I saw a picture of Dixon consoling Weitering at the end of the match. This picture summerised the match for me, Carlton had young men still developing and Port had grown men fully developed. We lost two mature bodied players in Kreuzer and Thomas before the match and then proceeded to have two more injured during the game. While very disappointed by the game on Friday night, I was more happy after watching the Northern Blues on saturday afternoon because I could see what the club is trying to do. Carlton's game is based on having pressure around the contest, at the moment because our players aren't physically developed enough, too many players are drawn to the contest, and when we don't win the contest, we are then exposed out the back. This happened against Gold Coast and Port Adelaide. Against Essendon, we won the contest because Essendon players didn't want to commit. They were pretty pathetic. The ball when it went into our defence, came in slowly and we were able to set up and repel. Our lack of forward development meant we didn't slaughter them by 20 goals like we should have. What I take out is that our best player this season has been Plowman. He is one year further down his development than the others. So in another 12 months, Silvagni, Curnow, Weitering, Cunningham and Mckay are all going to be good players, along with Picket and Marchbank, in two years time, Polson, SPS, Macreadie, Fisher, williamson and Kerr will also be good players. Along with Cripps, Docherty, Plowman & Byrne. This gives us a base of 17 good young players to build the team around for the next 10. This is what I got out of last weekends games.
I would pick Cunningham & McKay, after watching the Northern Blues, and hopefully bring in Kreuzer. Phillips looked a bit underdone.Not sure who I would not pick. I hope we keep going with the youth policy, we need to get plenty of games into the kids. I also hope Kerr gets a game sometime this year.
Though the result was disappointing, it was clear from the game that Carlton have nailed the past two drafts, despite what Mathew Lloyd says. The fact there were two or three bewildering umpire decisions which cost us goals, two skill errors that cost us goals and we missed five or six shots on goal that we should have kicked, maybe Sav should work on all our players goal kicking. We need to keep playing the kids, we need to bring in Cunningham, McKay & Polson in the near future, and we need to nail next years draft as well.
I have no doubt that Donald Trump will win the November election. He will defeat the Republican Party in a landslide. That is who he is campaigning against.
I thought Gibbs set up the game for us, Cripps was great in the second half and Simpson defended superbly as always, but it was Gibbs for me today. Kreuzer and Phillips gave Gawn a bath, Buckley and Graham had a major impact and if Graham could be a bit more assured in his delivery than he could be a Mitchell type player for us. Our disposal by foot and hand continues to let us down but when we attack the ball and the man with ferocity like today, we can be as good as anyone. We need another quality midfielder, another key defender, a key forward, a hungry half forward and some pace across the ground. It is time to start getting a bit excited about 2017.
Got to watch the game at the Gabba, god we were appalling in the first half. Someone on this site keeps saying Carlton should be playing with two key forwards, I think we should try this because we certainly didn't have two key forwards on Saturday. Our kicking is dreadful. I am not sure whether our field kicking is worse or our goal kicking is worse. Silvagni is our second best forward, C Curnow is our best. It is a worry our two best forwards are first year players. Buckley needs to improve his decision making. He should have kicked a goal in the last and he should have set up Phillips in the third when we he was clear. Kerridge would be a great player if he could kick. Jones doesn't have the mental strength to be an AFL player. That goal he missed in the second quarter was pathetic. I was right behind him and he never looked like it. It was lucky to hit the post, and to kick the ball into the man on the mark a minute later compounded the folly. Thomas is cooked. Let him get to 200 games and then that will be it. He tries hard, he puts his body on the line, his brain is operating, but he just can't get to the contest. Once again he never looked like kicking that goal in the last quarter. Cunningham looked ok but need to see more of him. We are at least one quality mid-fielder short. We need Murphy back and we need one more. This would allow Curnow, Graham and Kerridge to bat down the order more. Our disposal out of the back line is hopeless. I am really running out of adjectives. Simpso Docherty and Touhy can all kick, but the continually miss their targets. I would hate to be a forward. You could see at the end of this match that this loss really hurt. Maybe if they had turned up to play in the first half, then this would not have been a loss. There are some really good opportunities for the future but bthere are going to be some dark days.
I was most happy with our third quarter today. Sydney, who are a top 4 side, came out hard after half time and really put us to the sword. Yet we were able to withstand the onslaught and come back with two goals at the end that kept us in the game. This has been unthinkable over the past few seasons. Previously we would have just laid down and died when it got too hard. I look forward to having young fit guys having a real hard go. I think the future is bright.
