Re: 2018 Rd 2: Post Game Prattle: Carlton vs Gold Coast
Reply #231 –
I've digested this a little since last night. This post is going to be a little more glass half empty than not.
1. Gold Coast might turn out a much better side than anyone thinks they are this year. They have good key position players in good form and have enough players around the ground that are 100 games or thereabouts to touch us up.
2. Sometimes you struggle after a physical match. Last week against the Tigers was a better effort than we thought we'd give and they hit hard at every opportunity. Young sides will always struggle. I've once been told that the hall mark of a good side is how you're opposition rebound next week. We didn't bounce back well after the reigning premiers. Fair enough too.
3. Even our better players had poor days at the office. That would be one of cripps lesser games as well as most of the guys we rely on most of the time.
4. we have quite a few underdone players by my estimate. I'd say we are relying on the likes of O'Shea, Garlett and mullet much earlier than we would have liked and these guys were recruited for insurance over anything else and unfortunately we have needed them early. That is confirmed by yesterday's match selection and the fact that the team not playing seniors has been touched up two weeks in a row and quite easily.
Now despite the fact that we picked a side that had basically no hope, and that as soon as the late change was announced I was filled with dread, we played a make shift ruck one of the worst team balances possible and everyone had the fumbles and never played the sort of footy that even looked like winning this game, we somehow got within three goals of the lead halfway through the third quarter. I'm not sure but I think they paid another soft free kick to gc who got an armchair ride all day to help kill any momentum we had built and that was all she wrote.
I'm going to choose to ignore our selection at this point. It's not like there was much different we could have gone with and all things considered may vs McKay wouldn't have been much good for McKay's development at this level, and we would have put him in the ruck out of necessity at some point.
Basically, I'm keeping my powder dry. Going with the glass half full approach and appreciating that as crap as weitering has been he needs to play as a third year key position player who can play much better footy than he is currently.