And another thing, If I where Pagan (thankfully to them I'm not), they would know ALL about it on the track this week. And yes, I am still pissed off. They have blown away the season.
Hopefully our coach isn't becoming soft in his old age.

While I (sort of) understand your frustration, I think 'blown away the season' is a bit much.

IT'S ONLY ROUND THREE!!

_________________
Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

How to Hijack a Thread, by SurreyBlue.

There are plenty of other threads where you can release your negativity. If you have not got anything positive to say in thread asking for positives then keep out.

_________________
|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

Don't agree Deano, would love to but it will be round5 very soon and we will be 1-4. Don't kid yourself we are not good enough to win the games we should then we won't win the games that we shouldn't, especially interstate.

Other threads like who we are going to delists didn't do it for me.
I thought a positives thread after our DEBACLE on Saturday might need some truths being spoken outload.

Right then. Let's all tear up our memberships, and stay home with the sulks for the rest of the season.

We're all disappointed, but to say the season is over is bloody ridiculous.

_________________
Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

The reality is we are an ordinary side and will be for some time. For mine the real worry is that we only have a handful of really class players and several of them are nearing or over 30. Most of our young players are solid and nothing more. We need some more talent and that isn't going to happen over night. As several of us posted last week this was a danger game and on talent the Pies were a good chance if they put their minds to it. They have 3 solid key defenders, at the moment we have none, and Tarrant and Rocca were always a chance to kill us if they got serious. Really we have been totally disappointing, falling in against a terrible Essendon*, and with 2 road trips ahead. To have any chance of finals we needed to have great luck with injury and to beat those sides around about our level. We haven't done that.

Forget positives and negatives, let's talk about realities. The reality is we are probably bottom six in talent, but don't have the super draft talent developing in the twos and on the fringes that some of the other lower sides have.

The big positive is that we got Stevo, where would we be without him.

We need to stop teams double teaming Whits and Fev, use Fev as a fast leading full forward which is his strength, not have him marking on the wing.

Use Prenda more as a tall strong midfield option. His main strength is his aerobic capacity, yet he spends most of the game on the bench.

The only time we've had a real dip at draft time was in 2000 when we had 3 first round picks. At best Livo and Wiggo may be solid battlers, I'd hoped Sporn might be something special, but if he is the time is now. Beasy, O'Keefe, and Campbell are gone. None of this is the players fault, but when you have a big go at the draft like that and manage to get No stars, together with some dismal high selections in the late 90s, then that partly explains why it is going to be some years before we are contenders.

We've made some very good selections from other clubs etc over the last two years, but rarely will players traded for picks 50 or so be more than serviceable

Sorry did I say I was going to tear my membership up somewhere and I missed it. As for the sulking part..... ..... I've don't know what to say.

I was being facetious Surrey. FFS.

_________________
Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

If we can get our execution to improve the results will follow.

It's not like we've lost these games due to lack of opportunities. We've been good enough to win enough ball to defeat our opponents, but as we know our concentration and execution have let us down.

I agree we need to string 4 quarters of footy together, once we do that I think you'll feel a bit more positive Surrey.

_________________
Click here to follow TalkingCarlton on twitter
TalkingCarlton Posting Rules

Come on, Surrey. "Not good enough to win the games we shouldn't"? What the hell does that mean? Over the last couple of years we've pinched a few games we had no right to. A couple of them against Essendon*: R3 2003 being one where we were missing everyone who was going to win us the match.
Collingwood weren't good enough to win games they shouldn't also, but they wanted the victory, and took it off us.
It won't be easy, but I think it's possible we can snatch Saturday's match. Yes Port will have a thrashing from the media in the lead-up, but surely there will be a bit of "well, they couldn't even beat Collingwood, we should win this easily" going through a few Port players heads. That will allow us an in to stay competetive through the match, and win if we want it badly enough.
Freo is beatable. Full Stop. Let's see what we earn and learn from AAMI stadium Saturday before we cast our eyes to Perth, but I think it can be done.

FFS, Surrey, lighten up!

_________________
And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Do you think flogging them all week will help after playing in 35 deg?

There's no doubt about the fact that you learn more about your team from a loss than a win...( maybe your supporters to )

As much as it hurts to start the season as we have, we will identify, over the next few weeks, the people who can stand up when the chips are down and those that are going to be moved on....it's all about opportunities...some people grab them and some don't...there are a few that are getting their opportunity now and are struggling but in the long run it helps that we are identifying weaknesses....give these players a few more games...show some faith...only 1 month ago we were cheering these same players as they won the Wiz. Cup...The talent is there within our club to challenge for the final 8 depending on injuries( but not to be a premiership contender ) There is no doubt that our list has improved every year Denis Pagan has been there.

So in a weird way I suppose I see our losses as a possitive in the fact we are able to see exactly where or list is at and what needs to happen to take us to the next level and challenge for premierships

Finally got to see the game for myself tonight. It was still frustrating, but it sure beats listening to the game on the radio. At least you get a much better feel for what went right, as well as where things fell apart.

Positives for mine:

I love the way Carrazzo moves when he's in a contest situation. Can obviously improve his disposal, but didn't seem too bad.

Good to see the continued improvement of our 'lesser' forwards in Waite and De Luca. Although I'd like to see us play Fev out of the goalsquare more. (I can understand the try and create a mismatch theory, but it seemed to be the default setting for much of the game on Saturday, rather than a creative alternative to try from time to time.)

Continue to enjoy the attacking (and high scoring) style we're playing. It's probably cost us 2 losses (with more conservative/defensive coaching, we might have closed the game down more once we got 3 or 4 goals ahead), but it's nice to watch, and it has to be better for our longer-term development.


Improvements?

We need to get more run and possession in midfield. Once Morrison got on top of Kouta, we struggled (Stevens alone vs. the Collingwood midfield). The only Carlton player who seemed to run and bounce the ball was Stevo, whereas Collingwood seemed to do this a fair bit. Our defensive midfield stoppers need to learn to win the ball. Collingwood got 5 goals and a stack of possessions out of Holland and Licuria alone. Not to mention the contribution of Shaw and Morrison. Whereas McGrath hardly touched it. And Sporn, Wiggo and Carrazzo didn't get much of it either. (For that matter, it'd be nice to get more possession out of our more 'attacking' midfielders in Scotland, Johnson, and to a lesser extent Campo.)

At the moment, it seems to be a case of too much is being carried by too few. I'd think we'd be pretty desperate to regain the midfield run of Chambers and Walker.

1. We only lost by 20 points
2. We lost because their forwards got right on top- this can be rectified by the return of our Defence . Thornton and Livo were irreplaceable.
3. We ran out of midfield legs. The return of walker and chambers will have a big influence on our midfield rotations.
4. We kicked over 100 points without bags from Fevola and Whitnal.
5. Koutta and French are giving us some real grunt around the stoppages- they just need to be able to rest by finding them some support.
6. Betts

OK we "should" have won this one, but at least we were in a winning position and with luck could have won it- this is a big step up from the last couple of seasons where we often did not get a sniff. With the return of our defence KPP's and the extra pace that we are clearly missing with walker and chambers we will be very competitive.