Gee I hate losing, but anyway back to the review of the game.
Regarding Zac, I reckon keep playing him. I'm not over disappointed at all with him. I remember seeing him at training a few times and was astonished how diminutive he is compared to the rest of the list. The way he presents and has a red hot go gives me faith in the bloke. He'll get the confidence soon enough.
Absolutely loving seeing the growth and development of Charlie and Jack. These blokes give their utmost at every contest. A bit more bulk and strength and real soon it will be even more exciting to watch them. Charlies full stretch and marking are terrific, reads the ball in flight so well. Jack backs himself in, I love that, we need more blokes that want to take responsibility at important moments, the more the merrier!
Was at the game today with my Carlton mate and what a fantastic day.
The last 2 minutes really didn't do my heart any good but when that final siren went the crowd went into raptures.
What really stood out for me, especially in the last 2 minutes was that none of our players went into their shell. They all wanted the ball like the lives depended on it. They took the game on and attacked and attacked and even though it looked hectic our boys looked composed. To not take the easy option and rush the behind and force a draw they backed themselves in to clear it out, brilliant.
Everyone contributed today, and our young blokes looked like 100+ game players.
I love watching when they show Bolts in the box, he wears his heart on his sleeve, rides the bumps like as we do as supporters. But you can see it in his eyes he knows exactly what is going on and is reacting on the fly with his instructions to the team.
I must admit in that first quarter i was a little worried that it was going to be a blowout. But to the boys credit they fought back into the game and at one stage we even had the lead for a couple minutes.
Lets face it, we didn't have our best day on the park, Doc and Charlie I thought were terrific though. In the past we would have been smashed by 10 goals. Personally, what speaks volumes for me is that even though we didn't have a great day, we only went down by 19 points. We didn't lose any confidence with our game plan and our lads are much better for the experience. I cant remember anytime that they dropped their heads and gave up.
With our development and list management it wont be long before we pass the Aints. Our list shows growth every week and I'm lovin it.
I kept saying the exact same thing to my mates yesterday. Little handballs and quick kicks out of packs were hitting targets. And more importantly, no fumbles from blokes running past. AND it was wet?? Looked completely different from some of our earlier games
Just a bit of confidence, and the skill level goes up?? Could that be it???
It was a combination of many factors that created what we saw in the game yesterday. There is no doubt that the confidence in each other has lifted, and more importantly it becomes contagious. I remember earlier in the season when we would fail basic skill execution and gifted the opposition so many easy turnovers and they would score, especially in our defensive 50. But you watch yesterday games and see how CLEAN the ball came out so even if we did turn it over it it was a lot further up the ground and was not in a dangerous spot.
Pay attention to some of the long kicks across our backline as well, they were classy and accurate, rarely did our lads have to break stride to tidy up the receives.
Not to sure how it looked to you all, but how many times did our boys look like they were panicking when they had possession? I cant remember seeing a Carlton team that look so composed and knew what to do when they had the ball.
This is why I picked Caleb for the Rising star nomination, and that's not taking anything away from Sammo, SPS was fantastic yesterday + getting the photo with me on Friday should have made me choose him for the rising star nomination a given, but the amount of times Caleb took uncontested marks using his ability to fill the gaps and read where the ball was going to go just blew me away.
I think its also worth noting that it rained for long periods during the match, it wasn't necessarily pissin down but a good ol drizzle, yet our skills were still very polished throughout.
I was down the city end, level 3 among the majority of pie supporters. Gee they are a bunch of sooks and imbeciles. I never heard so much vitriol from a bunch of supporters directed to their own team. I really enjoyed waving bye to them when they were leaving early. I also made it very clear to them in a loud and booming voice that it was only "side by side" when they were winning.
What stood out from me today was the effort across the board, I thought it was very even. Yes, there were obvious standout as in SPS and Caleb, I'm not going to pot anyone tonight, but I was thrilled with our effort and attack on the ball.
Another thing was our skill level, especially when we were moving the ball across the back line and in the past we would miss our targets and turn it over due to poor execution, this seems to have been tidied up considerably.
I havent seen the replay yet, but Cos's chase down of the player going for the certain goal was team lifting stuff (was the city end and my eyes aren't great, I'm punt road end).
The cheers that went up from the supporters every time buddy was deprived of the ball was spine tingling. I think they were cheering the boys on for the effort required to get the ball back every time buddy threatened to do something.
The thing that stood out for me, especially the first 12 - 13 mins of the 3rd quarter was how we didn't do any silly turnovers and gifted them easy goals.
Not to sure if they showed it on TV but right on the first bounce our boys swarmed buddy and were giving it to him, I'm not to sure what happened there but i enjoyed it.
Really good food for thought in some of these posts. Idk if the term "honeymoon period" really fits the bill here. No matter where we are as a club all of us have certain expectations and those expectations change with time based where we are as a club. Whether they fall in or outside this honeymoon period doesn't seem absolutely relevant to me.
All of us as supporters and members are looking from the outside in, and we all have a grasp of the propaganda coming out from the club. Our own opinions are based on what we hear or don't hear really sets our own expectations. I think setting a "bar" then going for it really is a flawed scenario as well.
For me personally there will never be a honeymoon period or a grace period, it just doesn't sit right. From day dot to infinity and beyond I just expect the Club as a whole to get better. I guess then the honey moon period finished in 1864.
Having just moved back to Richmond, in my new place I have am on NBN, previously i was with optus in glen Waverley, and that was Optus Cable (not adsl). In the 15 years I was with Optus the connection was pretty muck rock solid, there was a period where my modem fell over and was getting dc'd but that was resolved.
From my experience, i find very little difference regarding NBN and optus. I do play a fair bit of online gaming and there is no way i can tell the difference in the gameplay. I do also download a fair bit via torrents using a VPN, and again the speed is pretty much the same for me.
I'm on a wireless router here, my pc is around 15 months old, in the 4 months i have been on NBN (hosted by iprimus) i have had a total of 2 dc's and they were resolved within a minute. It required no technical knowledge to resolve (I am somewhat pc savvy) just a reboot of the router and i was back online. So overall i would give the NBN a thumbs up.
Spanner, whilst your comments are strong, its obvious to me that you have had a gut full and that I can understand.
You do single out Murph and Gibbs, but i don't think they have been the lone rangers in regards to certain deficiencies.
From my perspective when i observe our players, specifically our more seasoned players I try to give myself some perspective by comparing them to similar players in other teams. Right now, Murph and Gibbs have not been up to scratch, so far.
I do question some of Murphs disposals, as they can seem to be poorly executed, but then i have to remember the cattle around him maybe doesnt provide him any decent options. Remember we do have alot of newbies who are still learning.
I try not to look at one match in isolation and pass judgement as that can lead to incorrect conclusions. I'm hoping to see some improvement in around 8 rounds, better skills, better decision making once our newbies get their head around the gameplan.
Lets just all take a deep breath, pour a bourbon, we know its going to be a long year, but sometimes you have to go backwards a little before you start moving forward.
Rock bottom exists for a reason, from that point the only way is up, i'm content to put up with disappointment because i know it will eventually deliver us sustained access.
The Thomas situation is very interesting and really puts me in a conundrum. I just want to state first I never would boo a Carlton player, i don't even boo the opposition, takes to much energy and I'm lazy.
Without doubt we all have seen Daisy play and more than entitled to have our opinions, From my perspective I just cant see why he is being selected to play. It cant be based on form, its simply not up to scratch even the easy stuff is looking difficult for him. Is it based on leadership on the ground? Well I've watched him on the ground (i go every week bar interstate) and he is no more vocal and than any of our other players.
A while ago a poster on here, i forget who, made the point that the reason we play him and support him is to create a positive image for the rest of the team, maybe the younger guys more than others will realise that we just wont turf you when you are coming to the end of your career. I'm sure alot of our younger players know that he is cooked and are observing how the club treats him. This in turn might effect them when it comes to the next contract signing or if they want to be one club players.
When Daisy finally gets the tap on the shoulder and he tells the rest of the group, and he leaves on a positive note, this will have a positive effect on the rest of the group.
I for one second do not blame Daisy for where he is, we made the offer, he took it, I'm sure we would all do the same.
One thing that gives me 100% confidence is that i know Bolts and the rest of the crew know how to handle this and will handle it correctly.
I haven't read all the posts, so going in fresh with this one. I understand that to go forwards long term you might need to go backwards just for a little bit. I just didnt understand how far backwards it was possible to go until I saw last nights performance. Last year I was somewhat ok about how we were going, I felt I knew where the team was at and what we needed to do to start climbing back up the ladder.
Either I'm a massive moron or a incredibly delusional idiot or even a bit of both, but I never thought I would see a performance like last night that now has me questioning aspects of the club I had rock solid beliefs in.
I loathe pinging individuals, be it players, coaches or admin as I will always support the club passionately as a whole. I have to question if the players have lost faith in the coach or each other. When Malthouse came to the club i was a stoic supporter of him, but my faith has been severely compromised in him.
Some of our players skill level is diabolical at best and decision making is really poor, are they still playing for each other or have they just gone into survival mode for themselves.
Carlton is so broken right now i seriously wouldn't even know how to start fixing it. This club needs a full on reset in so many aspects of functionality and I fear things are going to get even worse for a while.
I used to love going to the footy on the weekends, now its something I dread, but I'm a sucker for punishment and will always go.
