Carlton Supporters Club

Mav....both him and Kemp is my thinking. We just look flat through the midfield at the moment. They might not be the solution...who knows...but along with Dow might just change things up a bit.

The Saints have an injury list way worse than ours including both key forwards who have been missing....and they've lost one game by not much to Collingwood. They seem to have adapted. If we'd lost Harry and Charlie combined for the first 4 games I'd suggest we would've been 0-4. King and Membrey aren't Harry and Charlie but they've found a way to conjure enough goals to win, while holding the opposition...even with some key defensive players missing as well....together with some midfielders like Steele, Billings, Jones etc.

WASurfer, I wouldn’t have a problem if the selectors go that way. But the problem is that we can’t just include players who can tick just 1 box, e.g. speed.

First, we need to replace Saad. He’s one of our main rebounding defenders. He’s good at defending but has elite pace and kicking skills to be able to run the lines. We’ll struggle to find 1 player in the VFL who can tick all those boxes.

The Lyon press makes it hard to work the ball out by foot. That means pace by itself isn’t going to do the job. We’ll just see the ball slingshotting back to our D50. This is the concern with Dow. It would be great to see him bursting forward with the ball but if he turns it over straight away we’ll be in trouble. If he rotates into the centre square quartet, in one sense it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t defend well as no one else did last week therefore we don’t lose much. But it would help our game if he can prevent the Saints feeding the ball out of contests to their runners.

Binns has only had 1 AFL preseason and he’s not a big body. He has elite endurance which suits the wing but we can’t really put him in a man-on-man position or expect him to be an in-and-under. He isn’t blessed with super pace, so we can’t expect him to keep pace with Brad Hill. And his kicking isn’t his strong suit according to the draft gurus which isn’t ideal against the Saints who are itching to intercept and counterattack. We really need our wingers and high half forwards to be hitting our forwards on the chest with raking passes. We don’t want to see the high kicks going to predictable spots that made it easy for the Crows to intercept. LOB hasn’t impressed so far but he does have the ability to hit targets when he doesn’t lose his composure. He was marked harshly for that kick to Harry against Richmond but it was a perfect kick which hit Harry on the chest right in the middle of a number of defenders and it was only Harry’s slip that led to him dropping the mark. Another guy who seems to have the required kicking ability is Jordan Boyd but I can’t imagine that the foot injury would have allowed him to maintain aerobic fitness even if he is available for selection this week.

That said, Binns seems to be a true footballer with elite endurance rather than an athlete who needs to be fed and his form in the VFL is promising. And Hollands has been great out of the gate, so who knows?

Maybe Kemp has the sort of composure and kicking skills we need coming out of defence … I’d have to admit I haven’t seen enough VFL to say. Would he have the ability to handle the midsized Membrey? Perhaps Membrey’s not an ideal match-up for Weets who prefers to stay closer to goal and perhaps is a bit too wily and agile for Young.

What sort of strengths does Cincotta have as a defender? Who would he be be suited to in the likely Saints forward structure? Do we have any other smaller guys who are capable of defending the Saints’ small forwards (who can be dangerous but who aren’t superstars by any means)?

The cupboard isn’t overflowing, is it? That’s not really surprising given that injuries leave us trying to find some rough diamonds in the bottom half of our list.

This will be a big test for Vossy and crew.

If we are going to be a Top 8 contender we need to bounce back
from that tripe last week. I stupidly thought the 10 goal floggings were gone.

I expect the MC to make minimal changes, they will put it on the players to turn it around.  Looking at the VFL Kemp or Cincotto for Saad.

Watched the Aints closely last week. Their half-backs get heaps of ball and set-up well. Especially Hill. Won't be high scoring because of the Lyon Press. They love the scrap for the ball and are very hard at it.

Worrying signs if we get another flogging,  probably good they have the WC seconds next week.

Weiters stated on the Whately show the other morning he will get Membrey if he plays.