Lets face it we are a rabble!

Having been a loyal Carlton supporter through the 70's, 80's & 90's through to now I have never seen us so bad.

I admit that now the system is different and a bit harder to to get good players but I have never seen a Carlton side that accepts MEDIOCRITY as much as this one.

Reading through all the posts on this site we are looking for any little sign in a player that may give us hope.

How can we accept a 30 point loss to Richmond and a 40 point loss to St Kilda especially when we lead both sides by around twenty points. These are massive turnarounds against sides that are pretty average.

Here's some examples of our problems:

Stevens, Betts not fit enough.........................(Mediocrity) There is a rule at Brisbane that if a player does not meet very specific fitness standards they do not play, these palyers wouldn't come close to that.
Fevola's attitude, please explain to me why a player goes off the drink for a year and kicks 80 odd goals and then thinks its okay to start drinking again, to me it is selfish.......................(Mediocrity)
Fitness, We recruit a topline fitness person who comes to the club in November and states that only TWO players are fit enough for VFL standards............................................(Mediocrity)
We don't tackle (houlihan on the weekend a classic example).............................................(Mediocrity)
Discipline on and off the field.................(Mediocrity)
We selected a coach with virtually no experience without doing a proper selection process..................................(Mediocrity)
We had a chance to have our own reserves side and didn't do it and we appoint a playing coach with no experience..... (Mediocrity)
We recruit a 196cm ruckman who couldn't get a game at Collingwood, yet St Kilda can get King at pick 90?......................(Mediocrity)

We keep blaming losing our draft picks a few years ago, out of it we lost Wells and Goddard, would they have made a difference?

I was worried when after the weekends game when Ratten said we can look forward to Kruezer playing this week. Jeepers! The guy has missed three weeks with a hip injury and yet to make his debut and will be rushed into the side, if we were serious he should resume in the two's and earn his spot. Poor kid is on a hiding to nothing.

The best way to judge where we are is to honestly assess which of our players would get a game in the current Geelong side?

They have players that are fit, strong, can run and use the ball well and above all they play for each other, we don't. How many of our players seriously have the skills that are good enough?

Apart from Judd (and even he would struggle at the moment) I cannot think of any. We have so many very average players at this club.

Our attitude needs to change otherwise we will not improve. It is a time for tough decisions, we need not only good players but players that will bust a gut for the club. I can handle losing (sometimes) if we have a genuine go, but I have not seen it for years.

I remember the attitude used to be that we expect success, now we hope for it!......Mediocrity at its best.

Someone made the point the other day that Walker is the only regular player we have from our top selections in the 2000-2004 drafts. That's a damning statistic if true when that age group should be the nucleus of our side.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

cj69, I'd give you Post of the Week.

Well summed up.

We lack in so many areas and when you add all these "small" difficiencies up, you get a massive gap between us and the rest of the competition.

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NOW YOU'RE JUST SOME CLUB THAT I USED TO KNOW.

We have the next 4 in a row at the "G"

Bozo likes playing under the big top


You will revisit this in four weeks

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Sorry, I cant cop that.
Everyone wants to develop a list with young kids. Everyone wants to build a team that can achieve sustainable success.
Yet no one wants to do the hard yards!

Would you rather we top up with has beens and try to be competitive but go nowhere in the process? I had enough of that with Pagan.
The team that ran out on Saturday had no Bowyers, no Motts, no David Clarkes etc etc.

It had plenty of young kids with huge futures ahead of them. Look at our list. Gibbs, Hampson, Murphy, Kruezer. They'll be elite players in the competition. 200 game players.
Others like Bower, Grigg, Browne were highly rated juniors with every chance to succeed.

Our team on Saturday was virtually 3 years younger than St Kildas and half as experienced.
Yet they played some good quality football at times. They just didnt take enough chances to apply scoreboard pressure.
Give me a team that gets it inside 50 on 54 occassions everytime over some of our insipid efforts in the past.

I find it amazing that some of the posters who bag the club for not focussing on youth are bagging the club for not having immediate success.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Essendon*, Collingwood, Melbourne and Adelaide .... I expect 3 wins.

Who is Bozo?

I will give you one guess - that all

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Agree with the initial post.

I've said it before...

St Kilda has taken 15 months to implement a new game plan under a new coach. They have a list that is vastly more experienced than us.

Yet somewhere along the line, posters on TC expect our team to have developed and implemented successfully a new gameplan in ONE THIRD of the time it has taken St Kilda. Yep... that's ONE THIRD of the time, with a list that is less experienced, and less physically capable of AFL football.

TC Posters have turned into an absolute rabble.

What do you mean turned into a Rabble - haven't we always been a rabble

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

You have missed the point of my post!

That is not my point. Read it again!

I am critical of the current attitude and how we go about things.

I agree with cj69.
It may be a by-product of our recent deplorable history but we have become more accepting of mediocrity as a club and supporter group. It seems to me that the club and players are not busting a gut to be the best they can be. Our lack of fitness heading into the season proper is a prime example of that. The insipid, lazy display on Saturday against an average aints side another illustration. Either there is a significant shift in attitude and application at our club or we will not benefit from the injection of young talent at Carlton because we have allowed this ineptitude to set in like a rot.

We may have needed an outside coach with no existing relationships with the playing list who could instil an uncompromising approach and edict throughout the group. I hope Ratts isn’t compromised in an approach like this because he has history with the players. Our players need a good kick in the arse at the moment and need to be shaken from this half-slumber they appear to be in!

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C'mon Blueboys!

I agree with some of your points cj69.

My disagreement comes with the constant bagging of the club which is going on around here. Things don't quite smell of roses, but there is enough happening that I am prepared to say the Club is climbing above the mediocrity that you mention. Overall, I think there's enough evidence that things are turning around that I am prepared to give the club some time.

What are we meant to do as a supporter group though? If you don't accept the team for what it is, no amount of whingeing and complaining is going to change anything.

Fair Enough Molly, my point is that for us to become strong again we need to rid ourselves of these problems. Improving the list will take time everyone sees that, but the other things can be rectified quickly with the right attitude.

The reason there is so much negativity now is that people are sick and tired of players treating our club with no respect (accepting Mediocrity). As I said I can handle losing if our group is giving it everything but they are not. We want players who will give everything for the club not treat it with contempt.

Swann and Pratt will get it right off the field. Its the football dept that worries me.

Some body once told me that we were a PROUD club.
We then had a President and players do something that made us lose picks in drafts....

We don't have kids in 2002 - 2004 because we didnt have decent picks.

PS.
Simmo and Fish are still there through those years.

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Stay tuned We're in for a BUMPY ride

I'd like to see a confessional type scenario every Monday where players have to front up and one by one nominate a time in the game where they didn't put in a 100% effort. They need to tell the other players that they realise this was not good enough and that they'll do better next time.

The sooner these blokes realise they belong to a team and their in-actions affect everyone, the sooner they'll start running harder and thinking faster. What we've seen so far is not good enough, and we the supporters/members/sponsors need to let them know that it isn't up to scratch.

We can handle the young kids (18/19) not physically or mentally being up to it yet, but look at Hawthorn and Geelong - both almost as young as us yet they run. run, run. Ity's the Betts, Scotlkand, Fev, Houlihan that should be doing better - and if they can't, they go SAT.

We look worse than the 2005 Wizard Cup team ATM>

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end of message

I heard this morning that Carlton are on the verge of folding.

Apparently Ratten wants to make 22 changes this week, and if the Match Committee decide to back him we will be fielding a team of 3 players...a ruck (Bentick), a fullforward (Armfield) and a fullback (the surprise return of Doering).

The AFL will deregister us.

rubbish.
Its the senior players who let the team down with their efforts.