Sums it up I reckon.

On a positive note, team defense can be taught. IMO we now have two of the four bookends we need to challenge for a flag, (Jamison and Henderson).

..biggest drawback is not enough, consistent work-rate..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

Totally agree Kahuna.

Our mids aren't putting anywhere near enough defensive pressure on.

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They coud'nt.....could they?

Thought Hendo and Jamo were both fantastic on Sunday. Got put under pressure several times and defended the long ball very well. Don't think Cloke took a mark outside of a few lead ups on his chest which are impossible to stop if the delivery isn't rushed - sadly this is the case many times with opposition entries into our forward line.

Thought of that as well!

The key this week has to be a.) NOT kicking the first three goals AND b.) letting Hawkins kick a bag - if we can achieve both of those, we're certainties!

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

You say that as a joke but that's almost the logic you get around here.

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

ive been hinting it for a while... but id play only one tall forward and a smalller nippier one out of the square

i reckon the tall forwards are starting to be smothered out of effectiveness

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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.

Got a feeling the team still needs practice to perform micks team defense properly.

Seems in the last 3 games including the nab cup we have had sections of games where multiple goals were kicked against then other parts when the opposition can barely score...

Sound like a team still learning to put something in place?

True.

If the plan is to lob it long to the big blokes then you need big blokes.
If the plan is known to the competing coach then his counter plan is to smother the long bomb by gettting 2 on 1 etc
That makes the plan predictable. So we don't want that! Agree

I, like many out there in Carlton land, wonder if MM needs his plan to evolve into something less predictable.
I have no qualms in MM teaching our team how to be a defensive outfit.

Now back to the Ratten plan...the 3 Amigos and Setanta...well Setanta's gone, but yep, we can still have one big fella and many smalls around him.

Usually there's 5 forwards with one named HF playing one man back adding number to mids or loose man in defense:

Walker, Garlett, Yarran, Betts make the 4 Amigos.

Yazz FF
Betts CHF
Garlett HF
Tex FP

Where does the big bloke hang out? What's his role? CHF? Then he pushes out Bettsy..Ok he's injured atm.

The trick is speed and defensive forward pressure followed by the forward press from the entire midfield including rucks....sounds easy....then we should be doing it.

I thought in both games thus far with 5 minutes to go that we were going to win 'em....so we're still in the game and we only need to improve a bit.....something I think we'll do when we aren't carrying novices (kids learning on the job when stakes are high and supporters wont accept a loss because of top 4 offerings), slow (Brock's of this world) or those without a defensive bone in their body (is that our mids...I don't know).

Defense imo is a team thing when playing a team game, enter MM.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

kicking it to talls who arent that good is pretty predictable
kicking it to talls who are good is getting hard enough

but dont kick it to their heads.... its usually 2 on one

check the casboult pic

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Everyone else is going for 3 talls and we want 1......makes sense to me.

but the game is played on the ground.

how many talls arekiicking bags
2nd ruckman is gone with the new rules and a second more mobile ruckman has come in... its a continuation of that

u need one tall marking pack busting forward to bomb it to
and a few smaller fast leading forwards
with teams going with tall defenders u can exploit them i reckon.

there is no need having TWO big forwards who dont impact the score board the statistics or put massive pressure on defenders.

You need runners who will run hard and swarm

at the moment the amount of talls i see going up against 2 defenders is ridiculous and its rare the talls are both smashing the scoreboard

abit like what the bulldogs used to be like.. unpredictabe and swarming the scoreboard from all areas.

abit like us in 1979

i realy dont see too many contested marks taken anymore.

but i do see the need for more runners

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As I said - go and tell Worsfold, Clarkson, Longmire, etc......

i dont need to surrey... i just believe ulltimately clubs willl begin to go there...
ESPECIALLY those that have those Titans Rowe Hammer and Casboult as the go to men.......

id back my creative mind over yours anytime..

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Playing the man again instead of the ball.....yep creative mind indeed.

Would be an interesting set up! I have been thinking lately that obviously it would be nice to have a big forward like Cloke or Buddy but we don't have a big forward like that. I still dont think that should limit us though. Speed is a trait that our forward line has in spades and with speed comes space. I have been thinking recently that we should model our forward line in the mould of the Adelaide Crows of 97 -98. Darren Jarman playing out of the square who was a beautiful lead up forward and kick for goal. I would like to see us try Gibbs in that role, even for a game. Tell Gibbs that he is not to leave the forward 50 and is to lead. We could also use Walker in the same mould, maybe interchange Walker and Gibbs through the middle. I believe that Gibbs has all the skills that Jarman had and Jarman pretty much won Adelaide to premierships single handedly.

Sorry Kade, replace Gibbs with Walker and didn't Ratten setup like this for us last year. How did that go?

and bomb it to eddys head???

nup!!!



im tallking about a rotation walker menzel garlett yarran continegent leading out of the square ..and swarm tackling
with casboult at CHF as the tall option.. but he needs to work bloody hard..
and a Kreuzer roaming around

Collingwood looked better and more balanced with jolly off and lynch rucking and even though cloke did nothing we got smashed by the smalls

going the other way our smalls did the damage and looked more likely.
walker yarran garTlett etc... eddie for casboult or rowe???

2 talls hasnt been working for us... and i doubt it will.. MOST GAMES... sure there will be the odd game the moon will allign... but % say its not our go this year

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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.

You need two talls at least. One is a stay at home for the whole game forward and the other one to relieve the ruckman for a rest.

If you only have one tall forward and one ruckman, who replaces the ruck when he goes off for a bit? Henderson?

Because as you said, gone are the days of playing two ruckmen. You need one tall, one ruck and one tall-cum-ruck.

I'm surprised so many of you are disappointed with our start to the season.

I look at it like this, we've been pretty competitive against a possible top 8 side and lead for 3 quarters against a top 4 side. For a team that's had a new coach come on board and complete change the way we move the ball I think we've actually done not to bad.

I have no expectation with this year. The only thing I wanna see is Mick give most of the boys a chance to prove themselves before he gets the broom out and does a massive clean out.

From what I'm hearing, even our football department will look completely different going into 2014.