Ready for tomorrow night.
Great scott!
We've disrupted the space-time continuum by changing something in our past leading to an alternative timeline where we actuality play collingwood in round 1 this year! :o
..... otherwise known as...
Can fix the round number in the title. ;)
My error. I am human ... I think.
Hmmmm ... no pointed ears, no green blood ... yeah, I think I'm human. :)
Same old story.
Think I'll sleep on this one and make comment tomorrow.
I've got too many conspiracy theories going on right now.
We are Collingwood's bunnies
McRae(coach) 9 vs Carlton 1
Whats the crack? Didnt see the game, was out for dinner. Saw the stats, surprise surprise we got smashed in the ruck. Told you its a huge area of concern. We need a good ruckman big time.
We were in trouble when Pitto didn't come up. We were in worse trouble when McKay went off. We were our own worst enemy when it came to finding a team mate. We had at least 5 shots at goal inside the 50 that didn't score, total shanks. We work like trojans and get no reward.
:-[ :-[ :'( :o >:(
OK, time to think analytically:
[1] Champion rucks do not always get premierships, but uncompetitive rucks lose games.
For the second week in a row, we were obliterated in the ruck. Reidy did better than Riley did, but not good enough to give our mids any chance of getting the ball into our forward line quickly. And with H off, there was no other option.
So, what do we do about it? It didn't work last week, yet we repeat the same structural mistake, with the same outcome.
We all know that Pitto is not the sort of ruck to lead us to a premiership. He is, however, a real competitor who gives his all and can nullify other, better credentialed rucks.
Unfortunately, the other 3 rucks on our list are not good enough yet. Maybe they will never be good enough. Yet they have to play one out. It is a recipe for disaster and it isn't their fault.
There have been many debates over playing one ruck or two, but we have demonstrated all too well that having one ruck that is not good enough and no reasonable backup doesn't work.
What can we do about it?
This is a problem, as we know we are low on alternatives. I would have played one of Riley or O'Keefe, simply because we have no other big bodies available. They are not great targets, but they would have offered something different than a forward line of dwarves.
We need to draft or trade for a ruck. Badly. There are some rucks coming through, but I'm not sure one of them would solve our problems. We won't get van Hattum: he'll be gone by pick 6 at the latest. I like Benji van Rooyen, but he isn't a jumper. He may well develop into a Pitto replacement, and he does a lot more around the ground.
I'm not a huge fan of Hayden McLean, but he, at least, can play forward and isn't useless at ground level. I wouldn't touch Amartey: he is Charlie Curnow without as much talent.
Most of the rucks going around are bulls, not jumpers, due to the former ruck rules.
[2] Our skills simply are not good enough:
We had more shots on goal tonight. At least five shots from inside 50 didn't score, didn't get close to scoring. Kemp's shot after the siren was deplorable, Patrick Cripps' left foot snap wasn't much better. I really don't want to think about them ever again. But we kicked points when Collingwood kicked goals. Had we kicked reasonably, we would have won: we had more Inside 50's.
Brodie Kemp is too unreliable to our forward target going forward. He can kick them from the boundary, but he misses too many easy ones and doesn't get enough ball. He gets out-marked far too often. He doesn't bring the ball to ground.
McGovern wasn't bad, but he doesn't hold enough marks. He certainly offers more than Kemp at the moment, but he also shanks kicks too often. Give him an important shot and he usually misses. Sometimes he doesn't even score.
But that was only one aspect of our poor disposal. The number of times we ran ourselves into trouble or kicked to turnover were lethal. That was how Collingwood got almost all their goals, from our turnovers.
Even when it came to spoiling, we seemed to smash the ball directly to Collingwood players, who snapped cleanly. After quarter time Collingwood didn't kick a goal that wasn't from a turnover.
[3] Our mids were prolific tonight, but we still could move the ball quickly into the forward line.
I don't know that I have to expound on this, it is mostly self-evident. Our mids worked really hard, but didn't get rewards. We didn't kick directly, we always went short and wide and a lot of our players did this.
Nick Daicos gets a lot of ball because his team mates feed him. He had 36 possessions, but he earnt maybe three. He had 4 clearances, while our guys had many more.
[4] We went back to our old game style:
We moved the ball slowly. We didn't capitalize on turnovers. We didn't open spaces to allow our forwards to move into. We bombed it long, even though we didn't have any talls to take pack marks.
I could go on, but I want to flush this crap from my mind. Insomnia is bad enough when we win, let alone when we lose.
So....thats was a thjng.
Some points of frustration....
1. Kicking.....practice it, quick.
We cant kick at goal.
We cant kick to advantage.
We cant kick to a teammate inside 50.
This extends past the usual suspects.
Go watch a replay and look at sam walsh. His long ball on top of someone's head (not to our advantage, but over 50m so it's an 'effective kick') played right into the oppositions hands. He needs to sort that out. Look at jagga by comparison.
2. Inside 50s.....
Similar to the above our entries inside 50 are largely poor. Its not all about the kicking though. The poor leading (or non existant) leading) didn't give the kicker much choice.
Both the above lag to the same problems ever had for years midfield-forward connection.
The game result was consistent with my ladder theory and strength of opponent being the ultimate predictor of how well we do.
Good point about Daicos crash.
He is a very good and damaging player but he does get a lot of cheap possessions with one/ two types of play.
He hovers around players who have taken possession looking for the feed off.
While you can't criticise him for that, because it is effective, it does inflate his possession numbers.
That winning feeling sure was nice while it lasted
Loved Frase's media conference. Candid & realistic. And I don't think he was a happy camper; clearly not impressed with features of our game.
Although aiming and wanting to make the 10 is a good goal, this shouldn't be done at the expense of things Josh mentioned - specifically having a strong look at the list and changing and improving other areas of our game; to be better than we were when he took the reins by season's end.
We were hampered by losing H. We not only lost a key forward target but also a good 2nd ruck and around the ground help. Then losing an in form Cez compounded the issue. Then failure to adapt and adjust really showed up our weaknesses and areas of need, both structure and personnel wise. In many respects we made Rottingwood's job of winning... easier.
Not the end of the world. As my father used to say, "Fools and children should not asses outcomes on jobs half done." Clearly the club is looking at the big picture and what we need for a strong 2027 and beyond. Good.
Great saying. I think the biggest problem we have, which is not easy to fix quickly with list changes, is our inability to to cope with pressure. We saw two teams this morning play off in the World Cup 3rd place game, a nothing game with zero pressure. Lots of goals, free flowing end to end stuff. Two teams who had an almighty choke when pressure came (England being renowned for it, Bosnich commented on it the other day on SEN that it's in their psyche). Thats us at the minute, no pressure, no worries. When something becomes meaningful and important, we go to water (missed field kicks, handballs, shots for goal, fumbles, dropped marks etc). Biggest problem with our club, hardest to fix in my opinion.
Season over as regards finals!
Wins are no longer important! Will Carlton now play more youth?
Expose Ben & Lucas Camporeale, Harry Charleson to AFL football.
More games also to Flynn Young and Harry Boyd (still okay in my mind).
Then of course one or more of rucks Flynn Riley and HOK need to play.
Reidy is a one-trick pony and it's not a particularly effective trick.
He seems to have some agility and mobility but in nearly every ruck contest his initial tactic is to grab or grapple with his opponent and it is a wonder that he is not penalized more than he is for interference. The current ruck rules are a bigger disadvantage for him than for Pitto.
And he is even less effective in centre circle contests; I think I would prefer Riley in that area.
No plan to deal with Daicos' game but we probably don't have that kind of player on the list. It craps me no end to be beaten by what you already know.
I remember talking about Membrey in his draft year....we're all looking for the next Carey when a bloke that kicks 35 every year at 75% goes begging, and there are a lot of those types out there but this club doesn't even look.
Having to play 1 key player down for most of the night and then 2 keys down after half time made things tough but we are our own worst enemies. Sub standard kicking for goal is not bad luck its bad skills and they are clean when it matters are we are not.
Weitering was sadly missed last night. needed a big stat a home general as the kids looked undersized and rattled at times in front of 80k
Kemp was atrocious. Not making the distance from 40 is criminal and his misses are not even close - off the boat they are pure hacks. Cant have a key forward that unreliable getting a game. Prefer Ison or Moir. Hes missed are so deflating for the team and fans.
Desparate for a competitive ruckman and regardless how many we have on the list we dont have one that is suitable so it needs to be a addressed in the offseason.
Give the campo boys and Moir a game. they will be keen to make something of the season if they get a chance now.
Overall we probably could but i wont be using injuries as excuses as they also had key players out - they are simply better drilled and much better skilled in the big moments.
On to next week.
Cripps choosing a left foot snap was worse than any Kemp miskick.
Just a bit of ruck trivia.
When we played Collingwood earlier in the year Pittonet and Cameron split the hitouts 20 a piece.
Hit outs to advantage were 5-2 in favour of Pittonet.
Oscar Steene (15- HTA 6 )and Lewis Young (7 -HTA 3) also did bit of ruck work.
So all up it was Collingwood 35 -HTA 8 v Carlton 27-HTA 8
Last night they were 39-18 in Cameron's favour but Reidy won the HTA 8 to 5
Mc Stay also had 10-HTA 1 but no other Carlton player registered a hit out
So 49-18 in terms of first hands but 8-6 our way in terms of HTAs
But in terms of
Clearances...41-39 our way
Centre Clearances...16-11 our way
Stoppage Clearances 28-25 their way.
All pretty even.
Cameron had 18 disposals to Reidy's 16
Cameron took 3 marks Reidy 0
Cameron made 2 tackles Reidy 6
Cameron had 8 clearances to Reidy's 6
Both had 4 inside 50s
Reidy had 4 centre clearances to Cameron's 2
Cameron had 18 contested possessions to Reidy's 12
...so a bit for each of them in those stats...
The question from all that is.... was Reidy all that bad or have we concentrated too much on 'first hands' on the ball.
I missed the whole game as was out- can you explain your comment?
I was at the match. Front row seats. We controlled most of the play but they cut us to shreds on the rebound. Same old story.
Very pleased I wasnt able to go - McRae craps me much like Hardwick does. Sick of losing to Collingwood.
That was my impression too.
We were quite good in a lot of aspects but it seemed to go to pieces once we entered the forward area.
No structure and a lot of poor choices resulted in turnovers and bang...they cleared it out and went straight to the other end where their forward line was open and presented multiple options.
OK, now it's time to find out about our list before we get out the axe at the end of the year.
Next week, swap Kemp and Derksen. We badly need a second marking option in F50, and besides, Kemp just cannot kick for goal. Derksen played a lot of forward time for GWS seconds. Kemp can play in defence.
Bring in Camporeale boys, even Charleson.
Play Riley.
Need big changes
It’s a culmination of so many things.
We get average performance over 25 years because the wrong people at the top
I’m a big fan of Wright but he has his hands full
With this being the last draft trade period that’s uncompromising will
Be fascinating what he does and equally fascinating how much the board and the powerbrokers interfere
Yep. Plenty to like but still a way to go. No doubt we really wanted to win... but... crucial errors and loss of important personnel.
Just finished watching the game again. We didn't handle their pressure well. Often better, but lacking persistence for the whole 120 minutes. Our hunger for the contest and pressuring the opposition (take a bow The Byrner, Deano & Cow) was 'spasmodically' really good.
Also, I wouldn't underestimate lack of reward for effort. The inconsistent connection to our forwards, haphazard delivery and lack of good options presenting really undermined and sabotaged reward for effort... And that saps and wastes energy.
Some chose to highlight negatives... that Rottingwood was missing key players and so would have really belted us without them. I would remind those critics - Weitering, Pitto, HOF, Mots & Carroll. Compounded by loss of H & Cez and Hewey clearly hampered.
Was out last night. Kept on eye on the score. Sick of losing to this mob. From all the comments we seem to be our own worst enemy. I will watch the game at some point. :(
Well, that was disappointing but probably inevitable after we lost Harry.
What rubbed salt into the wound was the glib way that the commentators announced that Nick Daicos, with his 35 disposals and 10 score involvements was BoG over Crippa with just 30 possessions and only seven score involvements. Despite having a losing ruck, and taking some ruck contests himself, Crippa had more clearances, twice as many contested possessions, more marks, more tackles and he kicked two goals; a Herculean effort not padded by dinky little handball give and goes.
Far too much emphasis is placed on hitouts without considering who wins the clearances. Reidy crashing into Cameron at a centre ball up so that his hitout is misdirected and sharked is more of a win than a Reidy hitout that doesn't find its target.
Cameron was better on the night, but not by much. Reidy's performance was more admirable considering that he was virtually a lone hand. His physicality was excellent and some of his tackles were as bone-jarring as Byrner's :) His shot for goal was disappointing, but he wasn't Robinson Crusoe, and I'd like to see him take some marks. At this stage, he offers more than Skull and Riley, and probably just shades Pitto.
Just start with the simple stuff, improve our kicking for goal and we’d probably have beaten them.
Plenty of other issues of course but getting the basics right would be a good start.
We had to win 7 straight just to spend a week in the top 10. Inevitably a small slump hits as that is tough to sustain. We looked flat. 4 were solid wins against sides around us for the 10, especially Geelong, who were brilliant at the time, until we started their slump. A win against the GC puts things on track again, although might be a touch late now. Didn't help with our bench down hence our bookends out.
Harry has a minor meniscus tear and bone bruising,so he will be out. Cerra is ok.
I thought injuries were no excuse?
You dont need me to tell you Cookie as you have watched plenty of football over the journey that unfortunately players who are poor to average field or goal kicks rarely improve and you have to usually go out and recruit better kicking players.
Stewart Lowe is about the only player I can remember who went from being a poor kick for goal to a very reliable kick later in his career. Earl Spalding perhaps is another who improved in our last premiership year....seems like a century ago🤔😉.
EB, when I said improve I meant that if our current players can’t do that, then we have to replace them with players that have the skills we need. If we don’t improve to winner skill levels then we will struggle for wins for sure.
geez, who ever says that. Why would you bother posting that.
Levi suddenly kicked alot straighter at the GC. We Carltonise them....haha.
Injuries are never an excuse — but they are a reason.
We were wasteful up forward and we gave up far too many easy goals. Membrey alone crumbed at least two.
Ainsworth had an uncharacteristically bad first quarter and made some awful errors. To his credit he worked into the game and finished strongly, but seven turnovers is rough.
Hayward was close to his worst game of the season and had basically no impact. Florent struggled as well, and we generated almost no drive off half‑back.
Acres was poor and showed why he was dropped earlier in the year. He lost his width, which let Crisp stroll inside 50 for an easy goal. He was up against it when thrown into the ruck. If Ollie isn’t the answer, I’d rather see a kid get wing minutes — Acres isn’t it.
The inexperienced backline battled hard but panicked and over‑handled the ball coming out of defence.
Kemp… he gets to the right spots, but when he lines up for a set shot from 40 out on a slight angle you just know he’s not kicking it — and might not even trouble the scorers. Eight marks is good, but his confidence looks shot. Levi actually improved his kicking at Carlton; Kemp looks like he’s going backwards.
Reidy — I haven’t seen anything yet that gives me much hope.
We always seem to find a way to lose to this mob. The only upside is the false hope their supporters will walk away with.
to our coaches long bomb into f50 and we had no talls to mark same story for the last 3 yrs ??????
Pies would probably suggest with their two key defenders out in Moore and Howe they had the injury excuse too, you add perennial pest Elliott and the hardworking Schultz and I reckon it was even on the injury front.
I thought it was a poor quality game from both teams and showed why both are midpack combatants at best and the best players for both teams are the best players every week, every game because the drop away in impactful talent is so large...
Only difference we lost them during the game.
Ditto. Don't get the savage criticism of Reidy. All things considered -- 1 game in the Magoos since returning from injury, huge occasion, no 2nd ruck/backup & still an infant in rucks years -- he battled hard.
I wouldn't raise the white flag just yet, AB.
Agree that Charleson, Flynn Y and Boyd should get a gig before the year is out.
Yeah I was thinking more the in-game injuries of McKay and Cerra. Down two rotations. McKay hurt our structure.
Agree it did very much look like 9th vs 12th
I posted this back in May …
I’ll reserve judgement on Fraser, for now.
But if Crippa EVER again attempts to kick around the corner on his left from a set shot then we’ll know Josh is simply not up to it.
i don't think coaches are that involved with one individual's goal kicking.
Love them both but Smithy also has a big flaw - he has a tendency to handball at the feet of teammates. Really gotta fix this. Fumbles and turnovers, as we saw last night, are death in this game. Even a mediocre side like Collingwood will kill you on the rebound.
Some of Smith doing that is to avoid an opponents hand/arm trying to block it.
No point aiming for a chest if you know it won't get there.
But with ball in hand, kicking forward, i'm taking Jagga over Walsh any day of the week.
Season is unover (that a word...haha) after Essendon beat GWS.
Yes you a right Laj, after today's result season is not quite over for the Blues !
Baggers was also was telling me not to put up the white flag yet!
Still hope coaches will gradually feed some of these kids into the five matches left in the main season.
Hate the thought that we will see likes of Ben & Lucas Camporeale running around in Port or Adelaide colours for years to come without having been well tried at AFL level by us.
Well I've re-watched it and we weren't as bad as I first thought but we never looked like winning this, their defensive set up was outstanding. Probably lucky to fight it out and only go down by three goals. We got punished on every turnover but they had a fair dinkum go. So many passengers and non-contributors.
Reidy got owned by Cameron, out marked and rag-dolled, it was embarassing at times. He couldn't match Cameron in the role.
The winger/high half forwards were horrid and contributed nothing - Cottrell-Hayward-Florent-Cerra (inj)-Acres were basically passengers.
Walsh got a lot of ball but was best described as scruffy. Kicks high loopy stuff that got picked off, Hewitt the same.
Delivery into F50 was awful, but there were no targets, ended up being long mindless bombs to no-one or shallow worthless stuff. After stop/start ball movement everything ended up as a hack into F50 due to pressure. In previous games those hacks have worked out, this week they were exposed.
Lord looked good on return and I thought Haynes looked assured behind the ball. Byrne looked like he enjoyed the heat and Frank threw himself in, albeit for little return.
Acres was god awful and made bad decisions and positioning errors. He's finished on what I saw. Newman is similar - moves the ball on too slowly and got caught by the speed of the game. Cottrell fumbled and bumbled and it's time to try one of the Campo lads in his role. Our overall skill/class level was way less than the pies and I wonder if playing Moir and/or Ison would benefit us in that their neat, albeit cameo games are better value than what scrubs like Cottrell provide.
I thought we really missed someone like Carroll, who kicks the ball flat and hard and who can win aerial contests across the centre.
I have been happy with Fraser in that respect. Despite pushing towards a wildcard he has kept the youngsters in the side. His main goal to leave Carlton a better place at season's end and may well do that. Had to use Harry Dean and Derkson in important roles in defence in that time when they should have been in supporting roles at this stage. Been good in that respect we managed a 7 game winning run but caught up a bit in the last two weeks as probably should have been expected. They beat Geelong and 3 other competing for the same spots as us. Ben Campo should be in this week just because we need to have a look at him. Maybe even Charleston too.
So you agree he's leaving? ;D
I won't argue with you, I think it's the most likely occurrence too!
Personally, I think the end of 2026 is going to see a lot of coaching changes, perhaps the most ever in a season.
We are just going by what he has been saying so no reason to doubt him. He's staying but as the senior assistant apparently. Will be alot of other changes though as you said. Did hear or read he was having issues on the home front meaning he doesn't want a top job yet but could be wrong about that too. You often hear BS as we all know. Might be like Scott Camporeale, when he took over Adelaide might year after the terrible murder of Philip Walsh. Did an outstanding job but simply didn't want a top job. Fraser will be a good coach one day but next year might be assisting Corey Enright.
Not winning actually makes it easier to take a back seat to whoever is appointed.
Just on the game...
If you weren't invested on the result like fans of both sides it would have been a pretty good game to watch.
I watched it with 3 collingwood supporting mates.
All 4 of us said it was a terrible game to watch, with terrible skills.
If non-fans enjoyed it, its probably because 2 once great clubs were looking very average!
how many years are we losing in the same manner ,me a blue collar worker said on friday are hard hard sacrifice your game tag on ND nah 36 possies later and numerous score involvement his bog . long bomb into f50 how many years when are our coaches going to learn.
Hardwick learned the same lesson with Bont...didnt tag him, game over.
Perceptions and perspectives, eh, K?
For moi, the closeness of the scores and what was at stake, kept the game interesting, even exciting at times. To me, that's a good game to watch, as Principal Lods wrote.
From a purists perspective, perhaps not so much...
That's the problem
You guys were 'invested'
You could argue today’s World Cup final was a poor spectacle but it was watched to the end by a few billion.
A game doesn't have to be full of great skills to be a good watch.
Sometimes the sillier, controversial, full of mistakes the more memorable.
The rainy Hawthorn game would have been a good one for those not following either side.
I really enjoyed the Essendon game yesterday....don't tell anyone, but I was actually barracking against the "orange team" :D
Your secrets safe with us👍
Yes, one could argue that very easily. Thankfully, I didn't have to sit through this one.
Sei danket Gott!
I think that folk are judging Liam Reidy a little harshly.
He was called up after coming back from injury and just one game in the Magoos so he probably was a little underdone. He was playing his seventh AFL game and Darcy Cameron was playing his 137th game. Cameron is a premiership ruckman and Copeland trophy winner. On top of that, McKay's injury meant that Reidy was virtually playing a lone hand against Cameron and McStay.
While it's fair to say that Cameron gave Reidy a bath as far as hitouts go, Reidy wasn't disgraced and his tapwork and second efforts helped to give us an advantage in centre clearances and an almost break even with stoppage clearances.
Reidy's mobility and physicality is good but he needs to have more of an impact around the ground. He needs to take marks, particularly now that we're unlikely to have Harry for the rest of the season.
Like Flynn Riley, Reidy's a work in progress and getting thrown to the wolves as he was on Saturday (and as Riley was the week before) could help his development or shatter his confidence.
At the moment we have the best coach to manage this situation, you can't ask for better.
A lot of Carlton fans must live on a diet of instant soup, they can't wait for anything substantial, and they are obviously childless having thrown the baby out with the bath water!
In hindsight I would have played and rucked Lewis Young to help Reidy...its not about what Reidy and Young are doing its about stopping Cameron dominating which he always does and that helps enable Nick Daicos.
It gets frustrating as a supporter game after game vs the Pies being a rinse and repeat of previous games and we change nothing....we cant ignore the ruck position anymore and need a better quality ruckman with the new rules.
The moneyball types dont work in this new era and its time to pay up and recruit one who can prevent the better rucks from taking over the game and giving their star mids an armchair ride...
reidy work in progress what at 25 yrs old /delist stop wasting time