Carlton Supporters Club

We have been playing some good football, punctuated with some of the worst clangers to be seen at AFL level. We haven't been far off it, without being able to beat too many teams. Some of our guys looked like they NEEDED the Bye to come along. Now that it is here, hopefully we can get some use from it, now it has arrived.

Last year we did not win a single game after the Bye, even though we scared a LOT of teams. We were very ordinary after the Bye the year before. However, in both of those campaigns we had SERIOUS injury issues. By the end of last year we barely had enough fit players to make up a team for the last round. This year we have a list in much better condition.

What worries me is that we are not getting the reward for effort.

As Bolton said after yesterday's game, the reward will come in time. Our young players will have learnt a lot from that, so the reward isn't coming in the form of 4 points yesterday, it's coming in the form of experience.

Honestly, I'm not too fussed with us losing these sorts of games this year. We get experience into the young players and go home with another prized draft pick at the end of the year. As long as we don't finish bottom, I'm happy.

I cant see us getting higher than 14th ,we will be fighting for the spoon again against Suns ,Lions ,maybe Filth and the  Cheats  .Who disagrees

What worries me is that we are not getting the reward for effort.

Last year we did not win a single game after the Bye,

I know and I understand that, but Im worried that it becomes a bit confidence sapping to not get the reward for effort.

It will expose those players who are not up to it in the long term, and hopefully we have a way to manage our players through such difficulty, but it worries me that too many games without winning may see players starting to lose focus and belief in what they are doing.

Thats when they can drop off, or worse, want out.

But we did.  We put in no effort in the first quarter and a bit and lost - our just reward.  Footy is a 4 quarter game.  We aren't quite fit and strong enough to do this yet.

Ahem.......... we beat Melbourne 2nd last game of year. ?

I know and I understand that, but Im worried that it becomes a bit confidence sapping to not get the reward for effort.

It will expose those players who are not up to it in the long term, and hopefully we have a way to manage our players through such difficulty, but it worries me that too many games without winning may see players starting to lose focus and belief in what they are doing.

Thats when they can drop off, or worse, want out.

Exactly my thoughts, 3 Leos. You can't build a culture of excellence by continually losing, regardless of how we lose. I firmly believe that Kreuzer, Gibbs, Murphy and others who joined at a similar time we negatively influenced by too many losses. I understand the club has smaller, incremental goals within so the players can have something to strive for and succeed at, but that kind of 'winning' doesn't feed the success beast for long. Nothing succeeds like success.

We're 2nd bottom and that's a pox and a scourge. A culture of excellence comes from wins on the big stage with everyone watching. The Doggies fast tracked kids and no-names into a premiership unit in quick time... they were behind the Demons and Aints but flew past them. Everyone was singing praise and potential re the Demons and Aints at the end of last year and early this year but neither is a serious threat to any deep September action any time soon. In fact we should have beaten both of them this year and they're supposed to be 3-4 years ahead of us in terms of an effective rebuild - what a load of bullsh1t.