Welcome to finals footy lads. You failed your first test.

_________________
WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

The crows sat Henschell in front of Fev and he stopped leading so we went buffalo girl.
Fev is the cure and the disease.
Crows love numbers back to run, so we went man on man and crowded our own forward line and opened up theirs in one action. The problem is we have what seems a very predictable structure forward line and no talent to do it with other than the most selfish footballer bar 'the Sniper' . Waitey is deeply missed and so is the Fisher role (when he was in form).
Why didn't we try Walks, F@ck even Wiggins up there? We seem to have nobody who is not a glacier who can play a bit tall inside 50.
Coach(es) and players still with L plates on.

_________________
Green Shooter

Spot on. The minute they dropped a loose man in defence I knew we were gonna be in for a tough day, even though we were well ahead. We never know wtf to do when teams do this to us.

Make no mistake people, this was really a 90+ point loss.

_________________
WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

The amount of run they got from defence - McLeod etc - linking handballs etc - was phenomenal.

Our forward line pressure was not there- much better to have one effective tackle as opposed to three guys rushing to ineffectively tackle one bloke, leaving two free to keep the chain of handballs.


If they are shooting for goal - tackle around the waist/upper legs. if trying to get handball out - tie them up -tackling is the key, as we put no pressure on them. Garlett and Eddie would have been useful today.

I normally watch the game from a wing. Today I watched it from behind the goals and from here you get a good appreciation at how well drilled Adelaide are. The have alot of natural runners unlike us and their game plan is built around this strength. When they rebound from the backline they resemble a rugby team surging forward in numbers. Their players fan out and are prepared to run that bit harder to take a receive wider which then gives them time and space to kick the ball ... our players are like magnets and run too close to their team mate with the ball which then puts them closer also to opposition players. They rotate the loose man in the backline and this confused us.

We can learn alot from this game. If I was Brett Ratten I would with the aid of my assistants watch this game over and over and over this summer to get a strong feel for their off the ball movements and how they launch their attacks.

In order to beat Brisbane next week our midfield needs to work alot harder at running the other way instead of running to receive and racking up the possessions.

To think that I was absolutely spewing this morning that I had to work today. Loved the score line in the first quarter, and then my whole world seemed to dissolve into some red and yellow nightmare.

I'm sure we will lift next week. Well.. we have to as that kind of effort will not win us a game in September. As other people have said, we've had a finals like experience now in the lead up. It cost a home final but we still get to play next week.

Disappointed, but I know I'm going to love this week, knowing that we are still in it.

_________________
I would like to thank Collingwood for helping me keep faith in my old man. He always told me that 'People are thick'.

Nothing to do with forward pressure if all your effort is for nought once the ball gets outside the 50... midfield pressure was useless. I was in awe of how Adelaide routinely slotted goals from basic turnovers in their forward 50 and goals from centre clearances straight through the middle.

Why? Not enough of our midfield fought for the ball, and the same number failed to chase.

I repeatedly said through the week we need to introduce another attacking option, and sacrifice some run for a little height. When the umpiring decisions weren't falling our way because we couldn't compete with their marking strength, what little fight there was through the middle of the park completely died.

Bunch of front-running, pansy little shits who won't run the other way until it's too late. Too busy @#$%&! back-pedalling into no-man's land in some arbitrary shitful zone that achieves nothing but open up a shot from 45 m out for the opposition.

The EXACT bullshit we served up to Essendon* twice this year. WHY PLAY THAT WAY? What, to any of the playing group, the staff, any one at any level of the club says letting them have a ping is a good plan?

Bunch of @#$%&! ingrates.

_________________
29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

We shouldn't have allowed them to have the loose man out of their defence and so much run out of their defence.

For example - Who was on McLeod?

We should have tagged him - not allowed him any run. Imagine if you put Judd on McLeod - that would definitely have confused the tagger who was on Judd, but also weakened our midfield. Probably wouldn't have worked but anything was worth a try in favour of watching that debacle.

Another one in the midfield rotation? Betts... anything, as Murphy and Judd weren't flash hot.

I think the number 1 disappointment was the kick outs from defence - switch it to the other side or go down the boundary line. The speculator kick to centre half forward was kicked back every time as they were still in their zone....just a humiliating match to watch.

I watched it on TV so it is hard to see what is happening around the ground (off the ball) which I believe you can measure how good we are going.

What I did notice was there were too many Carlton players happy to run with Adelaide and not put body pressure on. Therefore when they advanced forward we had very little pressure on them which made it a shoot out.

Intensity is the key to finals. Hard at the ball and the team with the most "effective" tackles which cause a turn over, will win the game.

I am hoping the team took it easy on purpose No point risking injury.

_________________
Delulio is a member of TISM

I agree and stand the mark- not 3 metres behind it. Make them walk the five metres backward to ensure that slows them down.

Another thing I noticed with Adelaide is that when they stood the mark they went 2 metres over the mark until the umpire called them back...ie in the contest when both running for ball -opponent marks... at that initial time they cheat the mark, not 5 seconds later when you risk getting a 50 metre paid against you.

THUD!

Our game plan was a disaster - kicks-ins...in Rd 22...

Midfield defense was non-existent - not sure some of the senior players were committed

_________________
I need some new conspiracy theories; all my others have come true.

Stevens was.

_________________
That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

I noticed this too. It's a tactic taken to a new level last year by the 'unsociable' Hawks. For me, I think the umpires (and the Rules Committee) have been hoodwinked here. Giving a couple of 50-metre penalties early in the game would soon put a stop to it.

That's what makes Craig such a good coach. He's an astute observer and will appropriate other side's successful tactics. Witness how he's harnessed the Saints 'forward defensive push' after they smashed the Crows earlier in the year.

Of course, he's got the talent to be able to do these things. We're doubly damned - Ratts is still learning and doesn't really have the prize bulls in the barn.

_________________
Most users ever online was 271 on Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:50 pm

One item of interest out of the game was how Adelaide have built their side. Rutten, Bock and Porplyzia were late rookie picks (40,25,29).
Otten(27) Knights(56), Maric(40), McKay(48), Vince(32) van Berlo(24) Tippet(32) Shirley (56) were all middling picks.

This is not a drafting bash. I think we've drafted quite well and the Crows have had their share of high draft pick duds (LA !!), but it does illustrate that if you swap middling draft picks for injury prone (Saddo) or not good enough (Chambers) players, you will sometimes miss a diamond in the rough. Also getting guys through the PSD is usually a waste of time and list space

The other observation is that Houla looks very slow and perhaps last years hip injury has slowed him up. Our older running players Scotto and Stevo weren't bad but looked on the wrong side of the hill, whereas Edwards, Goodwin and McLeod are just ageless.

Watching a few replays of the birdman mark....

Should have been a free paid to Kruise for hands in the back/push out from Tippett.... Free kick was there before the mark.

_________________
31-3-2015 - R.I.P AFL, corrupted lying pricks
12-5-2015 - Go WADA
18-8-2015 - Suffer Hird* u lying flower
12-1-2016 - CAS goes bang, happy new year.. Drugcheats forever..

_________________
There's so much I could say...

Apart from Fev's Coleman it was the only other highlight in the game.

_________________
Click here to follow TalkingCarlton on twitter
TalkingCarlton Posting Rules

FWIW...

[youtube]yE6ad--g4n4[/youtube]

_________________
Click here to follow TalkingCarlton on twitter
TalkingCarlton Posting Rules

Well I've been in Vegas for a week, glad I missed the game

Next ...

Bewildering effort (or really lack of effort) to say the least.

I was at our local club with our supporters group watching the game. The Canberra Adelaide supporters were there too. It became farsical after the first few turnover kicks after Adelaide behinds to the point that even we were yelling "Seven point play" it was just too predictable.

Also its nice to pick a team to back your "run" but when you constantly "zone off" and give players like Edwards and Mcleod 15 - 20m space you are going to get punished.

They had a good balance of talls so it became an easy put the ball into their area in the air and we would get found out numerous times. We had no crumbers at the fall of the ball and they seemingly had extra men on the park on numerous ocassions. They simply swept up the crumbs with ease (the number of times I saw our players running away from the man once they got possesion was embarassing).

Chris Yarran proved he can apply forward line pressure and chase and tackle. But he was the only one that did it with any consistency. It shows how lazy other players were basically depending on him to provide the spark. Not really fair on a first year player methinks....

Once again the forwardline tactics revolved around Fev and Fev only. Ohailpin was rarely used as a target, even when he had made good space and provided a valid option, the boys would deliver to Fev who whilst good cant beat three men all the time.

I was really hoping to see the supposed elite footskills of Chris Johnson in action, however I think conservatively that his clangers alone cost us four goals. On the rare ocassion he found some space sure he would hit a target, but anytime there was an opponent within his vicinity he was like a dear with headlights and just froze and didn't know what to do but turn the ball over. Ridiculous selection and a ridiculous piece of recruiting to even consider this guy.

I was as hopeful as any other supporter that we would improve this season and make finals. There have been glimpses, but really the last two games (Adel and Melbourne) we have shown that although we will play finals, we are clearly just making up the numbers.

_________________
Cripps is the man