61
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Trumpled (Alternative Leading)
Last post by Lods -Is America great again ? Asking for a friend.
It's a work in regress
It's a work in regress
62
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Trumpled (Alternative Leading)
Last post by PaulP -63
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
Last post by northernblue -Resounding moral victory to the English…
🤭
64
Robert Heatley Stand / Re: Name your team for Opening Round
Last post by DJC -Weitering is a no brainer.
Haynes is the next best.
How do you fit both young and dean in the backline as well....and everyone needs to stop with the haynes on the wing nonsense, its not a legitimate position change.
....and there is always a potential for mcgovern as well.
To me, young just cant get in ahead of dean for any length lf time.
Haynes played on the wing in our last four games of last season. We won two of those four games, Haynes was among our best players, we didn't miss him in defence, and he played on the wing earlier in his career.
He may not play on the wing again, he could spend the season in the VFL, or the MC may decide to continue with what worked well at the end of last season. Either way, Haynes on the wing isn't nonsense and it's a legitimate option for next season.
I'm sticking with Weitering, Newman, Cowan, Florent, Haynes, Saad, Dean, L Young as my backline, but there's no reason why Haynes can't move into the midfield group and be replaced by O Hollands or Carroll.
It's also worth noting that, in addition to the defenders available at the end of last season when Haynes was playing on the wing, we should have Newey, Florent and Dean available for Opening Round.
65
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
Last post by crashlander -66
Robert Heatley Stand / Re: Name your team for Opening Round
Last post by Thryleon -We're talking about the opening round.
And it's clear we do have options.
The question is, will Dean play from the get-go or will the Key backs be a Weitering/ Young or Weitering /Haynes combination.
I suspect Dean will be in the side but on the bench.
I still have hopes for Lewis Young in 2026
And while he may not be a long term prospect...
He's very much a confidence player.
He played the best quarter of football of any Carlton player I saw in the VFL last year before he was injured.
He's proven in the past he can handle the position.
He was in everybody's best 23 a few years back.
It will be interesting to see if he's in the side for the opening round.
I see it a bit differently to most. If we are selecting for horses for course, I think we will select a spine based on strategies. It makes picking our side for opening round difficult, as exposed form vs our opponents, will also be a variable, and ordinarily it wont happen until round 4 where you get an idea of whats going on.
When building our team, I list the spine then fill in the gaps.
So:
BP ---------- Weitering-------------BP
HBF----------Young/Dean/HOF------HBF
C--------------C---------------------C
HF------------Skull/Kemp---------HF
FP-------------Mckay------------FP
Fol:----Pittonet/Rieddy--------X----------X
Int: P-----P-----P-----P----P
Its possible that once you select your first choices, that the players not selected in the spine roles, will get selected elsewhere. i.e. Kemp, Dean, Haynes might get a game at the key roles, or in the peripheral roles based on what we think our opponent is doing or the rest of the team balance.
67
Robert Heatley Stand / Re: Name your team for Opening Round
Last post by Lods -We can only speculate based on the tactics of the past, but that weas a list with a very different structure.
Most of our list have AFL capabilities, they might not be the capabilities that fans want but whether they succeed or not tends to be more about how the MC and Coach put them to use and not so much about the opinions of fans.
Yep
That's very true.
Hayward, Ainsworth and Florent may not be superstars but they have more AFL game experience than most of our side.
They've been good enough to play 150 games+ at the highest level.
We don't need two AA level backs forward and back.
It'd be nice, but few sides have that luxury.
And Brisbane have proved this last year you don't need it to win flags.
If one of our elite goes down we get the "We'll be screwed" notion.
The fact is others will step up and fill the void, so it's never a total loss of the key player....it's always only ever the difference that can't be made up.
And that's never as great as some may think.
68
Robert Heatley Stand / Re: Name your team for Opening Round
Last post by LP -Most of our list have AFL capabilities, they might not be the capabilities that fans want but whether they succeed or not tends to be more about how the MC and Coach put them to use and not so much about the opinions of fans.
69
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
Last post by LP -For too long in regard to squads, the ECB, BCCI and CA have behaved like defenders of a cartel, not selection panels.
We keep getting told there is nobody, no other options, already it's the best available, until the opportunity arrives!
70
Robert Heatley Stand / Re: Name your team for Opening Round
Last post by Lods -And it's clear we do have options.
The question is, will Dean play from the get-go or will the Key backs be a Weitering/ Young or Weitering /Haynes combination.
I suspect Dean will be in the side but on the bench.
I still have hopes for Lewis Young in 2026
And while he may not be a long term prospect...
He's very much a confidence player.
He played the best quarter of football of any Carlton player I saw in the VFL last year before he was injured.
He's proven in the past he can handle the position.
He was in everybody's best 23 a few years back.
It will be interesting to see if he's in the side for the opening round.