Carlton Supporters Club

McKay is too good a player in general play to not be in our best 22.

I haven't watched he game so I can't comment, a lot of media have initially talked him up as BoG, then secondly gone on to bag his kicking. The second part of those reports is more about throwing rocks at Carlton and winding up supporters.

BigH is not as bad of a kick as the media make out. Out at range he is as good if not even better than Charlie, I wouldn't be surprised to find their stats not all that different. In fact I think we did just that comparison last year and there was barely a percentage difference. To me that means the close range stuff is almost 100% a head space issue, but he is not on his lonesome in this regard.

Over the last couple of seasons, I'd say Owies has been probably our most reliable from inside 25m, and even he has had some unexpected misses.

It's the bad misses that fans remember, but I'd assert BigH has had as many spectacular around the body goals from very long range deep in the pocket as he has had spectacular misses. Those spectacular misses are what fans remember but I doubt in the bigger picture if there are as many of them as they recall.

I was watching a highlight package of Harry's 2022 earlier on.
He was kicking them from all over the place and looked confident in his kicking.
While they wouldn't have shown his misses...with 45 goals-31 behinds he was travelling OK.
He can do it, but something's gone wrong somewhere...and it may be as simple as MBB and LP says when they tried to correct his kicking around the corner...they've messed with something that was working OK. (58-33 in 2021)

It doesn't help the more people pile on and bang on about it, we might think he doesn't hear or read it but he does. You just have to listen to his social media stuff to know how much it impacts him, directly and indirectly through his family and friends who are forced to listen to the bullcrap fans hand out in the stands.

I tried warning people off about their expectations of Young for this year, and it seems, unfortunately, that i was right.

He looks like the same player as he was last year (at best) but nowhere near the player he was before that.

Not sure whats happened to him, but he is not a long term option and we MUST be chasing some genuine backups ASAP.

I would happily like to wave my magic wand and fix it, but i think its about time we accept it, he ain't the man he used to be.

I thought that Harry was our best player by quite a margin and his ruckwork has improved considerably.  Geelong rotated four players through the ruck to our two (Young did contest one hitout when our ruck couldn't get there) so Harry's effort was quite impressive, as was De Koning's.

H appears to have been coached and looked much more at home in the ruck than ever before. Maybe there is an intention to have him spend more time in the ruck this season.  If so, hopefully he will be resilient because I don't know if we can afford for him to get injured. 

TDK also seemed to have more strength to body up against his ruck opponents - not that the pussies are generally considered to be strong in that department.

I like the games of both Hollands brothers but the big positive for me was the fact that Cripps appeared to be more mobile and to have a bit more zip - maybe he has dropped a little weight and done some speed/agility work or maybe he is just injury free for a change.

Cripps was outstanding early but had a bit of a spell later in the game and dropped back to just very good. Based on his early game form, I’d say he is in for a big year.

Ollie Hollands was very impressive.  Elijah was good but I don’t think he has Ollie’s footy smarts.

Not sure yesterday first 'practice match' of the season confirmed anything and anyone and certainly your joking to write a bloke off after one practice match.

I remember watching blokes like Digby Morell look like Wayne Carey in preseason games then was delisted a few years later.

North 17th beat the premier comfortably a few days ago

These games mean SFA, as long as there is no new injuries in these pre season games I'm happy.

Id be trialling Sam Durdin at FB this week vs Melbourne but would also play Young in the backline, Weitering is such a hard player to replace we may have to use a combination of S. Durdin and Young to try and cover the FB position.
While you dont judge a player on one practice game I felt Young's lack of form was continuing where he left off last season and Id like a plan B. Martin will be equally hard to replace down the other end given his value is in the quality of possessions rather than the number and if he is also missing Id expect Fantasia to provide that creativity and would want to see him shine vs the Dees.