if you want a flag, cripps as captain and in his prime is route 1 to get there. the window is open for 2025, of that i'm certain. progressively adding and developing speed into the team will be the long game, and in that time we'll watch guys decline & retire

harry isn't anything to worry about trading. a flighty and conditional forward, who's best is amazing, but you only get it a dozen games a season. or only in bunches during a game. he disappears.

regardless of tuning the gameplan for more run and carry and chaos. we need a mid who can break the lines and take a freaking bounce - none of mids took a bounce out of congestion this season. just one will do. then cerra becomes the 5th banana and walsh can even go to the wing.

we need to get a classy and pacey mid, and harry is the guy who brings him to us.

gws gets by with just hogan, swans barely even have a key forward, cats and cameron etc and we can more than get by with charlie. we don't need 2 full forwards for a flag, but we do need an A+ mid to pair with cripps in 2025.

and the judd trade?

he came at a time when our list was woeful, and we'd gone however many seasons without draft picks. we didn't have a window then, let alone it being open. that's an apples and oranges argument.

our 2025 window is open and we can win a flag. we need to be aggressive about it, is all.

change the gameplan to run over long bombs. get an A+ mid and draft the best small forward in the draft, move up if we have to.

Do we normally do MVP threads for finals?

Went to the gym this morning, happened to be there at the same time as a couple of other Carlton supporters I know.
Flat as!

the challenge with your approach Braithy is that it suggests its boom or bust with our current list ie if we don't win one in the next couple of years we are done.

im not quite there. despite our current disappointment, we are much better positioned as club than we were 3 or 4 years ago....and that gives me confidence that we will always find or develop another champion.

yes, I do want us to get the most of the talent we have now - which at the top end is elite - however, don't trade out a key talent to bring in a key talent.

the options you've put forward - if I understand them correctly - call for trading Harry or Walsh for one of butters, petracca, smith. this simply robs Peter to pay Paul. its a short term strategy.

of the remaining 6 teams, any key pillars tbrought in are via picks as opposed to key players......e.g Cameron, Daniher, grundy, hogan.

we have a couple of holes in our list (for me its a Key back, and explosive mid and a dynamic mid forward)......

the great clubs, don't give up their assets (sure there are some exceptions), they trade smart and build.

no, no ... just harry for a mid, keep walsh & we move him to wing/ outside mid. trade cerra if you need to package him into an A+ mid.


harry is expendable bcos we have the best FF in the comp, charlie. and harry has enormous currency. we have to pay, to play.

We can agree to disagree

Get another mid in - yes, trade picks and not a key player. Something bold about Geelong I respect ie they don’t give up talent

Collingwood supporting ex-coworker (his Facebook profile has "Madpie" as his middle name) seems to have enjoyed Carlton losing on the weekend more than he enjoyed Collingwood winning the flag last year.
Weird.

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"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

The mindset to go nearly a half without scoring in perfect conditions seems to represent a losing condition this collection of players and coaches may not be able to solve.

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Green Shooter

They're a weird bunch. Still obsessed with us.

Looks like we had a loser mindset and zero belief from before the bounce. Terrible that we didn't turn up for a final.

I was so angry after the match I walked all the way along the river to the CBD to cool off and wind down. Along the way I got some sympathy from a Collingwood supporter who had also been at the match, that’s when I really hit rock bottom.

agree. wish we never made the finals, tbh

Disagree.
Getting embarrassed on the big stage needs to be the catalyst to review everything the club is doing. Injury management, team selection, match day tactics. Nowhere to hide from that first half.

Just missing out would just let the club say "we're not that far off, just need luck with injury etc etc".

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"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

At my kids school they play music before the bell so the kids go and line up.

This morning it was the Lions theme song.

I live in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne where everyone is either Chinese and doesn't care about sport, or barracks for Hawthorn.

Ya flower kidding me.

Guarantee the person on staff who manages the bell is a Collingwood supporter. Having said that, Essendon* is disproportionately represented amongst teachers, so I wouldn't count that out either.

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"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 , above the shoulders for sure . After the Cats game we were equal Flag favourites . And we had injury concerns at that time . Its not like we had a full list . Equal Flag favourites with a slapped together makeshift team ffs . And then we dish up probably the worst half of football I can recall in seventy years of following our Club . Something aint right in Denmark .

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All my dangerous friends

of this, we can be certain of. there's a disconnect, or some raging incompetence going on somewhere in the club.

the clueless faces among the coaches in the qtr-time huddle is something burned into my brain.

Agreed. Get some high-quality digital photos of Bears players laughing at us throughout the first half. Paste them all over the walls of IKON Park. Spam the players' phones with them. Feed the rage.

With the dust settled, I'm also more on board with the idea of seeking continual improvement over the coming years, not a complete tear down and rebuild. The latter approach would likely see us give up too many assets too cheaply, and Tasmania + random AFL makey-uppey bullshit will destroy draft capital.

We need to do what Geelong do. Debut 3 kids a year & give them game time, whether you're pressing for a flag that year or not.

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#DonTheStash