so did the makeshift marketing department at the Carlton football. I believe the same guy who puts together the videos for carlton TV came up with the marketing slogan.

And the beat goes on.

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“It is a state of mind, a system of belief, a way of seeing the world, a deep faith that, because you are Carlton, you belong to something great.” - Mike Fitzpatrick articulating what Out of the Blue means.

Good article - A belting does not make the Blues a basket case - Rohan Connolly.

A good article by Rohan Connolly ( which in a week of shocks is yet another one).

There is, believe it or not some good that has come out of the events of last week. 1. The end of John's rehabilitation within the club. He has by his own actions finally put to rest any ambitions he had re the board or the Presidency.
2. The ending of the unrealistic expections of many supporters within the club. The plan for the year was to continue improving and make the lower end of the eight. And despite the belting by Adelaide and Essendon* ( and yes it hurt) we are doing that.

Now on to Freo and payback.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Absolutely .... at last some sanity.

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I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!!

Exactly, some of the stuff on here this week has been absolutely pathetic, these "supporters" ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Giving up on the season when were still in the 8

Yep .. a few people need tranquilizers. The over reaction has been outrageous.

We could afford to lose a few supporters to Richmond or Stkilda.

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I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!!

And Connolly's a Bombers fan, from memory.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

After the darkness of the last 8 years even just scraping into the 8 is good on a couple of levels - in that our young team gets to play a final and we supporters get a taste of things to come - having said that we should not be happy or satisfied with that because we are Carlton and we should always be striving for the finals and the top echelon of the ladder

In any case our best performances means we have a chance on any given day against WB Collingwood Brisbane or even Essendon* in the finals - the dam wall will break with the bummers shortly and what an oportunity to take down their smugness and that of their captain in a final

Friday night was diabolical but performances the 2 weeks before gives rise to optimism

.....flogging a dead horse. they've sold 43,000 memberships. It's not up to the marketing man to manage expectations re the performance of the team. he's done his job.

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"I had to eat"

Exactly, if we played finals next week we'd be up against the Lions (up there, but we just recently passed that test). Beat them and we'd probably end up playing Collingwood or the Dogs at the 'G - both of whom we have easily accounted for this season. Win that one and you're looking at a Prelim Final against... the Saints? A team we ran to 9 points two weeks ago.

Christ, given our record against those sides if we played finals next week I wouldn't be surprised to see us end up in a @#$%&! Grand Final... (only to be thrashed by the Cats).

We sucked on Friday. It's fair to say. But we've been mightily inconsistent this year, so I'm not as shocked as some might be.

But we beat Collingwood by a similar margin, and on the weekend they beat Freo by a similar margin again and Freo beat us last time we played them. We beat the Eagles here and they beat the Hawks at home who pipped us earlier in the season.

The margin between winning and losing has never been tighter. And the way Footy is played these days means that sides will have days when it all goes wrong and you lose by 10 goals. Half the top 8 have had that happen to them this season.

You got to expect inconsistency from a young side.

Also, yeah we have Judd and 3 Number 1's - so what? The rest of the list is still developing, they cant carry the team over the line every single week. Comparing us to how bad we were in the Pagan era Id say we are moving in the right direction.

Ratten said were aiming to make the 8, were still in the 8 with 9 rounds to go and a favorable run home. When was the last time we were in this position? Think a little bit people, we have a long way to go but weve also come a long way from the Pagan era.....and I stress again, the Essendon* game was a tough one, they are better than people on here realise, its easy to write them off because we hate them, but they have a promising future and were going to have some cracking games in the next decade.

If we miss out on the 8 then we can start to question Ratten's future, but dont go expecting the club to sack him and give him a payout till halfway through the next season at least, thats if we go backwards.

I just cant understand how people can be qutitters and are writing off the season when were still in the 8, Id hate to know how you handle problems in the real world....

I agree 100% with you BM....God I feel dirty now.

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The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect
So hard to earn, so easily burned
In the fullness of time
A garden to nurture and protect

#DopeThenStash

i did a ladder predictor today that had us finishing 8th

and the way the finals panned out it put us against our bitches in pies,lions and dogs then st kilda in the GF

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

I think one positive to come out of this (and BM already touched on this) is that the unrealistically high expectations of some supporters have now been lowered. Some supporters have expected us to finish top 4 this season and those expectations were raised even higher by the games against St. Kilda and Hawthorn.

The fact is that until we get the following we won't be at that level:

1. Another one or two Key Postion Forwards so that we're not completely reliant on Fev, either that or another CHB so that Waite can be moved down forward.
2. We need to get rid of the deadwood (Stevens, Bannister etc.) and give some of our younger talent an opportunity
3. An experienced assistant coach who can help Ratts develop the tactical side of his coaching so that we're not being out coached each week.

So be patient! Until we get those things we aren't going to be a powerhouse, just enjoy watching the boys develop and look forward to when we get to the level where we can have a serious premiership challenge.