Hard to fault Livo today. There was one errant handball but otherwise his disposal was acceptable.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Livo - looked liked he belonged...very solid
Thornton - a star
Walker - gave Mcleod a bath
Fevola - one of the best game I have ever seen him play. absolutely chased his arse off when we didn't have the ball
Carazzo - will play 150 games plus for the Blues
Nick Stevens - give him the B&F now

Negatives - we need to get some midfielders

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Go Blues

I didn't think it was a good post match conference by Pagan at all.

I'm sick of Pagan referring to the draft penalties. We are in a different position to the rest of the teams because we were caught out being serial cheats…… end of story!!! Whether other teams did it or not is irrelevant. Last year his line was always "well you get inconsistent performances from young lists", this year it's "no one fully understands the impact of the draft penalties". It's all rubbish - we understand it well enough! Just get on with DP - you don't need to keep saying it - we all know (and the football world) the predicament we are in.

One part of the conference I liked was the fact he mentioned Walker's performance - was good to see him go into bat for the guy.

Pickle, whether you like it or not DP gets asked the same old questions every week, which deserve the same responses. You know how DP isn't thje most forthcoming, he's quite cliched really, but he gets the same old questions. There ain't much else he can say.

When Denis gets asked about whether the draft penalties affect our performance Denis should say ...
"Of course not!
We`re Carlton we have never relied on draft picks in the past and we will never rely on draft picks!
..our supporters dont want them... we have some fantastic footballers some real stars and a heap of leadership to take us into the next decade"

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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.

He has given the season away and is playing the kids and looking for the draft picks including the priority...I think he is giving the supporters the realistic state of affairs and telling them to stick fat and not expect too much...fair enough approach IMHO..

Molsey you are right, with the quality of Aust sports journalists I’m sure he does get the same questions each week – I just feel he needs to ignore any reference to the draft penalties. We have to move on and forget about it.

Yup, and reading between the lines he's telling the media don't beat us up too much over the next 12 weeks because we need this and they all know it. Not because of 2002, but because we needed it in 2002 and we didn't get it. But we've done our time now so just lay off us and give us a chance.

Well Said Pickle.

The change in Denis' attitude (publicly at least) towards the draft penalties and the effect it's had on the club first appeared when the AFL was looking into removing the priority picks from this year's draft. As a result of those comments there's been discussion within the football community defending the need for them and the outcry that might occur if Carlton finally qualified for one only to see the rules changed the very same year. Eddie McGuire, who's wanted them scrapped for ages, shut his gob when he realised that he could be costing his club an elite young player.

That the journo's are still asking the question even though the issue's been settled isn't surprising - they can usually only handle one new idea a month - but I think if Denis was being honest about his intentions then I think it's fair to say there was a bit of politics being played over the last few weeks.

Good post. I think that you can read quite easily into Denis' comments that we will be finishing near the bottom this year. Orchistrated by 'giving the kids a go', and maybe regularly having the kids duel in the centre bounce during the season.

What will be interesting is if we are sitting on five wins in round 21 or 22.. Expect to see an avalanche of kids in the side.

Everyone knows what he is doing.

After 22 rounds:

Look the veterans are tired and we thought it would be good to give the young kids a reward for playing in the Bullants pretty much all season.

We wanted to see how Jordy Russell went on a wing...

I mean Camporeale ran his arse off this year; by the end of the year he knew every single player's arse after he received so many handballs by running behind them.

Whitnall's just tired, he ran hard all season.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Stick Fat......send chills down the spine, circa 2002

The problem with Dennis Pagan is that he has the same initials as the dreaded Draft Penalties. It's no coincidence that as soon as Pagan got the job we lost all our draft picks.

We should have got a coach with different initials, like ...

FP (Full Pardon)
or
FF (Forgive and Forget)
or
SW (Smack on the Wrist)

My advice to the match commitee is to sack Pagan and find a coach with one of the above initials and then appoint them immediately. Then sit back and watch our luck change.

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Number 17 - come on down!

And the "CAPTAINCY"

If Kouta isn't winning the B&F I'll spew!

I've heard him talk about the draft penalties for 2.5 years after every major loss and he will keep saying it. Although your version sounds like your own media beatup!

It's not that he hasn't mentioned draft penalties previously - he used to say that he doesn't worry about the things he can't control and dismissed it. That appears to have changed over the last couple of months as he's talked about how much they've hurt the club. As pointed out by someone else it's not the coach who asks the questions at a press conference. If the media ask him about them he answers them. His answers seem to have shifted this year. Perhaps it's a coincidence that that happened right around the time there was discussion about remove the priority pick.

Make of it what you will.

David Parkin ??

Draft picks weren't a problem after the Wizard Cup win!

BTW, we don't deserve early picks if we are going to waste them in negating roles... I haven't seen Cooney, Deledio etc. play as a tagger.

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Patrick Smith - Just another reason to HATE Essendon*!