I think Buzz made a really good comment in the match day thread before it was locked .. wanted to reply, but will do it here .... He asked whether anyone else noticed how skinny a lot of our boys are compared to the Crows ... and I think that is a valid point. We are still at least a couple of years away from dictating things on the field with a physical presence, which is really important. I think it cost us deeply today.

Have to say the MC and Ratts made some big errors in regards to structure and team. Like Wiggins as a person and Carltonian ... but has to go. I think Ratts needs to put his hand up and say he blew it first quarter ... 4-5 goal wind and no forward structure ... could not believe my eyes at some passages in the first quarter. He did improve in the second half ... Thorton up forward was good while it lasted.

To all those doomsayes that will be out there .... I think we have a winning team here but until thier bodies fill out we will have a few more days like this BUT in my opinion its better to have 2 really hopeless quarters followed by a couple of good ones .. than 4 miserable ones (like against Freo).

If we want to take anything away from this game its that the boys did not hang thier heads drag thier feet and turn it into a fully fledged blowout ... could have been a hell of a lot close if we took our chances when the momentum was with us.

But in the end you cannot give a nine goal lead and expect to win ... just learn from it boys ... we are all tired of losing and want to play in September ... thats where we belong.

PS a grudgingly difficult congrats to Stevens on a great game today ... would be nice to see a lot more of them.

So come on everyone lets stay positive and not turn this thread into negativity central .. it does not good to anyone.

I back it in now that the changes next week will come from Yarran, Austin, Robinson whom I believe should play for the rest of the year to develop.....

Make a hard call ratten and drop Wiggins, Russell, Armfield and Browne before you drop Yarran, Austin or Robbo....

Ahhhhhh !!! also

I think it's time to stop salavating about how good Kruzer, Judd, Murphy and Gibbs are and start worrying about where the next 6 to 8 players are going to come from that will genuinely give us a chance to play in the finals.

Dude why should what you are saying be an over reaction. Look I'll say it again aprt from one elite player and 3 or 4 good players the rest of our list falls into either 1) the passenger group or 2) the kids group. The Kids group can de subdivided into two groups as well...1) the kids with potential group (these we persevere with and develop) and 2) the kids that just wont make it group.

What you will find after dissecting our list in this way is that there isnt really that much there right now. Certainly not to get us anywhere near finals. I was surprised Ratten even put the pressure on himself and said we'd make finals this year. This ridiculous statement may come back to bite him.

I reckon if we break even this year in wins/losses we would have done very well. But the issue is not wins or losses...its about consistency of effort..something we have lacked for over 8 years now. Forget about if we win next week. That will mean nothing. Until we win runs of games in a row...we will not have taken the next important step in our improvement.

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Russell i think.

My take is that the expectations were too high from all of us. I think we were underestimated last year resulting in a couple of unexpected come from behind victories. We may have jumped ahead of ourselves. That applies as much to what happens on the field as in the coaches box.

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"our electorate seeks less to be informed and more to be validated." Sad times.

We don't have the body strength to match it with the physically mature sides. Getting pushed off the ball, failing to stick tackles and getting outmarked one on one are all symptoms of a physically immature list, which is what we have with the number of kids running around out there.

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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

with Waite potentially out for a few, Adam Hartlett, your time is now

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i don't wanna spend my life explaining myself. Either you get it, or you don't- Frank Zappa

Thats the biggest issue so far.

Yes we are smaller in body size
Yes we lack depth
YES we have players that struggle under sustained pressure
Yes it is like the Australian Cricket Side, harder to get in than get out

BUT our structure and run compared to ther sides is extremely poor and never allows us to get any consistent attacking flow.

Even in our wins this year (apart form Richmond) we have never taken the game on and attacked and backed ourselves. We are very stagnate and slow and look to be playing under too many instructions.

Browne to start. After two goals I think, Russell moved onto him.

Why? So we can get slower?

A really good post this one. Spot on. By the way, Gibbs hasn't yet qualified for that group and from what I saw of his disposal today still has a way to go. He also lacks the intensity of Krueze and Murph.

Judd has little influence today and we get pumped. That's it in a nutshell...we are not as close as what a lot of people on here think we are. Lots of work to do regarding our list...lots.

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Our next premiership will be in Division 2 during the 2019 season. We will be promoted to division 1 but demoted again in 2021.

There will be a war.

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Blame for today’s game should go to both the coach and the players. As a coach it is difficult to do much when your players haven’t actually turned up to play. I don’t know whether they expected Adelaide to apply no pressure or thought their team mate would do all the work, but you can’t turn up to games with that sort of attitude.

You have to ask what causes a group of players to turn up to a game with such a pathetic attitude? There was little chasing, a lack of hardness at the ball and an unwillingness to provide an option for team mates.

I think most supporters although upset at a loss wouldn’t be that pissed off as long as the team’s effort was there. The effort in today’s first half was pathetic.

Then it comes to the ‘tactics’ we employed today. Firstly, if we had the ball in defence from a kickout or from a kick out on the full, we simply had no one to kick to. A player was forced to bomb the ball long to a contest in the hope that we would mark it, win the crumb or force a throw in/ball up. Surely there is something in place to try to bring the ball out of defence quickly while maintaining possession. I realise our players aren’t the best decision makers but if you are going to try to do something other than bomb the ball up the line then you take risks and run the ball via handball…if you turn it over you cop it, but you know the players will learn from having pressure applied. We appear to have a gameplan based on mark-kick mark-kick. Only when we are behind do we actually take risks and run the ball through the middle. We might not have the cattle to hit the targets but its another way to score…playing this kick-mark game when teams zone against us won’t get us anywhere. We’ve seen this time and time again. In the second half we decided to take risks and scored more freely. How can you expect to win games with such slow ball movement allowing the opposition to flood back?

We still have players making schoolboy errors…Gibbs kickout, Austin kicking it out on the full on the wing, Russell kicking it out on the full, Jamison kicking into the man on the mark. I don’t mind if they make a skill error taking a risk or when they are under pressure, but all of these skill errors were made under very little pressure.

Then there was the forward line structure. I like Fev leading up the ground to make us less predictable and the loss of Waite didn’t help, but surely today he was pushed too far up the ground? It was OK last week against pathetic opposition, but against a team like Adelaide which love to have numbers back (Stevens, Otten and Goodwin today) you have to do something else. So with this structure when we did get the ball we bombed it in leaving Goodwin, Otten and Stevens to sweep up the crumbs. Due to this structure there was very little defensive pressure. We know Eddie and Robinson apply defensive pressure but how could they do that when they were up on the wing?

To the positives, I thought Kreuzer was very good once again in the ruck even though he was often double teamed at throw ins. One mark on the wing was Kernahanesque where he just charged out and took the mark. Paul Bower was our best player. Some say he had a slow start to the year, but since then his form has been incredible. He defends well but then follows up and runs it out of defence…he takes risks. He might look like he’ll turn it over but he doesn’t. Austin gets another game, it looks like we are backing him in which is good. He made two mistakes, one of which was unacceptable (the out on the full.) The other was when the ball was bombed inside 50 and he tried to outmark Dangerfield. Sure he’s taller than him but your first instinct as a defender should be to punch. Joseph’s job on McLeod was exceptional. McLeod had 18 possessions but you can’t say he had any impact on the game. In a milestone game for Joseph to shut him down was terrific. You know he had his mind on the job from the first bounce, and will have his mind on the job every week unlike many of his team mates. Yarran struggled with the pressure early like many of his team mates but his skills were on show in the second half. Unlike many of his team mates you know when he has possession more often than not he will pick the right option and hit the target. He also did a lot of unrewarded running today so hopefully his team mates have more faith in him next time. Simpson took risks in the second half with is run…I’m not sure why his run isn’t there from the beginning? Fev with little support was fairly good, the only thing was his goal kicking. Kicked 1 goal 5 and missed two very gettable goals from set shots which would have made things interesting. Have to give

Average games from Gibbs, Murphy and Judd, although Adelaide’s tactic from the start was to smash into Judd at every opportunity. Do you think Judd got any protection? Gibbs got a bit of it in the second half but his skills were poor…why does he always look sideways? He’s on track to kick less goals than last year because he’s at half back all the time. It must be an instruction from Ratten to have him at that spot but surely he’d be better kicking it inside 50. Murphy doesn’t pay enough respect to his opponent…sure he’s a gun when he wins the ball but he still needs to be accountable. Also his attempt on goal running inside 50…why would you kick the ball along the ground to give it a chance to bounce anywhere but the goal? You remove the chances of it bouncing sideways and kick the ball through…don’t try to be tricky.

I love Armfield’s enthusiasm but I’m not sure how we will be successful with him in the team when he continually turns the ball over. He was at half back and tried to kick off the left but slewed off the side of the boot, under very little pressure. He uses his pace to get into space and then turns it over. What good is it having that pace if you can’t deliver the most important kick, the kick inside 50? There is little to suggest that his kicking is going to improve.

Richard Hadley seems a protected species on TC…the man who is going to block for Judd. The man who will win effective clearances. We don’t see much evidence of it. Since the start of the year he’s been very poor and looks very slow. So with his lack of pace I’m not sure he can be accountable against inside midfielders who can cover the ground better.

The man to replace him will be Shaun Grigg – he wins the hard ball but also has the ability to hit targets and play in an outside role. He has more versatility than Hadley, he can play as a defensive half forward as we saw last year on H Shaw. He can play as an attacking link man from half back, but he can also add that grunt in the middle that we need while bringing other players into the game.

Wiggins again as a late in provided very little. He got an opportunity and didn’t take it. He had to lead up the ground as an option but he didn’t He was put into the centre square at the start of the third qtr and provided some grunt in there but that isn’t going to do.

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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

JR - should meet the same fate as his namesake in dynasty - get dropped ASAP!!!

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one you knock back is one you never have

if form for the bullants warrants promotion. was just thinking that we'll need another big body down back. and i'd like to see what Harts has to offer. we still dont really know

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i don't wanna spend my life explaining myself. Either you get it, or you don't- Frank Zappa

Thank you.

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Watched the game with Blue Sombrero and we made the call in the first five minutes kicking with the breeze and fev was getting the ball on the HBF. We couldn't win!!!

am so angry with that effort. very very pathetic. at least three who should go - russell, hadley, armfield. And can the MC explain our tactics today?

think of the draft picks??

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one you knock back is one you never have

I agree with at least four of the five and you can add a few because of age.

We have gone well beyond the need to win individual games against sides we match up well against. Even having Judd around the place can't turn 'foot-soldiers' into accomplished players. We have overestimated our own abilities and underestimated the opposition.

We have no game plan but we have also continued to underestimate the 'meat' of the draft. Too much mucking with regards to players who can 'give service' and not enough attention to team structure.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.