like most of their defenders. Gibbons excited us with 3 goals in that first JLT game but has barely touched it since then and needs to go back to the VFL for now.

If not for Patrick Cripps, the losing margin in the first 3 games would be even higher. I said it last week that if he didn't get support on the inside we'd have no chance and that's exactly how it panned out. He simply cannot do any more for the team and unless we get someone in there to help him, the season will be another nightmare.

Lobbe battled hard but once again the opposing ruckman was close to best on ground. We can't get Kreuzer in there quick enough. For mine, I'd persist with Levi...yes he missed a set shot when we were in with a sniff but his work around the ground was good and he smashed some packs and bowled a few of their blokes over. Once again McGovern did very little until going off injured.

So very frustrating again and it's hard to see where a win is going to come from.

Agree on an earlier comment re Marc Murphy....for an experienced player, he's just not in the games for long enough periods.

One of the few positives was Liam Jones who played a great game and thankfully the umpires aren't falling for some of Buddy's staging antics these days. Jones stayed focused on the job all day.

Whoever wrote this, and I don't care who it was, hasn't watched us much and didn't notice much yesterday either.
[1] Jones flogged Franklin in the sort of game that makes you realize just how much he has improved.
[2] Our young mids are better than last year. Not good enough yet, but definitely on the up. Dow, SPS and Fisher to name just three.
[3] Our 3rd string ruck best even with their rucks. Last year it was different.
[4] Has this person ever heard of McKay or Charlie Curnow?

We have our problems, of that there is no doubt. But we are more than a 1 man team, even with Cripps being as good as he is.

I never thought it was winnable. The Swans are not what they were, but they are still a good side, and will be playing finals for sure. Still virtually the same team that started 2017 0-6 and finished 6th. They only lost 2 of the last 16 games.

I'm flummoxed that people thought this was winnable.

EDIT : both 2017 and 18 they finished with W/L of 14-8.

We were beaten by a team they had 100 more disposals than us. Pretty much all uncontested.

This could have been winnable, but we were easily out coached on game day. Again.

We were beaten by a team they had 100 more disposals than us. Pretty much all uncontested.

This could have been winnable, but we were easily out coached on game day. Again.

We don’t apply enough pressure around the ground to make a zone defence work. The other clubs know this and just work into the gaps using short kicks and good running patterns.