You set yourself up to have to deal with all this frustration braithy. When you talk in absolutes you're always going to be disappointed when it doesn't go your way. Its a bit like getting a tip of the 100% winner...take it to the bank winner, and it doesn't win. What do you expect?

Its not blind faith in Vossy braithy, its just I have every reason to believe Vossy knows 10 times more about footy, our team and why the down turns we experience than all the posters combined here in TC land. Every week, the TC chat its littered with absolutes. That the posters know more than Vossy and the stats don't lie.

Ofcourse stats can be used to show whatever you want; we all know that. Its an age old saying. Its not being disrespectful to think our real problems, or down turns, or blips are not exclusively the fault of having 2 rucks. I refuse to allow myself to believe footy is that simple. Its not.

And braithy, whilst I will, always remember you and others and your dogmatic position on 2 rucks, I will not believe for a minute we lost or won because of the 2 rucks, unless, ofcourse, one ruck is injured early in the game, and we are left with none or one, depending on the ruck structure at selection.

I don't hold posters' Final word as gospel, nor see them as some form of deity, and on the flipside, I don't want you to think about me, like you did before Crows game, after GWS game. I'm just a poster. I have an opinion, and what shapes my opinion I share. Each to their own. I don't have a hotline to Vossy, and I am clear its Vossy and the MC making decisions, not me, so I'm taking no credit or the blame for any of Vossy's decisions....and unlike some, I don't think I am right and Vossy is wrong. He is privy to a lot of information we are not. I find it weird that when Vossy gives hints as to what is going on, some posters conveniently ignore it.

A richer discussion would take place if we gave some attention to the other issues outside the 2 rucks, that you see other scribes consider, and some posters early in the post match thread also highlighted. There's more to the loss than the 2 rucks.

Interesting that Weitering was targeted by knees and hits, and TDK played sore. Yeah? Nah?

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Bondi I am not alluding to anything. The Edwards stuff was not necessary. It was just some stats that seemed interesting. I have made my thoughts known. I am a 1 Ruck guy. Pending Injury, TDK will do me.

I have zero interest in entering the discussion in detail. I am happy for Vossy to try all the permutations, and go with what he thinks is best. If he thinks 2, then so be it.

Regards Cazzesman

_________________
Ricky Gervais - “Everyone has the right to hold whatever beliefs they want. And everyone else has the right to find those beliefs f***ing ridiculous.”

I appreciate this post, and appreciated it more than most posts I read in the post match thread.

Its not the posters making the selections. Thank you.

What I'd rather be looking at though is why the coaches/ leaders make the selections they have/ did rather than the discussion that begins and ends with the obvious stat in favour of one ruck. Surely we are missing something? The selectors must know something we don't.

The debate becomes bullshit ruck debate when our discussion is limited to one stat, the reasoning that determined the actual selections is completely ignored as are the outcomes from those decisions.

Do you really believe the coaches are knuckleheads, and they don't get it? Or are you frustrated with the result? Do you believe everything is linear? IMO Form and Fitness are not linear and they are the variables which influence the coaches decisions week by week.

Was Cottrell fit for AFL? Did Cottrell's form warrant selection? Did his selection create some kind of imbalance to the team?
With Gov injured, is Marchbank the auto replacement? Based on what?
Will Hewett walk straight in next game given our mids didnt defend the midfield contest well? Would Hewett have made a difference?

So many great questions to be considered, and discussed but most of the attention post match in a loss gets taken up by the 2 rucks. I can see there's more to the loss than the 2 rucks. Lots more to explore.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Last time we played against Sean Darcy we had Lewis Young, Harry and JSOS in the ruck. He alone had 58 hitouts to our collective 18. We won the clearances 41-35 and we won the game by 53 points.
I don't think anyone is wetting their pants about Sean Darcy.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Totally get where you sit on this Cazz. Like you, In Voss I trust.

I was wondering what outcome you were expecting by posting that link.

I thought it was apt to put a knock on the commentators, their reputation, and question the stats they bring to the table given they are questionable; not just the stats. After all Lloydy isn't a highly regarded commentator amongst Carlton fans let alone footy fans in general. As for Nat Edwards, since when has she become the guru on Carlton's mens team? Listen to her breaching the subject. She's not assertive. I find her meek, but provocative.

Lloyd said TDK was the best ruck in the comp for 6-7 games. It was 4 games in a row TDK played his best footy. The game before that rich run of form was the game against Sydney. See TC meltdown and comments on TDK following that 6 D 3 HO game.

I'm not knocking TDK because I don't expect TDK to play 10/10 games every week, but I am knocking Lloydy's crap stat whilst he's making out he's a guru on the subject.

Interesting he's a one ruck fan too Cazz.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

It would certainly add to our flexibility. But I'm not sure that SOS is much faster than Pittonet.

No, I'm frustrated with the same errors occurring and the coaches looking for personnel swaps to solve the issues instead of addressing the core problem. I've mentioned before the past few games I didn't want to see us giving up goals to defensive 50 stoppages. I haven't gone back to look at the replay but I'd suggest we again coughed up 3 or 4 goals to stoppages in our backline.
It's not good enough. Playing Pittonet or TDK doesn't solve the issue. Poor defending, uncertainly of positioning, inability to block running lanes, transferring of responsibility instead of maintaining accountability of an opponent. Our mids are as guilty as anyone. That should be the focus of the coaches. I've been critical of Hamill and I want to see him extract the digit and sort it out. It's costing us games.

I'm not fazed by hitout stats. We didn't lose last week because of our rucks. IMHO, we lost because Kemp was hung out to dry against Hogan and our mids were lazy. Bringing in Pitto doesn't solve that. It papers over the cracks but creates multiple more. We need to learn to win one on one football. I posted above how we were smashed at hitouts against Freo last year but won the game easily with makeshift rucks. It's because our mids had to be accountable and not look for easy ball. Last year we won the first 4 games because we exited the front of stoppages with looping handballs and our mids played like millionaires. The opposition shut it down and our results turned to shit. We only found form again when we played strong, accountable football.
That's been missing the past few weeks.

I like one ruck because the forward line functions better without 3 talls but that's just my opinion. But regardless we need competitiveness. The forward line shouldn't expect an armchair ride, just like the centre bounce mids shouldn't. If a forward needs lace out passes and can't win more than his share of 50/50 contests, he's not doing his job. I like the balance of 2 tall forwards and mids/smalls around them. IMHO, that's when our pressure is at its best and there's no passengers.
That's our strength. When we play high pressure, accountable football we can beat anyone. Don't be beaten by basic structural deficiencies that can be fixed with decent coaching and an accountability that applies to every player. Swapping players/structures is the easy way out that doesn't address the problems.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

A lot of interesting points made this week, a lot of truth in some of them.
But for me it is the same issue we've had for the last 3 years, our midfield and wings are too slow and they don't have enough skill to consistently hit their targets, let alone creative ones.
Because of this they are too defensive IMO and when they are having a bad game we not only leak like a sieve, we can't score either.
But the biggest issue is because we lack speed to clear the contest or hit targets the flow on effect is using players from other positions to help them out, which robs us of a position or more every game and requires the players to work harder increasing the chance of errors.
i.e. We got smashed on the wings in the GWS game by a 34 YO inside mid and a first year, Doc would've normally been the plug but again we are robbing a position.
Which in turn is also why we have issues with 2 rucks, even though first use of the ball is always best.
And I agree, 3 talls in the F50 is too much, especially with our HF's (mediums and smalls) having to spread down to the D50 every game coupled with our midfield's lack of skill in hitting targets in the F50.
Unfortunately, I fear we will always get exposed by faster teams until this is fixed.
I also agree we need another key defender to help out Weiters, especially given our ongoing injury woes.
This would also mean we might not need the HF's to be down in the D50 so much.
Either way there is a lot that needs tinkering, including removing some of our injury prone players from the team.
I think we can still do well this season though, we just need a dream run in the finals......none of the fast teams and none away from the MCG.
Top 4 or it's a no go for me this year.

Watching on the couch
Carlton exposed for scores against when the opposition win clearance
Not so much about the Defence
It’s around stoppage
Needs to be fixed up pronto

Worst in the AFL for conceding goals from defensive 50 stoppages.
That's where we are leaking scores from clearance.
Defence doesn't just apply to defenders. We are structurally inept around stoppages.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

David King showed a few clips last night that highlighted Saad at the D50 stoppages against Weightman.
He just switched off a few times. King was suggesting it wasn't system inside D50 but individual errors that can be fixed.

Its infuriating that at every D50 stoppage we expect to be scored against. I recall the urgency that Cripps and Newman showed in that last
ball up against the Demons against Petracca. i was hoping that would be the norm and the turning point but it has gone down hill again since than.

there's footage of multiple times where saad didn't pick up weightman around defensive stoppage. another time weitering stopped, and hagle kept running for an easy dish and goal.

these are our best and most experienced defenders and they're lapsing off like it's under 15


the mids not being able to go with faster midfields on the spread is another entire problem.


in the entire history of AFL/VFL no team has qualified for finals with a points against as bad as ours (bottom four -ranked 15th) let alone make a gf and win it.

it suggests things around here aren't as good as we think they are, even though we're sitting 2nd.

Buckley on the couch, pulled up a bunch of stats just from the weekend alone. basically saying ruckwork is the most overblown and useless thing in the game.

hitouts to advantage, teams that won them and lost on the weekend. was telling. also in the history of the AFL teams that win hitouts to advantage only have a 49% win record.


for those playing at home. one ruck, tdk bcos he does so much at ground level and it gives us another runner on the bench.

this offseason if we draft more "big bodied", one paced mids. i'll scream. we need wheels on every line.

Yet Carlton still has the 4th best percentage.
This season is bizarre, two wins between 2nd and 13th with just a handful of games to go.

_________________
"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

i wonder why the comp is so close? are we finally seeing the parity they all talked about in the 90's when the draft was implemented for a more even playing field? did it really take 30 years to happen? or is this season just a one off?

interesting i got a really good mate who's a dogs fan.

he says dogs supporters are having the same debates as us right now about their forwardline and how much it functions without Naughton. or more more importantly with only two key forwards. since naughton's injury the dogs are averaging 14 points per game higher, and have scored over 100 two times.

there's talk of trying Darcy back at CHB when naughton returns, bcos the dogs can't apply enough forward pressure with 3 big key talls who aren't anything at ground level and pressure application. and when the ball comes in, they're less congested and far less predictable, which is opening up everything.

they do have weightman though... the benefit of an excellent small forward.


when pittonet plays, if voss just must have first use (only for cerra to fumble it) maybe it's time the coaches thought about moving some magnets?

our defense (espesh without Gov) is quite poor. so who from the tall 3 in the forwardline could go back?

tdk, Harry or charlie? i'd say no to charlie, other than intercept marks, he would do nothing.

We have teams that were supposed to be utter garbage pushing for the eight and last year's premier struggling to even make finals.
My feel is that it's a one off.

As an aside I think the mid-season change in HTB interpretation has probably hurt Carlton the most with our heavy reliance on strong but not quick midfielders. Cripps has been pinged multiple times despite getting a handball away under the new interpretation.

_________________
"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

yeah, this has really hurt us and our team profile. what's the point in big bodied mids if they're not allowed the time (before the whistle blows) to bullock their way thru a pack and extract the ball outside???

As well as Cripps , Walsh also has been slaughtered by the umpires . Sorta different set of rules for Cripps , Walsh , Harry and Charles . The manhandling off the ball they cop is ridiculous .

_________________
All my dangerous friends