Carlton Supporters Club

One good quarter of football in sixteen yet we are on top of the ladder undefeated. There is still a problem of us turning up ready to play, there is still a problem of us not playing out quarters and matches, there is still a problem of us not being able to hit targets when coming out of defence, there is still a problem of our small forwards not being at the fall of the ball and kicking goals, there is still a problem of our midfield lacking a bit of genuine pace and there is still a problem of us getting our best team on the park, however we sit on top of the ladder with three wins and a draw.
Our defence has become rock solid and I think it is because we have good players down there and the mids are getting back to help out and clog it up a bit. By the same token our midfield aren't getting forward enough and impacting on the scoreboard. North have some seriously good players and probably had the best of the battle there except in the third quarter. Our midfield will improve with the returning of Walsh, Kennedy and Acres.
Our kicking to our team mates continues to be a source of frustration and Silvagni was probably the worst offender yesterday. Harry was bog until he decided to miss goals from one meter out. He needs to stop thinking and just start doing. Fisher has become a bit of a whipping boy for some on this site and I think people are concentrating on what he doesn't do rather than what he does do. He had a pretty good game but he should also stop thinking and just do as he is a good kick and he adds a bit of pace and run in the midfield. We need a bigger spread of goal kickers and we need our small forwards and mids to kick more goals. These groups need to be kicking up to ten goals a match and they need to be kicking goals early.
You don't want to be playing your best football early in the season. In the good old days Collingwood was referred to as the May Premiers. If we can start getting more of our best players onto the ground and if we can start fixing our cohesion issues and if we can improve as the season goes along, we should be all right.

x1000

Being an older gentleman, it irritates me that you can show affection to younger people, male or female and been viewed as a dirty old man.  I grew up in an era where we were taught to be a gentleman and open doors for ladies and older people, something i still do today. There is nothing wrong with being a caring sharing person without having sinister intentions.

Been doing it for a while under the guise he is a just a tough awkward bloke and its all accidental......Cerra copped a fend off in the eye and I think Harry copped a punch to the head(not sure if it was Zurhaar) but the whole game was played with Nth going the cheap shot when available. Clarkson must have thought he was back in London and his blokes could just tee off on ours.
We need someone to dish it back and just crumple Zurhaar and stop how he plays vs us....I always think back to Liam Jones on the boundary and how he got badly hurt from another accidental Zurhaar incident.

Definitely not a Clarkson fan but I have no problem with his press conference. He was out of his comfort zone, tried to engage the young 7 yo who was overawed and spoke genuinely about the child and his family. Giving a kid a pat on the  back and ruffling his hair, while speaking about years of illness and surgeries. If we have a problem with that, maybe we are the ones with the problem. Well done both clubs and both coaches, great messages all round!

Cerra had his best game for the season for mine.  He has been another good investment.

I found that game very annoying & irritating.

We we were behind at the first two changes even though they were fielding a seriously undersized defence.

Furthermore, when we booted 10 in a row to get out to a handy 40-point lead, instead of powering on further to a 10-goal percentage booster, we rested on our laurels and allowed them to reduce that to the final margin .

McKay should have kicked 10 on his own, he had everything in his favour to do so ...... and as for that OOTF from the goal-line ........ FMD !!

Our players are not desperate enough, our players prefer to let a team-mate pick-up the slack plus we have some serious brainfades & yips when kicking for goal. I'm also frustrated at the skill level when it comes to player disposal, we make it near impossible for ourselves at times.

Granted, North are a better team this year under Clarkson but they are not a big player in the scheme of things. They were ripe for the picking but we either didn't want to do it or didn't have the ability to which is IMO, unacceptable.

The draw against Richmond was good, the win over the Cats was 'okay' (don't forget, they haven't won a game yet and got rolled by the Suns) & the win over the Giants was nothing special either.

It's great that we are sitting on top of the ladder for the moment but we need a collective improvement if we are going to challenge for a flag.

Serve up that crape next week in Adelaide and they will make us pay for it.

North had more scoring shots, more I50's, won the contested ball, won the clearances. My big hope is that this victory means we are getting closer to winning becoming habitual, so even if we don't win every stat we still find a way to get the 4 points. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

I think Vossy is focused on teaching us how to 'control ' games for wins and part of that is to let teams use up their petrol tickets before we really  turn on our attacking mode.