Rob's Irate Rant.......

Well tonight officially ended season 2013. a huge thanks to all involved for another total waste of a season. Like a fool I got sucked in by the early season hype, new coach, new tactics, new recruits, new PBs in time trials etc etc... Every year I promise myself I wont get sucked in or fooled again yet like a moron I fall into the same trap every time............Well NOT AGAIN!!!!!!

Tonight's embarrassing performance was the reality check that this club needed and unfortunately it revealed that this current list is Nowhere near a true finals team let alone a premiership list, (I will elaborate on this soon). Furthermore it revealed that Mick Malthouse is not the instant panacea we desperately craved. I realise it is very raw at the moment and I am emotional but I have tried to have faith in Mick but tonight much of that faith evaporated as quickly as carlton's effort and endeavour disappeared.

This year we have produced several "honourable losses" in the eyes of the media although I have not been so forgiving as I thought the time for honourable losses ended a few years ago. Mick and the coaching staff spoke of finals (usually implied rather than explicitly states) and this is something we will not achieve thus a huge fail. I am NOT saying sack the coach or anthing crazy like that BUT we must delve into what has happened under Mick and which parts he is responsible for.

****** Team Selection - Another week of poor team selection with players who continue to fail being given a go, where is the ruthless team selection which makes players hungry for their position. We keep giving the same guys a go and dont play the youngsters - Menzel, Buckley, Mitchell, Graham, Watson, Bell, Temay etc..
Not sure why Laidler is so on the outer but surely he warrants another chance at least.

****** Tactics - tactically we are awful.
* Far too defensive - Cacchia, Curnow, Simpson, carrazzo and Touhy all had ultra defensive roles AGAIN!!! To win games we must kick be creative and attacking. For a coach who hated taggers when he was coaching pies he has certaily changed his tune.
* We persist with the 3 small forwards which has not worked all year and will continue to fail. I (and others) have been banging on about this for 3 years now FFS someone please listen!! It was great to hear Tom Harley say it tonight.
* Our current game plan relies heavily on good foot skills which we don't have and hence the possession football and preference of long kicks over handball and short kicks will never work!!!! Keep encouraging it Mick but with this list it will NOT work.
* Lack of creative moves - Currently our only dreative fwd line move is moving Hendo form Back to Fwd - Usually this is done when the game is basically shot. Here are a few suggestions:
Walker up fwd as the "leadup fwd", Gibbs up fwd, Betts to rotate through midfield, Yarran to spend some time at HBF. There are plenty of moves that can be tried.

I repeat I am not calling for Mick's head but he must shoulder part of the blame and must learn from this disaster of a season and improve.

****** Skills
I am banging my head against a wall here but FFS please someone teach some of the players to kick. We have at least 10 players who have dodgy disposal and I will name some of them them - Judd, Carazzo, Lucas, Armfield, Robbo, Curnow, Kreuzer, Casboult, Mclean, Cacchia, Jammo and that is only in tonights team. Now IMO you can have about 2 or 3 poor kicks in your side if u want to win a flag and maybe 3 or 4 if you play finals but not half a dozen.You dont drop every player who is not a pinoint kick but you need to limit the number of players with dodgy disposal - Here is a test for u, how many bad kicks in the Sydney, Hawks and Cats sides??

Tackling - Important skill we still lack.

****** Players
We all knew we lacked depth but I am concerned just how shallow our talent pool is.
We have several players who realistically will not be in a true finals side so they must be improved at least 20% or else they are superfluous to our needs and must be traded or moved on.
3 inept ruckman is a huge concern - Kreuzer, warnock, Hampson. I hold some faith for Kreuzer as I love him but reality is I would certainly consider a trade as he holds some currency. As for warnock and Hammer 1 or both must go at years end (depending on what happens with Kreuzer).

Yarran - Disappointing and looks unhappy. Sulks and doesnt do enough when he has the ball or when he doesnt have the ball - Definately trade bait. He has never delivered on his potential oculd be part of a win-win trade.

I am not going to go through the entire team now as I am too irate and will probably say something I regret. I will do this with a more level head. Consider yourself very lucky Robbo ( Casboult, Garlett, Armfield, Touhy).

******* Mental Fragility
Another instance of our mental weakness. We had the big stage on Friday night against a big opponent in some degree of turmoil and poor form. It was our chance to stand up and get a scalp. There was an air of expectation but as expected we folded like a pissweak deck of cards. After a great first 25 mins we turned off for the last 5 mins of the first qtr and let pies back inot the game and then decided it was just all too hard and gave up, thats right we QUIT and that Bloody Stinks!!!!!

****** So where to from here?????
Now we bite the bullet and play kids and stop playing favourites. We try to win every game, we are NOT playing for draft picks. We rejig our tactics as they dont work and try to find a modification that works and is still somewhat faithful to Micks game plan. A great gameplan is useless if the players cant carry it out.
We start assessing trades and facing up to the reality that we are a mile away from true September contenders.
This club is on the edge of an abyss, either we make some trades and improve some of our players that remain or we fall into another decade of poor football and mediocrity. That sounds extreme but it is the truth - We have missed our premiership chance due to poor recruiting 3&4 years ago and it is now hurting us due to no real emerging A-grade youngsters let alone B+ players.
The drafting of players like Lucas Hampson, Watson, Mitchell, MCarthy without a real A grade player has killed us. We must start to rebuild YEP that's right a renovation is probably a better term otherwise it will be a full rebuild in 2 yrs time.


++++ Positives
not many:
+ I thought Lucas played his best game for the club.
+ Mclean tried hard
+ Cacchia did well on Pendles until Pendles blew him away but he kept trying
+ McInnes return
+ Kreuzer did a couple of nice things but ultimately Hudson (3rd choice ruckman) edged him

I'm done/finished/spent/cooked
GO BLUES

Terrific rant, well done

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Between our dreams and actions lies this world

Great post

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"I had to eat"

Sounds a lot like the usual rant we get from Headcutter after every loss.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010