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Robert Heatley Stand / Re: AFL Rd 20 2026 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs St. Kilda at Marvel
Last post by DJC -
It seems to me that we have become one with the Force again and things are as they should be; beating up on St Kilda and letting them have our castoffs  ;D

So much went right for us and it’s hard to single out players when everyone made a solid contribution.

Pitto does deserve a mention and his Golden Fist award was appropriate recognition of probably the best game I have seen him play.  With a little help from Young, Harry and Crippa, we dominated the ruck contests and Pitto physically dominated De Koning and Marshall.  SOS clearly targeted the wrong ruckman and Geelong can have Marshall.  It really was an excellent all-round performance from Pitto and he was almost Gawn-like with his impact on the game.

After Frankie’s first seven or eight games in navy blue, I was starting to think, “What was Nic Austin smoking when he rookied this banana?”  Now it seems that Nic is a genius as Frankie continues to play the small forward and high half-forward roles very well, and he took it up another level last night. 

Our kicking has improved out of sight and the players are willing to be far more creative and aggressive with their kicking.  Crippa’s kick across his body to find Hayward on the wing was superbly executed and I think that it was Dean who did the opposite and kicked across his body on the boundary to a teammate in the corridor.  And, speaking of Hayward, hasn’t he, Florent and Ainsworth added some grunt and polish to the team.  Charlie might be headed towards another Coleman and De Koning and Jack are getting better coin but the addition of those three seasoned players and our youngsters in Dean, Smith, Byrner, as well as Derksen, has given us an edge.

Smith was quiet and I suspect that learning how to deal with a hard tag will be his homework this week.  Of course, he wasn’t shut down completely and our other mids more than covered his reduced output.

It was disappointing to see Nas limp off.  Apart from his entertainment value, I was interested to see how Lord would go running with him.  Lord started OK but it was a difficult task ahead of him.

Finally, a shout out to Liam Stocker on playing his hundredth game.  I never thought he’d get there but it was the best game I’ve seen him play and quite fitting that it was Spud’s Game.
 
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Robert Heatley Stand / Re: AFL Rd 20 2026 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs St. Kilda at Marvel
Last post by Micky0 -
Quote from: tonyo – on
It's a strange feeling when an 8-goal win is greeted with 'meh, we did what we had to do'.....

After the masterclass against Brisbane, the next week was always going to be somewhat of an anti-climax.

I think the most pleasing aspect of the win last night was it was a very even performance.  Apart from Frankie who was clearly our best, the rest did their bit.  We were never really challenged after the 10-minute mark of the second quarter, and controlled how the game was played.

I will mention one thing that is very pleasing - big H has well and truly got his kicking mojo back.  I was directly behind the set shot from the boundary line in the 3rd quarter, and that is the best kick I have ever seen him produce.   

Such a change in this team from what we saw 12 weeks ago.  Almost unrecognisable.  As for the Saints buidling their entire game around NAS, we've been doing it with Crippa for many years, and a one-man gameplan is never going to work.

One last point, I watched the 2nds on CH 7 earlier in the day.  The team included Weitering, Boyd, Saad, Williams, Ollie Hollands, Fogarty, Moir, O'Keefe, Flynn Young - and they were all out-shone by Cody Walker.

Weiters will come back in, but the others?   My, how we have moved onwards......
I watched it too - i thought F Young was pretty good but for missing some goals (terrible conditions though!) and i felt for Ollie but he got run down 3 times! It was like he had no awareness or thought he could break through them? That was weird and I wonder if he is finishing up (no contract signed I believe…?) - maybe he and his family would like a fresh start.