Yes I am nowehere near convinced.

Ratten will no doubt argue 'we are close to top 4', but I think that just clouds the reality that there are heap of avg teams.

Cold hard truth is we were avg against Freo twice, and Richmond a few weeks back, and in the first half against Syd.

When we beat the Pies this year, they had tons of guns out and still had more of the ball than us in the 1st half.

Why are our kicks in still poor?

why do we consistently get smashed at clearances, even though we have Gibbs, and Murphy (1) and Gibbs (1)?

Why is our fwdline in tatters?

Why do we keep kicking to a fwline exposed by extra men down back/men peeling off?

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It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it

Any thoughts on the "day before the game" training session.

Can we draw any conclusions that we have looked very second rate on our last two friday night games???

What do you think?

Couple of coaching jobs available right now.....how many of our assistants are being courted?
Would our main man be courted if he was out of contract?

Kind of sums up where our panel sits.
We seem to do a lot of heavy tagging. What is interesting is that the only player Collingwood put a man on was Judd and that man was under instruction to get lose and get the footy.

We put negative players all over the place who should be rotated through our midfield. Instead didn't go near the ball in the first quarter because the ball spent the majority of the time in our backline and when we did happen to get it forward we didn't have a target because our half forward line had 2 guys that were worried about their man getting the pill. NO WONDER WE LOOKED ONE DIMENSIONAL.

There was one player we needed to tag last night. Dane Swan. Obviously we have our defenders playing tight on Leon and Didak but that is a defenders job. But Swan, the guy that racks up at least 30 touches and is the man that sets up most attacks for the pies is left alone all night. We find the need to tag half there team but not this guy?

Hartlett is the one that completely bamboozles me. Someone said it in another thread. The club is to blame. The poor guy. Was a CHF, club tries to transform him into a CHB. He plays in a game where we definetly do not need another tall backman. WHY WAS HE BROUGHT IN THEN????????? So we play him up forward. In the goalsquare as a lead up forward and maybe use Fev as a decoy because PResti is killing him and they drop men back on him? NOOOOO play him up on the wings with 40 metre leads and let the boys kick it over his head to fev. And if it does get to him its because theres been a turnover on the wing and he happens to be there. PLAY THE BLOKE OUT OF THE SQUARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, we came up against Wood and Brown,,,,WOOD AND BROWN, so what do we do, play our CHF that has been transformed into a CHB in the ruck. Ridiculous. We had two guys that were more than capable of playing in the ruck. Were they to unfit to handle it between them????dont think so because they've done it for most of the year!! So lets kill Hartletts confidence and play him in the ruck and let him get battered and killed.

Lots of stupidity which to me, who isn't getting paid the big bucks to coach, is unacceptable.

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Loooook OUT!

Ok so hypothetically (and I don't think this is the case) if ratts is not the man.

Do you know how bad that is for the club?

He was appointed without a due process (fair enough IMO he was and is a carlton legend who is not respected by many on here).

does that mean swann is at fault for the process?

Icke?

The board?

surely surely surely we must give ratts a go and get rid of the recruiters.

Swann is proven, was brilliant at collingwood.
It was a board led by pratt with a lot of brilliant minds on it.
And ratts was a gun player who has a lot of football knowledge.

vs Wayne Hughes being at fault (couldn't even make head recruiter at freo).

I mean come on Hughes ahs to go first and then watch the results turn around.

Round 12 last year Grigg played on Shaw and kept him to 6 possessions.

Grigg is a ballwinner/linkman though...would rather him on the ball.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Hughes has had his misses (like all recruiters) but has also done well with later picks.

You can't blame our performance on one part of the football department.

In regards to Swann...sure he is a brilliant operator but does he have the control he needs? Or is it too much of a boys club? I don't know - just wondering...would Swann have allowed a contract extension if he had full control?

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Completely agree. And the other guy at half forward, Fisher, just does not hurt opposition teams with his possessions. (except for obvious 15 min period last week)

To me the players look confused and unmotivated except for the odd bursts where Judd, Murph or some other team leader tries to lift the team with an inspiring individual effort. A team with a plan should not need these individual heroics.

Our total game plan seems to revolve around tagging, zoning, corralling - minimising damage - then bomb it to Fev.

Not the man for the job IMO.

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There's so much I could say...

Agree with that, but it's fair enough to wonder if the opening match-ups left the players wondering what they were doing, and then they dropped their heads. Johnson & Carrazzo at HB was doomed to failure, for example.


I wouldn't have wanted Grigg firing the ball inside 50 any more than he already was... HB or HF at this point.

He's in year three, and he's gone from spotting up targets in the 50 to bombing it to the hot spot... it's just pathetic.

A lot of our players need to take some more risks, and then learn from what happens, good or bad.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Not only do Judd and Fev have to carry the team.... but also the coaching group....

Bit hard....

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

while others would've had to raid that increasingly bare cupboard, trying find another pathetic excuse to explain the loss. Brett Ratten is the dumbest coach in the AFL (IN MY OPINION)

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

I don't think I've posted in this thread before.......but last night; we looked very amateurish.......like watching a local school side.

I've never seen so many Carlton players kick straight to the opposition.....or kick over the head of a leading team mate.....or kick a metre before his feet........all causing turnovers.

We had more inside 50 entries than them last night; but kicked 4.16; and got beaten by 54 points.

Someone at the Club has to be held accountable for this lamentable display......and the buck stops with the Coach.

As much as I've always loved Ratts as a player......why didn't he do something last night?

In spite of all of our numerous mistakes; we got close enough to win last night.......but virtually just gave up.

When Juddy limped off the ground.....that was our ball game over......and it was for the Richard Pratt Cup.

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No ones listening till you make a mistake.

You forgot option C which is, WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, REVERT TO OPTION A

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

option d - kick it to anyone else





















and then kick it to fev

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Have to say this situation reminds me of what we were doing with Josh Kennedy. I remember Kennedy having similar issues to Hartlett now. We just don't learn. In my mind the issue is we are so Fevola concious that guys like Hartlett (and originally Kennedy) were simply left out whenever we went forward. We would have been better off putting Fevola to the bench and pushing Hartlett, Kruezer and Fisher forward. This would have forced us to go to someone else and also mix it up so we were not so predictable for the Pies defence. I would have gone with Kruezer at CHF and Hartlett in the square and he could have crashed the packs allowing Betts to come into it. Fisher I think would have found himself free quite a bit as their defence don't rate him.

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The great are great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us arise.
--Robert Collier

Practice what you preach and get on the topic, rather than telling people they've got no idea. Isn't that a personal attack? Hang on, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's just fact, a fact that all us critical (Black cape wearing Dr Fate) villains need to understand from the (Great Leslie) goodies of this world. Maybe the education department can use it as a unit of work with primary school kids. The lesson might start like this

"Now class, today we are going to discuss good and bad, niceness and evil. Good and niceness is like someone who thinks we've come from a long way back and is prepared to see their coach learn on the job, even though he flowers up every second week. On the other hand children, evil and bad are those who have the temerity to express concerns about the coach and the gameplan and want to win the premiership in '09 by 10 goals"
You may as well add some good old fashion polit bureau and communist propaganda

"Now repeat after me 100 times children, WE LOVE OUR FOOTBALL LEADER, WE LOVE OUR FOOTBALL LEADER, OUR FOOTBALL LEADER IS GOOD, IT WILL ALL GET BETTER, IT WILL ALL GET BETTER"

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

We have enough talented players.

We don't have a game plan. We don't have structure. We have no system. We have no plan. We have a coach batting way out of his league thus our players are second guessing and losing confidence hence why we are playing like shit.

Don't need a team of superstars to play with some sort of system and structure.

Denis Commetti, Gary Lyon, Brian Taylor, Nathan Buckley, Mike Sheehan and Shane Wakelin all came out this morning and said we are rubbish........ the players can not be blamed for all of it.

Dead set, how many of those blokes do you honestly pay attention to?

I would listen to Buckley, the rest have shown themselves to be wishy-washy or about as useful at post-game analysis as I am at swing dancing. The problem is, this is Bucks' mob; clear bias.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

This post from the Doc in another thread pretty much sums it up for me

"Yep - I left early and I almost never do that.. disgraceful, insipid performance from the whole team - coaches included. Not only did the players lack intensity, they broke team rules and played unaccountable football. Would have thought playing a game for the Richard Pratt Cup that would further enhance our finals chances would mean more. Too many passengers...too many getting lost...too many making basic mistakes...and obviously there's something wrong somewhere - either the message isn't getting through - or the message isn't very good.

I'm normally 'Glass Half Full' too - - but they lost me tonight...can't defend that crap. The better drilled team won."

Two epic fails on the big stage with plenty at stake.....something is seriously wrong and needs to be acted upon, now.

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We are on our way back...

Who cares. The fact is we are shit. i don't need them to tell me that!!!!!!