I must confess that I really don't see any useful point in, "If only we had Charlie, JSOS and TDK." We don't have them any longer. Right, wrong, good, bad... they aint at PP.
Seems to me the club had the long game in mind, bringing in draft picks and stopgap players when trading/letting go those 3... that's their strategy it seems and it'll be some time before they can be judged on that.
We have to work with what we have and so far this, in every game, we've been in winning positions... so, talent wise, we can do it, but then we blow it. Not easy to create cohesion between so many new blokes in 4 games!
Talk of sacking the coach is silly. Who is going to take his place? Ash Hansen **cough, splutter**? Patience Grasshopper.
Didnt think we were in a winning position vs the Swans, I remember the great David Parkin Carlton sides used to play the premiership quarter(usually the third) and blow teams away much like the Swans did to us. The other teams have all been of the poorer variety bottom end and the football of a substandard nature which to me is the more worrying part.
We dont need a dial mover. North brought in Luke Parker. Hes not a gun anymore but he commands respect is a fine player, and was once one of the games best players and knows what it takes to climb the mountain.
Thats the one place we have stuffed it across the journey. The only player of that ilk we've recruited is nick haynes. Whilst he's a fine player he was never one of the games best.
Others import leadership when they need some, we are still relying on the understudies of chris Judd and losing dochertys leadership likely hurt us more than any of the talent that walked out.
Parker is a leader but he isnt a dial mover as a player imho, we dont have any real top consistent A grade talent and either do Nth and thats why that game was an error ridden mess like most of the other games we have played this season. The cupboard is bare as far as leaders go and Cripps should abdicate the role...
Problem we have is now that we are a designated bottom team and the better players and free agents wont be picking us unless its on Stkilda type offerings that are way overs. Im not happy with the Florent /Hayward contracts either...way too long and list clogging given what they offer. I think I read we have 19-20 players from other clubs and and none of them are A graders or dial movers. Doing the moneyball recruiting worked for Collingwood because they had a once in a lifetime player like Nick Daicos joining the club in the same year as Frampton, Mcstay, Hill etc and he has lifted the roof(see Shakins comments). Only road back is via the draft imo and developing more of our own and then looking for moneyballers to fill holes and not relying on them to be dial movers. You look at Smith, Dean,Ofarrell? and then the incoming Walker and you find we have nothing else coming through and Im already feeling sorry for Cody Walker who isnt going to be a cheap father/son pick and success starved Blues fans will be wanting Nick Daicos Messiah type results from him in his first season given the hype attached to him. IMO its a full rebuild needed, plenty of patience given its harder with Tassie in the comp and a new regime off the field in all areas including coaching and recruiting.
The "high cost" of this or that which is the typical media message is really a drop in the ocean. Media always talk total$ because the big number seems alarming or scary, but the reality is it's something like $0.05 per person per annum and the payback is many times that.
I've heard on the radio the other day RedTrump dropped the equivalent of one full year of a NASA budget in the first week of the assault on Iran and got nothing to show for it other than debt!
btw., When the US media bang on about waste and how much the US spends, and why aren't others helping, they ignore to inform the US audience that about half of the bill is being footed for the Artimis project comes from foreign governments or investment. Yet when a foreign government or entity uses inclusive language about "us" or "we" the US media will claim it's all America.
Did you know if you want to sell IP into the USA, the IP must conform to US law, meaning no matter who holds that IP it has to be in a single name and they have to effectively sign over right of access to the US government, and they have the gall to assert China are crooks! If the IP has any use at all to the US military they will develop local capability and chop out foreign supply, and they have done on items as wide ranging as food packaging and CAD software. I know a person in Melbourne who developed CAD software used in advanced manufacturing, he held the IP globally but the US used it's law to develop a local capability with a contract handed out to a big US company. The Melbournian still made good money out of it, tens of million, but the US company made billion$.
The same thing with the US assault on Iran, some significant percentage of the US munitions come from other countries including Israel, ironic isn't it that Israel profits by dragging others into the fight, the US media just claim it's all America. Some of the air defence systems they use cost US$20M per round fired, and they spray them around like air freshener! Keep that in mind when you hear RedTrump begging for assistance!
If Trump swallowed his pride and bought some Sting interceptor Drones off his little mate Zelensky and stopped firing those super expensive Patriots at the Iranian Shahed Drones and admitted the Ukrainians are the Masters of drone warfare and not the USA he might have some more change in the bank but of course Trump wont give Zelensky any chips to play with or any Leverage that might force Trump to pull Putin into line so we have the mess do. Interesting that the USA friendly arab states have all acquired drones from Ukraine as well as expertise from Ukrainian personnel to help best use them. Hitler never listened to his Generals and ignored the obvious facts which seems a trait of Trump too...
Hayward is used to the Sydney system and playing with Gulden and crew lacing him with the ball, at Carlton you have to work way harder for your kicks because quality entries are few and far between. Even at Sydney he was an eleven possession a game player averaging one goal a game so not exactly a dial mover just a handy accessory at best to the real stars. The other problem with him is what is his man doing?, given most teams run high possession rebounders off half back and look for the easier players to exploit.
We saw the difference in the coaching from Clarkson .....McKercher had been cutting us up from half back but let Jagga in for an easy goal by not picking him up and Clarko went ballistic at the 3/4 time break with a little jab to his chest to his young player to let him know what matters most and thats accountability and not cheap possessions.
The thing that has me perplexed is, that apart from perhaps Pittonet, the youngsters playing their first games... who else is looking better than they did last year?
We argued over the summer about the quality of the list. As it is we control games for long periods before the 'bogeyman' comes out of the closet and makes a home in the player's heads. But even if you accept that the list is poor the question has to be asked... "Is the coach getting the best out of this list?"...and that's what will determine Voss's future.
Not everyone is going to improve, some will decline, but to see no improvement at all across the board is a bit strange. You can't put that all down to the loss of TDK, Curnow and Silvagni...the last two were missing towards the end of last year. Curnow was sub par for most of the year.
The lapses are now so ingrained I doubt opposition coaches even have to mention it, the players across the league know it. Our players know it and are full of self doubt.
Will we persist with Voss for much longer? I think the catalyst will be when we have a game when we are totally uncompetitive. With games against stronger teams coming up that's a real possibility. As it is, it wouldn't surprise if they moved sooner rather than later. Some sort of circuit breaker is needed. Voss has been clear about this seperation from the past years and this year. A fresh start, a new approach, but it's gone a bit stale pretty quickly.
'Ownership' seems to be the buzz word at the moment, Voss used it again in his press conference. The players say "it's on us" but when the going gets tough...the tough aren't going and become more like spectators in some cases.
There were a couple of key moments towards the end. The loss of Weitering was one, and there was a time when Pittonet was off the field for a spell (I'm not sure for how long) and they got a couple of very easy wins in the centre.
The next three games will see a step up in the quality of opposition and a bit of travel. There's a chance we'll catch one of them off guard, that's the type of result that can swing a season, but poor results in all of those games or no resolution of the second half fade-outs and some changes will be set in stone.
Agree , we don't seem to have much improvement overall on the list and the other problem is you have to allow for other teams improving so you can never stand still yourself and some of the Nth kids are showing a bit now. When you look past Smith, Dean,Walker and maybe OFarrell we don't have much coming through of real quality. I think we can pinch a game in the next three weeks more based on the law of averages and our best chance is vs Collingwood who have key injuries and look a bit thin on young talent coming through. We need a major rebuild and get value from those Charlie picks...you look at Newman, Haynes, Saad and they all can't play together moving forward and you have to question recruiting 28, 27 year olds like Hayward, Florent and Ainsworth on long term deals. As Prof said there is going to be some pain and tough times ahead with Tassie owning the draft for a few seasons ahead and we need a top shelf recruiter not just Wright to oversee a rebuild.
We dominated in the ruck with Pittonet and Xerri missing but couldnt take advantage in the clearance/stoppages, you add in the spud factor that Nth have especially down back with Corr, Pink and Comden and I felt we let the game slip away. Nth are quick just like Essendon are quick but they are not very good as they showed scraping by over Essendon in an error ridden game the previous week and play an error ridden game like we do. Its disappointing to lose to a poor team like Nth and to even be in the situation where we are hanging on, we really should have put them away properly and won comfortably as they were not playing well enough to win. I noticed the stats were fairly similar except in the marks inside 50 which were 14 -7 in favour of Nth and when I looked at the season stats I see Nth have had 58 marks inside 50 to our 31 in with both teams playing the four games. We either dont have the method to create marking opportunities for our forwards or we dont have the players capable of taking marks which might be explained with losing Charlie and to a lesser extent TDK. We cant expect to kick all our goals from stoppages or opposition errors like we saw today and id question if the players have already reverted back to the old bomb it long strategy. Also way to much fiddling with the ball, Hewett in particular goes back every time to take his kick and is way to slow to dispose of the ball. Ainsworth was serviceable working up the field more, Hayward was terrible and Florent showed us again why Cox had him in the twos. Newman did ok in his return match and was solid, Cowan defended well at times, Derksen had a tough first game....Duursma and Trembath are talented kids and he got a bit lost at times but he did some ok things as well. Boyd looked a bit rusty after such a long break but used the ball well and Id persist with him.... Kemp kicked 3 goals but I remain doubtful on his future as our Full Forward and I think its a position Id be recruiting for next trade/draft period. Harry played a typical Harry game, couple of goals, some marks further up the ground but never really influential enough to move the dial. Cripps, Hewett and Walsh were mediocre over all and I gave Cerra a pass seeing its his first game back and he probably needs another month of solid footy. Hollands boys had a good third quarter and Ollie tried hard all day, Elijah teased with some classy stuff but he has no defensive game and a couple of his contests were average especially one half hearted spoil in the last quarter and we cant afford that. The list needs major renovation and the captain and in particular the coach look defeated from those last shots of him on the boundary line and we need a catalyst of some sort to break the cycle of losses and team malaise. The Crows losing tonight vs Freo wont make it any easier next game and with Weitering missing with concussion its looking like being another very tough task.
"We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks," he said.
"We are going to hit them back to the Stone Age where they belong.
Trump has the answers and said we can buy his Oil or take care of our own destiny by sending our military to the Strait of Hormuz to sort out the Iranians???
Nth very undermanned in the ruck so Id expect it to be very different to last game with no ruckman of the quality of Gawn to deal with and you would presume Darling will have to ruck as a part timer. Im giving Cripps and his troops one more chance and tipping us to win as Nth even though they have won two games dont play a great brand and were nearly equally as horrible to watch as Essendon last game. I like our inclusions and i think we can rebound and hang on for a win more based on Nth being terrible than us being brilliant and Id expect a few of our more notable players like Harry, Cripps, Hewett and Smith to have good games. Walsh will probably get the heavy tag from OSullivan and Weitering might have his hands full with Larkey but Id expect our stoppage game with Pittonet controlling the ruck to prevail and propel us to victory.
When each kicked their 1st goal, the entire 17 other teammates on the ground ran to congratulate them and celebrate with them. Both times.
Shows there is still a good connection (at least in part) between them.
I just hope fans keep stuff like this in mind when the AFL Media start selling them on disunity and fractures, as it has already been tried earlier this season.
Fans are only interested in winning games and premierships, the players could be holding hands and singing Kumbaya every training session but unless it translates into wins they wont care and I doubt whether most of them believe anything coming out from behind the 4 walls of Ikon park anyway after being fed a diet of PR Spin over the years.
He was sort of cornered into it. If he didn’t he was leaving Australia rudderless and leaderless. As you say Lods, there’s not really a lot he can do and even less he can do right now.
Agree, Albo has been hammered in Parliament question time as has Chris Bowen who has been forced to update everyday on the amount of Servo closures in regional areas and the effect on farmers and future food supplies etc and its a bit of pre budget damage control too. Reality is there isnt anything that can be done and Trump controls the timeline...
