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Topic: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon (Read 11167 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #45 –
agree ^ re Jack. He’s got great footy IQ too which can’t be taught. He takes on every contest at full - absolutely should be high up in the leadership
Group.

Separately is Elijah just not playing, with no return date given? Understand he has mental health issues just missed if he’ll be off for x time or it’s just indefinite. Really miss him in the team.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #46 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
Quote from: Lods – on
That's where I'm really struggling at the moment.
I don't know where we stand.
We lose to a Richmond, but we beat a Geelong
You watch the first quarter last night and we play football that would trouble most sides.
You watch the rest of the game and we struggle to beat a side missing many of their starting 22, but even with then they would probably be average at best.

There's a part of me that wants to know the real Carlton, warts and all, rather than these hot/cold efforts.
Even if that means disappointment for the rest of this season.
At least it will give us an opportunity to try a few things that may be on hold at the moment because we're not totally out of it.

I think what you see is the real Carlton. We are a 50% side. In a general sense, two good quarters, then two shaky quarters, half our game is in good order, the other half is a work in progress. If you take the midpoint between 1st and 18th, you get 9th, which IMO is about right, and that finishing position may well be the best we can hope for this season.


That may be the right assessment...for the present.
We'll see how it plays out.
But 9th is a step backwards...on a season where we were decimated by injury.

On a positive note Sportsbet have brought us in to $51.00 from $67.00 yesterday to win the flag.
They're telling us there' still a chance.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #48 –
Credit to Motlop, I thought he played his best game and maybe that bit of time in the midfield has sharpened his skills and awareness.
Fantasia looked rusty but I'd keep him in the team for next week and see if he can improve.
Williams does the easy joe the goose stuff ok but is unreliable when he has to commit to the contest. Dropped an easy mark expecting to get contact from behind but had no one around him and it's
not the first time he has taken his eyes off the ball and he needs to  fix that area of his game because in big games/finals that's going to cost us.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #49 –
Agree re Jesse, I’m watching the replay now.  He worked his arse off all game.

Acres gets everywhere but his disposal lets him down at times.

We missed some very very gettable goals in the 2nd which put pressure on us.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #50 –
Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on
Credit to Motlop, I thought he played his best game and maybe that bit of time in the midfield has sharpened his skills and awareness.
Fantasia looked rusty but I'd keep him in the team for next week and see if he can improve.
Agreed, clearly Motlop's best game.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"
 

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #51 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
Quote from: Thryleon – on
see when I watch us, i see us too quick to leave a man to pressure the ball carrier.  Thing is players tend to leave one spare over the top and take themselves out of the contest doing so, and ive never really understood why you would do this as you extract yourself from the equation too easily.  Sure that's easier to say from the stands, and I'm not sure what they see at ground level to play like this.

I understand this observation, but i disagree.

Last night was actually a perfect example of that.
How did we get out to the lead? By doing exactly this.

Keep pressuring the ball carrier to make a forced handball to the +1, do that enough times and eventually they will stuff one up and turn it over.

How many times last night did the commentators say they gave 1 too many handballs. That is why. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Bombers folded under pressure early.

Some better teams make be better equiped to deal with the pressure and hurt us more, but we'll cross that bridge...
there's probably a time and a place for both, but to me it looks like spending energy tickets and leaving a man free closer to goal.

I'll put my hand up and say I never played afl footy and its easy to say from the stands, but given the way the game is played last thing I thought you'd want is leaving a man to pressure a man, unless you get a call from someone else saying go, I got your man. 

That's a different code.  Thing is, we aren't explicitly talking in one area of the park.  Forwards putting on pressure comes in a variety of flavours.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #52 –
Quote from: Baggers – on
Quote from: cookie2 – on
Agree with those who question our lack of fitness. Last night it was quite obvious we started to run out of gas about halfway through the 2Q. We then became more susceptible to pressure and started making a lot more mistakes. Gutsy win in the end, by the skin of our teeth.

I just think we lose focus, Fluffy One, once the opposition brings heat and/or something different... And that can look like fitness. If our fitness was not up to scratch, we'd have folded in the last qtr but were able to find more intensity especially from our mids.

Losing focus brings the opposition into the game. Such a brittle edge in the modern game... drop 3% and you're in the shizen. Plus I think we're 'bedding down' a much needed extra dimension to our game - better/more composed inside 50 entries, and making the ground bigger.

Agree we lose focus Baggers but I think fatigue can be a big factor in that.
Reality always wins in the end.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #53 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
I think what you see is the real Carlton. We are a 50% side. In a general sense, two good quarters, then two shaky quarters, half our game is in good order, the other half is a work in progress. If you take the midpoint between 1st and 18th, you get 9th, which IMO is about right, and that finishing position may well be the best we can hope for this season.
I take a different approach regarding this, because I see our best the equal of any, but like you say it's often only for 1/2 a game.

It's doesn't take much more of a shift beyond 50/50 to make a huge difference. We seem to lack the reliability to put the brakes on teams when things aren't going our way. But make that 50/50 into a 60/40 and all of a sudden you're pushing the Top 4.

Easy to write, but I concede AFL is a game won or lost inside a variation of just a few percent.

One thing that came out of yesterday, the absence of BigH and the position of HOK and McGovern in F50 made us less predictable, less formulaic. It didn't clearly make us all that better, just harder to read for the opposition, to me it's a big tell about where our strengths and weakness lie. When BigH returns it should be a lesson for our MC, to not overdo the Charlie / BigH mixture. Of course naysayers and pessimists will be on the "trade them away" bandwagon, but that's not the solution either, the solution is always that having too much of a good thing is bad, we must keep a balance.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #54 –
Quote from: LP – on
I take a different approach regarding this, because I see our best the equal of any, but like you say it's often only for 1/2 a game.

It's doesn't take much more of a shift beyond 50/50 to make a huge difference. We seem to lack the reliability to put the brakes on teams when things aren't going our way. But make that 50/50 into a 60/40 and all of a sudden you're pushing the Top 4.

Easy to write, but I concede AFL is a game won or lost inside a variation of just a few percent.
................................................

With all the equalization measures in place, plus the reality of the number of teams vs quantity of available talent etc., I certainly believe that it's a game won or lost in the margins. It's an arms race with small opportunities to get a bit of an advantage. I don't think there is really that much difference between 1st and 18th. And whilst it's a rather crude expression, if you lose a game by 8 goals, averaged out that's basically 2 stuff ups per quarter. You could do everything else right, but those short term lapses are very costly against the better teams.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #55 –
The other big variable in modern football is in my opinion caused by too many umpires, last night we saw prime examples of how it hurts a team and the game, especially when the Deliberate OOB hit pandemic levels with a couple of the umpires last night.

I realise some teams and players work in the margins of the rules, but that had nothing to do with last nights variability. Players kicking while being slung by a tackler to dispose of the ball is not and never was DOOB, if they don't make an attempt they are penalised, if they make an attempt they are penalised, it's a circus.

The irony is that a sling tackle in that style would have resulted in a penalty going the other way last season, the AFL is hurting the game in this respect.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #56 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Quote from: kruddler – on


I understand this observation, but i disagree.

Last night was actually a perfect example of that.
How did we get out to the lead? By doing exactly this.

Keep pressuring the ball carrier to make a forced handball to the +1, do that enough times and eventually they will stuff one up and turn it over.

How many times last night did the commentators say they gave 1 too many handballs. That is why. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Bombers folded under pressure early.

Some better teams make be better equiped to deal with the pressure and hurt us more, but we'll cross that bridge...
there's probably a time and a place for both, but to me it looks like spending energy tickets and leaving a man free closer to goal.

AFL footballers are well drilled in this aspect. IMO they are doing the right thing.

If a player is streaming forward with nobody able to pressure him and there is a just a 1 on 1 ahead (or 2 on 2 etc), like you desribe then if you 'stay with your man' that man deliberately runs away from the ball carrier, taking you along with it, giving more space to the ball carrier. Eventually you either let the ball carrier walk in to an open goal or you leave your man to pressure him.....usually leaving a 'joe the goose' over the top.
Instead of postponing that inevitability, leave your man the instant you think you can pressure the ball carrier, knowing your teammates behind you will help cover you. The hope being, as i described earlier, you are able to put enough pressure on them at some point to force an error.
A player is more likely to make an error giving off a pressure handball/kick then they are running in space free of an opponent.

Sometimes it looks bad for us, if the opposition do it right, but in reality, there isn't many better options available.
We are doing the right thing.

Clearly, the trick is to not get hurt with an overlap / +1.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #57 –
The difference between us, Essendon, Saints etc and other midpack teams vs the better teams is the brand quality, we never kick a lot of easy goals. The effort can be there but we struggle to put the score on the board with poor efficiency. We probably kicked a few easier goals than the Bombers and that was probably the difference. Just watching our game last night after watching the Pies vs the Hawks from last week as an example and its a different standard.
At one stage last night both teams wasted time kicking the ball to each other from half back line to half back line with repeated silly turnovers and poor execution of skills, wasnt lack of effort in winning the ball but both teams play a midpack team standard gamestyle because the skill level and decision making isnt consistent or high quality enough.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #58 –
Obviously experts think we are better than where we sit (probably right). Where else would 13th beating 10th be called unimpressive, yet they were probably right.

Re: AFL Rd 13 2025 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

Reply #59 –
Quote from: madbluboy – on
I don't think we're taking the foot off, we are getting run over every week. It's a fitness issue.
Cerra said they took the foot off the pedal and responded after getting an earful from Vossy. They are piss weak mentally, every last one of them.
2021-Pi$$ or get off the pot
2022- Real Deal or more of the same? 0.6%
2023- "Raise the Standard" - M. Voss Another year wasted Bar Set
2024-Back to the drawing boardNo excuses, its time
2025-Carlton can win the 2025 AFL Premiership