Carlton Supporters Club

Just quietly we have won 15 of our last 17 games. One of the 2 losses was a dead rubber.

The big thing out of this victory - is our boys stayed engaged in the contest.
Even the final moments of the match where Crippa called TDK out of the ruck contest that threw Jackson into a tangent and made a big error. What a move by Crippa.

The big thing out of this victory - is our boys stayed engaged in the contest.
Even the final moments of the match where Crippa called TDK out of the ruck contest that threw Jackson into a tangent and made a big error. What a move by Crippa.

Whether that was pre-planned or not we'll never know, but you can only do it when you have ultra mobile type rucks like TDK or Jackson as they become an extra stoppage player in the zone.

FWIW, back when we had both Kreuzer and Hampson in F50 we would do a similar thing, because they were both mobile enough around stoppages, it left the opposition not knowing which ruck would contest and which ruck would rove, I never understood why we didn't implement it more. There are some old clips floating around of Kreuzer and Hampson roving to each other for goals. The 3rd man up stifled the tactic for a while, and now having to nominate reduces some of the impact, but it still works if you have the right options available.

Fans will never agree, but for me it's hard evidence that the 24x7 unspectacular and unfashionable stuff that the likes of Cottrell, Owies, Fogarty, Hewett, Kennedy and Cunningham bring is far more valuable than the flash in the pan highlights some others offer.

Fans tend to remember the highlights, the stuff that stands out, without even noticing the grunt work that made it happen.

Most of the time, we only had one of them available for extended periods of time.

The big thing out of this victory - is our boys stayed engaged in the contest.
Even the final moments of the match where Crippa called TDK out of the ruck contest that threw Jackson into a tangent and made a big error. What a move by Crippa.

For me the domain of the mobile rucks is attack, and the home of the monolith ruck is defence, very few rucks can do both well, currently Gawn is perhaps an exception.

The positioning around that stoppage was interesting with De Koning standing goal side rather than in a defensive position.  I'd love to know whether that was part of a plan to convince Jackson to go for an attacking hitout.

The players often talk about rehearsing scenarios - was that one they'd planned?

T
The players often talk about rehearsing scenarios - was that one they'd planned?