Headcutter wrote:
ROB'S RANT........ (Best to read this in conjunction with last weeks rant)
What I saw today has left me disillusioned. I am not upset but I am certainly angry. Today I saw a rotten rancid carcass of a football club that is so putrid that not even the circling vultures want to pick the morsels off the lifeless skeleton. I saw a club that is mentally so weak and defeated that trying to see a glimer of hope seems impossible. I thought we had reached rock bottom last week but I was wrong, I hope this is rock bottom but knowing this club not even that can be guaranteed.
Let me be 100% clear when I say that I am not surprised by the result.
- Yes I tipped Carlton to win but i did so with no confidence and I predicted it would be a close game. Within 15 minutes of the first quarter I changed my tip and confidently announced Melbourne would win by 5 goals.
Some will say that I was being pessimistic BUT I would argue that I was being realistic and here is why - It is impossible to play as badly as we did last week against the Dons and then just expect to flick a switch and start playing good football. Sure Melbourne are no Essendon** and the truth is they are not very good but neither are we. All week I listened to cocky Blues fans and the media talk about how "at least we play Melbourne this week" it reminded me of Saints fans before the 93 grand final. It seems all fans and most likely the players had pencilled this in as a win and no need to give the effort required to play let alone win a game of footy, had they forgotten the ineptitude they saw 6 days earlier??. The other reason we lost is that our gameplan is fatally flawed (as explained last week) and our players are simply not good enough.
Last week the coach, players and president came out and told us we were going to see a much better performance this week than the rubbish we saw last week but we got exactly the same, the only difference was the quality of the opposition which made the game close. Where was the intensity? where was the venom and aggression? where was the flair??.
THE PLAYERS:
The playing list is under skilled, undersized and lacks creativity but that is not the worst part. The worst part is how pathetically mentally weak they are.
What I saw today was embarrassing our players are constantly remonstrating with the umpire they are either playing for frees (Murph, Yarran in particular) or they and whinging about frees for or against. Here is a news flash try channeling some of that energy into actually playing the game.
The players lack heart/endevour/passion - Nobody except Kade simpson is actually prepared to do the hard running. When a player gets possession there is nobody presenting for him or creating space, when opposition has the ball nobody wants to chase, there are no 1%ers, there are very few "selfless acts". This is a group of lazy individuals NOT worthy of being called a team. DONT TELL ME THEY ARE NOT FIT ENOUGH!!! only 2 months ago the club trumpeted about how amazing Arizona was and how all players were smashing PBs during preseason. This means it is all about LACK OF TICKER, LACK OF GUTS, LACK OF PASSION and that is worse than any lack of fitness because there is no simple fix for it!!
- I am not going to pull any punches so lets name names:
** Marc Murphy - Generally I am a big fan of his but he is an insipid captain and doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as other team captains (selwood, pendles, Jones, Watson, Ward, Roo etc..). He couldn't handle a hard tag yet again from Nathan Jones who managed to gather nearly 30 possessions himself. Murph consistantly avoids stepping up to kick the "captains goal" (perfect example when he handballed to Yarran under pressure instead of slotting a simple shot from 25m).
** Gibbs - His value is dropping faster than a dotcom share. He MUST be removed from our list (for appropriate compensation). The best we can hope for is the Crows are stupid enough to take him as restricted free agent and we get a compensation pick (first round). The lacksidasical attitude can no longer be tolerated. I bet the Crows and Port are losing interest in him by the minute.
** Carrazzo, Scotland - Both too old and simply not good enough anymore. Both refused to stand up today and are not part of our future plans. Thanks for years of service but "father time" has caught up.
** Daisy Thomas - I want a Refund!. What an overpriced piece of rubbish. - Can't kick, cant handball and has lost his burst of speed. I always said that Daisy could be Malthouse's defining decision: if it worked he would look like genius but if it didn't work, well I guess MM looks like what he does right now. The reality is Daisy is probably a very good player hampered by a terrible foot injury but that is irrelevant to the discussion, the fact is he is not up to AFL standard. If MM is true to his word he MUST drop Daisy.
** Walker - Lacks leadership of an 11 year veteran and the fundamental errors especially with kicking are killing us. I like his endevour but it is for little avail when the kick goes straight to the opposition. Same could be said for Jamo
** Rowe - Worst player in the AFL -FACT
** Touhy - Not good enough has no drive and seems at sea every time the ball is in his vicinity. (ditto for Everitt)
COACH AND GAMEPLAN:
Mick Malthouse (MM) said last week to the media "I pray it was a one off" ....... he "PRAYS"????? If Ratten had said that he would have been torn from limb to limb by the media and every Carlton supporter. Well guess what Mick.... your praying did not work (Huge shock!!!) As a senior coach your job is not to pray but to find solutions to problems and you have not achieved it so that is a massive fail. Your job is to devise a gameplan that is not only good in theory but can be executed effectively by the players at your disposal. Playing a possession game and hugging the boundary DOES NOT WORK with our poorly skilled players.
You have taken all the creativity out of our players and they play like shoddily made robots. They are obviously following team orders but their avoidance of using the centre corridor is killing the team and the supporters. Your plan for stoppages and centre clearances is laughable (or non existent). Your kick out strategy after a behind is befitting of an under 9s footy coach (apologies to my junior footy coaching colleagues) - the only strategy is the short kick 20m to a player in the pocket or the play on and kick to a contest at 50m. Every opposition coach has worked out this plan already and just floods their players wide and hence the tactic rarely works. For some variety USE THE CORRIDOR!!!
The moment that was symbolic for me was in the last qtr when Scotland marked the ball 50m out near the boundry and 6 Carlton players stood stationary behind him, not one player ran on too provide an option. Those players that were in the midfield dashed wide towards the boundary and dragged their opponents with them heaven forbid someone run to the corridor and the forwards just waved their arms (not leading) 75metres away along the boundary. - Scotland had no option other than to turn the ball over.
The players don't run hard enough when they have the ball to create a loose player so a posession game will never work!! The switch kick is too slow and loses too much field position - so scrap it!!!! The 1m handball looking for the overlap player is not working because the handball misses the target and the supposed overlap player is stationary........ SHIT I am just repeating myself (see last 5 Rob's Rants)...... I give up !!!!!
A total of 39 Long Kicks in a game - Evidence that the gameplan is rubbish.
7 Goals against the "leakiest" defence in the competition is just embarrassing not to mention 3 inside 50 marks!.
Your decision to move Murph to deep forward to try and drag Jones out of the game was appalling, if Murph is a mid fielder teach him how to beat a tag and leave him in the middle, he has never been a goal kicker in fact he actively avoids kicking a goal!
The decision to drop Waite is inexcusable! Waite is flawed and out of form but he is still a target and would have been valuable at either end today.
WHERE TO FROM HERE???????
I dont have all the answers but I guess that's why I am not a "Super Coach". Here's a back to basics theory - Flog the absolute suitcase out of the boys on the training track this week. I dont give a shit about "recovery" "sports science" "team meetings" "player conferences" or any other new age bullshit. Do it Robert Walls style and bring in some pain to teach the players that this kind of shit is unacceptable and no excuse will be tolerated.
Swing the axe on players like Carrazzo, Scotland, who are too old and simply not good enough aymore. Put a line through Rowe's name. Drop Daisy and work out whether he will ever be able to kick and if not send him off for yet another operation - No player gets a game purely based on reputation!.
Play the kids and only kids - Temay, Docherty, Giles, Holman etc.. I dont care if they havent shown much in the 2s their teammates have shown nothing in the seniors. 2015 Starts now!!!
Pour time and resources into recruiting and look to only recruit kids next year. Start lining up trades to secure top 30 draft picks - aim for 3 picks in top 20 including Gibbs compensation pick.
No top up players - DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT Frawley!!!
Board and coach must come out and announce we are in a rebuild and it will be a long tough painful road and short cuts will not be made. Institute a full review of the club - Board, Coach, players, Recruiting, Development etc.. Bring in independant panel of experts to oversee it much like Geelong did 8 years ago.
An immediate and public review of Mick Malthouse's position - Yes he will be offended and grumpy BUT he is no less to blame than the players so no easy let off.
How did the board get it so wrong re; our "premiership window"??? If they got it so wrong then surely we cannot believe them when they tell us we have the best coach for the job (rebuild or not).
Positives:
Simpson as always
Cripps playing first game
Curnow tried hard.
More too come........
Ok now I have listened to Mick's press conference and I am even angrier than before. On the positive side he has clearly been told by people at Carlton to improve his behaviour at the press conference and has done so to some degree.
The trotting out of useless stats like clearances and hard ball gets etc.. was really clutching at straws and not really relevant. Ratten used to love quoting stats after a loss and got crucified for it.
Telling us players "busted their guts" is laughable, and then playing the injury card was pathetic..
The quote that "I'm not going to start second guessing myself b/c all of a sudden we are zip and four" - For F*#Ks sake!!!! If now is not the time to start second guessing yourself when is the time?? We have played 15 terrible quarters of football this year start second guessing!!!!!
I need to hear him talk about rebuild before I can take him seriously
Well done
Sadly, on current evidence, nothing is going to change. Carlton Football Club will crash is a sea of ugly egos. If people think this is as low as it can go....
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