FB Nic Newman Jacob Weitering Jordan Boyd HB Brodie Kemp Mitch McGovern Caleb Marchbank C Blake Acres Patrick Cripps Oliver Hollands HF Matt Cottrell Charlie Curnow David Cuningham FF Tom De Koning Harry McKay Matt Owies F Marc Pittonet Adam Cerra Sam Walsh INT George Hewett Matthew Kennedy Elijah Hollands Corey Durdin SUB Lachlan Cowan or Alex Cincotta
IN McGovern Kemp Marchbank Hollands OUT Williams Fantasia Young Cowan or Cincotta
Completely new HB line Ollie back in on a wing We played the two rucks, no Harry and won that epic final. We had Doc and Saady though. Durdin Cunningham Elijah, consider yourselves lucky. Voss might not be as kind to you.
Like it, GTC... however... no way would I bring in Marchbank until he's regained match form in the Magoos. I'd back Cincotta and Cowan down back, but give them license to run-off their opponents.
Kemp for moi is a quandary. I love his attack and offensive game. Too good to be in the Magoos. Stubbornly refusing to try him elsewhere on the ground may be an issue.
Agree with no Young in your side. Too limited and one-dimensional. Understand including him because of his height, and he competes quite well in that regard, but he offers little else.
Ollie Hollands didn't front up for the Magoos game... if he does come in on the wing, perhaps a defensive role on Ed? Must say I prefer Acres and Cotters on the wings.
Yes, one goal in the four games BP and and five in the four WP games is a fair improvement.
I tend to agree that we're not doing too much wrong and a tweak here and there should get us back on the winning list. However, I do think that our personnel comes into it too. We've gone about as far as we can go with the "next man up" and need to start replacing some of those next men with the likes of Martin, McGovern and Motlop.
Agree... and disagree to a degree, David.
There was a reasonable expectation that after 33% of the season played we'd find ourselves in the top 4. Yes, the season is still young. But we find ourselves hanging on in 8th place with 2 real tough games ahead.
If we zoom out and be objective, we're a much better side than recent years, but any papered over cracks our now obvious. We've not taken the next step... yet. We have it in us. As an aside, it was a very strange feeling being in the crowd last Friday evening. Bagger fans were strangely pensive. Like a collective unconscious doubt. I couldn't feel any optimism. Others around me had the same feeling. None of us were surprised we lost. Weird.
We have the personnel, no doubt - players and coaches (though I still firmly believe we need a coaching influence on game day from someone with strong strategic ability - Hodge? Ratts?). But we still have a midfield, forward line connection issue. Not helped by 'bombing' onto the heads of H / Charles... not kicking to where they're leading to or should be. Lacking efficiency - over possessing/stuffing around with the aggot.
Seeing Martin & Motlop as being the Messiah's is fraught with danger. Though the absence of Fantasia would be a positive step. We can't afford the luxury of carrying anyone. Last Friday evening seeing Fantasia in the starting 22 ...again, along with Martin on the last line and Chugga being the emergency were absolute howlers. And most of us knew just that before the ball was bounced to start the game.
I still firmly believe that going into the Go Dees game on Thursday evening with a strong, committed and ruthless mindset of being the 'hunters' (for all 120 minutes) will resolve many an issue.
Courageous stuff to share that with us, Green Stick. A horror story. Similar stories only too often happening behind closed doors around the nation... world. I have little doubt you've ended up with PTSD. I hope you've support and help for this, assuming you have PTSD... regardless, that level of trauma is abhorrent and lasting. I'm also concerned for your sister, for a number of reasons.
Expecting politicians to effectively address the issue of domestic violence is worrisome, to say the least. They've centuries of being ineffectual, even contributory, in this area. I saw an episode of Q & A on the ABC where a Criminologist summarized the issue sharply and succinctly - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d0lHA-zDBdg He mentioned in this 'patient dumping'... a cruel and critical cause/issue at the core of domestic violence (not a fan of using the acronym for domestic violence... subtle sanitizing). Expecting families (often already under difficulty) to deal with mentally ill and drug fkd family members is cruel and absurd.
Fans want to whack Williams, but what he did players do all the time and do not get pinged. The willingness of fans to throw rocks at Williams goes back to when he signed on, fans bitched and moaned about the dollars, but that is not Williams fault, much like it wasn't the fault of Martin or McGovern before him. But the dollars put him in the sh1thouse with many fans forever more, with the dollars promoting some weird sort of tall poppy syndrome!
I don't think we're throwing rocks at Williams, Spotted One. I think we're throwing rocks at our coaching. Williams is a creative player by nature so giving him a lockdown role is a throw back to our 'bad old days'... square pegs in round holes. He was set up for failure. To his credit he showed character with his determination to make the best of a bad situation and gave his all. But the damage was done; the horse had bolted.
As LAJ noted, I believe very accurately, our losses this year have been of our own making. Not umpires - though in that Pussycats game there were some howlers.
I have no doubts we're a very good bottom eight side, just a whisker from top four, a far cry from years gone by. Against very good top eight sides we either win narrowly or lose narrowly. No more blowouts.
But with such improvement comes much increased attention and expectation. Opposition sides now put a great deal of preparation into stopping us, seemingly successfully thus far. So our coaching needs to be better... obviously. (For the record I'm not in the 'sack the coach' group, or the 'Voss can't coach,' clan... nuh. Nothing could be further from my mind, and I believe nothing could be further from the truth. He's our man and I hope he's a ten year (+) senior coach at the good ship PP, but he's still learning and growing and making mistakes).
So we find ourselves putting all our faith in the return of Martin & Gov this week. Mm. The upside of a Martin return is Fantasia being sent back to the Magoos to work hard on getting his mojo back. No matter how you slice it, OF has been a liability. And small Durds would also benefit from Magoo time... but give him a midfield role, teach him to hunt the aggot, back himself, rack up possessions.
And our midfield coach needs to be smarter re how to combat opposition sides blocking & teaming against Crippa and Walshy. Hoping the umpires will help us is a folly, borderline illegal tactics are a reality. Develop a strategy, give the players tools to combat this. You can bet that the Go Dees will pour over the Rottingwood game and to a degree emulate strategies to blunt our blokes a la what was done on Friday night.
I’m sure in an interview early this year Charlie said he’s on a modified program because of his knees, it sounded like he doesn’t get encouraged to do more than light running.
Thank you for that clarification, NB. Although perhaps not able to do everything he'd like to, with his freakish abilities Charles will still require the opposition's best each week... because if he does get off the leash close to goal...
Its not panic stations yet but we need to beat the Colls, the Geels, etc. Right now with Freo beating Rich, we are sitting 8th.
8th place, with the 8th best % (which is low for a side with top 4 aspirations). Sharp feedback saying that we are where we belong at this time. No better.
We've done a lot of talking the talk, but nowhere enough walking the talk.
Hard to know without a bit of background. It probably stood out because it’s not something we’ve seen from Voss a lot in his time at Carlton. It may be that he’d checked Cerra earlier in the game about a similar incident, and gave him instructions not to repeat it. You could understand that having been told once the coach would have been upset if Cerra had gone against a specific instruction.
But then, again, you'd ask yourself how come he hasn't got it? I doubt Cerra is deliberately disobeying instructions. If he is - Magoo time.
I noticed during the game an inordinate frequency of us going backwards with handball and short kicks - probably due to Rottingwood extreme pressure -- so, how come? Do our blokes not know how to deal with extreme pressure? Perhaps a throw back to the past where we'd collapse under real pressure - can't handle being the hunted? How come we're seemingly not prepared for an opponents best?
Where has our 'hunting' gone? For a period last year we went after aggot and opponent with commitment and ruthlessness (relentless/sustained 'hunting'). But not this year. Have we decided to just rely on the talent on our list and game plan and ignored between the lugholes stuff? 'Staying present' is one slice of the psychological pie... but there is much, much more.
I don't recall him bending over to try and pick up a ball much in recent games. I'm sure there is probably some vision of him doing that, but recently.... If he loses a contest it's sometimes a case of 'that's all folks'. I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing sore.
Charles has become something of a (considerable) impact player. Very little for 100 minutes + 15-20 minutes of freaky stuff. Aint enough. Like others I've noticed that with aggot in hand up the field he is deadly with his inside 50 disposal. More please. And if he's playing injured, how come and what is it? Maybe his knee issues are such that there are just things he can no longer do? Are we nursing him through games? Yep, this is what happens when we don't know... speculation sets in.
So far this year all our losses have been on us.We have lost them ourselves alot more than the other side won them. essentially our own dumb fault. Lost very narrowly to a couple of very good sides despite playing poor footy. Essentially a lack of the intensity we had last year. What we do this year is up to us, no-one else. Play with the right intensity and we roll anyone. Hopefully this happens when the whips crack in the 2nd half of the year when it is time to peak.
Yep he nailed it and I thought the midfield stuff was on the money too, they had a plan , worked us out and I thought Pendlebury was finished but he played some game on the bigger Cripps.
Isn't this where our coaching staff should earn their loot? Counteracting opposition tactics is where game day coaching skills are a premium. Turn the tables, give them something to think about... give our blokes strategies to deal with and counteract.
If their tackle count is going through the roof... what are we going to do about it? Fight fire with fire? There must be things we could have done, I would have thought. Do we have someone in the coaching box assigned such a task - skillful, tactical changes? (Welcome back to PP, Ratts as the game day strategy coach... just the bloke we need!)
And while I'm at it... that public spray from Vossy at Cerra is an alarm bell. Not on. The first thing Vossy, as the leader, should have asked himself was, "This is on me. What haven't I got through to this bloke for him to not be going forward with disposals?" A reflection of your leadership clarity of communication, Vossy? I know there are those who believe a good old-fashioned spray is good stuff - nuh. A quiet, motivating yet firm explanation in Cerra's ear (encouragement to the positive, not berating from the negative) would have been far more productive.
wait, wait, wait … just watched the Sunday Footy Show highlighting how they blocked Cripps at every centre bounce.
I mean, COME ON. If that sort of treatment doesn’t warrant a rule change I don’t know what does.
So the ball is NOT in play, there’s NO actual contest yet, in some instances the location was more than 10 metres away from where the ball was about to be bounced, and the opposing player did NOT have eyes for the ball.
So if you take your eyes off the ball and look at your opponent for a split second in a marking contest it’s a free every single time.
Also an instant free for “blocking” if the player’s path to a marking contest is impeded.
Why is that treated differently?
Of course, nothing new here - has been happening for years, and not just to Cripps. McCrae is portrayed as the good guy but I think this belies his Sheedy- or Clarkson-like approach to pushing things to the limit. He was even astute enough to make Pendlebury the blocker knowing he’s an ump favourite who has the footballing IQ to disguise the blocks.
Which brings me to Pendelbury’s last centre clearance - did he or did he not head straight for the boundary line? Great observation from one commentator that doing that is win/win. If the ump pings him for “insufficient intent” it gives them time to set up behind the ball. If the ump is too gutless to make the call it’s a throw in just far enough away from goal.
You can bet the family home that if the same tactics were done to Pendlebury, there'd be a hue and cry... and he'd get plenty of free kicks!
So glad the footy show highlighted this. In effect, opposition clubs are using illegal tactics to blunt our strengths - I include H and Charles in this as well.
That's how it's umpired, paying the Elliott frees is fair enough but Harry got nothing for the same holding treatment down the other end and I think that's what's irking a few fans .
Glad you mentioned this. The illegal tactics used on H and Charles, in particular, are, to be blunt, horrendous. And the blocking of Crippa is something I hope the club brings to the attention of the AFL. Pronto.
I'd pause getting stuck into Walshy. Yes, he stuffed up... big time. BUT, over 120 minutes of that game you'll find that many failures over the duration, across the board, got us into that critical moment in the first place.
We expect perfection from such a high achieving individual. How many times did he make a significant contribution to us scoring, or preventing an opposition score. There were too many 'moments' in that game where we failed, or other individuals just weren't up to task. Too much left to too few. Take out Fantasia & Durdin and put Chugga in the starting 22 and that error from Walsh may very well have not been so significant.
As I mentioned after the game, we played with a liability of only about 15 blokes on the field at any one time. Martin is not suited to being on the last line of defence - coaching error. Durdin and Fantasia should not (and shouldn't have been for some weeks) in the starting 22 - MC error. As for Chugga being the emergency... just fckn stupid.
