Carlton Supporters Club

I read that yesterday.
One of those "what else is he going to say about his mates" type pieces.

a properly balanced and fit team will be selected, the boys will have a fair dinkum crack for 4 quarters, some of those shocking errors aren't going to happen, and blokes who have clearly shown the talent they possess at times will play closer to their ability.  I just wish it wasn't the opposition every week!  our time will come I hope...

all things being equal we're gonna get pantsed by the crows.  badly.

at some point in the next 1 - 50 games something amazing is going to happen.  a properly balanced and fit team will be selected, the boys will have a fair dinkum crack for 4 quarters, some of those shocking errors aren't going to happen, and blokes who have clearly shown the talent they possess at times will play closer to their ability.  I just wish it wasn't the opposition every week!  our time will come I hope...

A properly balanced team is important these days. One of the strengths of Richmond is they get the ball into the F50 any which way they can, ugly or not, then press up hard to really pressure the opposition defence. They are also able to get ball the other way when the ball comes out. For that you need a properly balanced team with plenty of run and willingness to tackle and hold the ball forward. A tall, slow side will never be able to do that. Never set up attacks from half back with our tall defence to even start the process as we have no run. We get the ball into the F50 alot, ugly or otherwise, mostly ugly, no issue there, but we can't get there in numbers quick enough to put any pressure on the opposition defence given our structure.

We seem to have no concept of how to structure up and play the modern game.

Every club tries to do the same thing as Richmond. But if you look at their team they've got a lot of fast guys who can run all day. They tend to get teams from half way through the 3rd quarter onwards.

In my opinion - Richmond's success is only partially down to their intense pressure style of play. What is more important is their ability to keep doing it after they've exhausted their opponents and then they turn what was a tight game into a 4-8 goal win.

I think clubs that are stupid enough to copy are consigning themselves to mid-table mediocrity. Simply because by the time they get the duplication in place and locked down half the remaining teams have either advanced in tactics or found an effective countermeasure.

If you want to rise, you must innovate!

For me, it's the biggest argument against kids learning by tagging, you are basically just teaching them something another club already knows.

I'd give it another few years before I declared Richmond as the modern day trendsetter.
As of now they've won one Premiership after a dream run with injury, I saw them play Collingwood the other day and they aren't anything to get excited about in my opinion.
Footscray's flag was much more impressive given their injuries to key players and winning finals on the road against all the odds, but two years down the track and they battled to beat a depleted Carlton.
Richmond could win it again given that their injury count is still low and that there isn't any real standout team, but they could just as easily not make the grand final.

Richmond are a textbook example of a champion team as opposed to a team of champions. Looking at their list, you think they're average, but when they play together, the whole is much greater than the sum of their parts. They beat the Pies by 7 goals plus change.

If this is a team that isn't anything to get excited about, I hope our team also fails to excite you, very very soon.

It's not as silly as it sounds, I know Barassi and Parkin both had similar ethos, not sure how Matthews stood on this but I won't be surprised to find similar. Parkin was adamant for the players to have something to keep them busy away from the football and to switch off!

You can tell Rowe works hard 24x7 as it shows on the field, while "Big H" is busy taking photo opportunities at a Lygon St pizza shop, that shows on the field as well!

Might be a bloody good thing for Weitering, although I heard a rumor he was studying, but if he isn't he needs an outlet away from the club that gets his head clear of AFL.

It's no accident Jones form shift coincided with him studying at Vic Uni!

There is certainly such a thing as too much football!