Carlton Supporters Club

Like SPS, McMoney is on his last chance with me.  

In fairness to McGovern, he hasn't been fit during the majority of his time with us due to injuries.
SPS doesn't have that excuse.

In fairness to SPS, I think fan expectations way exceed ability, perhaps he is not out of form but just playing to his ability. Some WA nerd did SPS no favours by claiming on the draft that SPS was the best footballer to come out of the west, it seems many of our fans believed it!

In fairness to SPS, I think fan expectations way exceed ability, perhaps he is not out of form but just playing to his ability. Some WA nerd did SPS no favours by claiming on the draft that SPS was the best footballer to come out of the west, it seems many of our fans believed it!

Tend to agree - what we have seen is all we are likely to get.

Further to that, it is very important to play SPS in the role that suits him best. Agree with EB1 that he's not an out and out defender so to play him as one will do nobody any favours.

Can you play three small defenders ie Docherty, Saad and SPS whose preference is to play loose/attack and not defend?
I thought Gresham, Higgins and Lonie all played well in the community game and the degree of difficulty will only increase with the Tiger small forwards. Imo two out of our three have to give preference to defending..

Like all of our defenders, Samo, Doc and Saad are made to look bad by lack of defensive effort up the ground and rebound entries from poor delivery into our forward 50.  How many times did the Saints score after gaining possession on halfback?

I think that Samo, Doc and Saad all defend reasonably well (and Saad’s defensive work is better than I thought), but they are playing to instructions and within a structure that relies on rebounding and retaining possession.  Williamson is another rebounding defender so four of our seven first line defenders are primarily less defensively orientated.

Williamson spent a fair bit of time on the wing against the Bummers and I would prefer to see Samo spending more time there.  Fewer rotations mean that the opportunity to spell defenders on the bench will be limited.  I would like to see our defenders “rested” up the ground and, depending on match ups and game situation, more defensive players like Newnes, Silvagni, McGovern and Newman spending time in the backline.

I'd play SPS in the midfield and on the wing. If he needs to 'tag' at times then so be it. He's a natural ball winner and I reckon he's become better defensively by playing down back. I think his footy nous, evasive skills and foot skills would be beneficial in the midfield group.

We've got some players to rotate but we desperately need a big break out year ala Jacob Weitering at CHB from 1-2 midfielders such as Walsh, Setterfield Dow, Martin, Cuningham, SPS, Gibbons, Stocker, Fogarty, O'Brien, and Kennedy. A great big 'next step' if you will. Setters took a nice step forward last year as did Walsh. I'd love to hear those two plus Cripps and Williams mentioned as AA squad candidates with guys like Dow, Martin, Cuningham, Gibbons and SPS riding shotgun as big improvers and regular starting 22 in the midfield/wing group. It would mean we are getting plenty out of our underperforming midfield.

Then there's the likes of Philp, Ramsay, Kemp, Cottrell and Carroll who are still very green and developing.