I havent asked scarponi or anyone else to fight any fight.

Read what I typed. I asked the others to let him have his say

Thats what I typed....Now go read it

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Go BLues

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Objectivity, here's some.

If Martians landed at AAMI Stadium last night their first words would not have been "greetings Earthlings" or "take us to your leader"
They would have been "why is no 18 in the forward line, he's clearly lost".

Injuries are an excuse for a loss, but not the shizen served up against Saints, Crows and Power. They were just good ol' fashioned floggings served by teams where the players are playing for each other.

Injuries are not a excuse for 3 x 50m penalties. 2 of which killed any chance we had of getting close in the first half.

Injuries are not an excuse for kicking the ball out of bounds on the full.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

No love there champ

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Go BLues

So...... how's this "objective" look at last night's problems going then?

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"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Players who played last night who have gone backwards this year.

Jamison
Gibbs
Garlett
Judd
Simpson
Joesph
Curnow
Walker
Warnock

Carlton may have been able to cover it's injuries if others who were on the park last night lifted there performance from 2011 by 5%. Unfortunately many have gone backwards at a rate of knots which is a indictment on the coaching and development staff at Carlton.

we can analyse game plans and structures all day long, which I think is important, but at the end of the day I don't think we have the 'cattle' at the bottom end of our list. Injuries have exposed this. The next tier of players aren't up to it. I have always believed that you are only as good as your bottom 6-8 players. Players like Bower, Russell, Thornton, Joseph, Curnow, Mclean and Ellard would struggle to get into a team like Collingwood or West Coast. Even with injuries. Cannot solely rely on your better players to get you over the line. It may have worked in the 80's but game tactics are much more sophisticated these days and weaknesses exploited by better prepared teams. It therefore begs the question about our recruiting and player development. It will be interesting to see how Mark Austin performs at the Bulldogs.

Darren Pfeiffer looked better than alot of our players.

Rookie delist

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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.

Why am I not surprised that I log back in to see 3 pages of posts, 4 of which could be considered constructive?

Anyway moving on, with regard to the tap-outs, I didn't look at the stats but I think they might be providing a false picture. If anything, the amount of hitouts we had compared to how much of it resulted in us getting good possession was horrible. That was mainly the focus of me mentioning the ruck work. It did *seem* to me like Warnock wasn't making great position and most of the time it wasnt a tap, but just a dogs breakfast that was a no-win situation. Happy for you to disagree there of course.



Interesting what you say here. I think that if the plan around stoppages and the forward line was better (i.e. that 'structure' buzz word), we wouldn't have been done by so much last night. More opportunities would have been made throughout the game for scoring, as well as reducing theirs. This would change the way it played out completely. Not sure if this has everything to do with the skill level of the players. I think it is more to do with the way the team has been drilled to play. It needs tweaking.

IMHO, you can be the 500th best player in the AFL, but you are still a professional. You should be able to play your role as it is supposed to be played. When this doesn't occur, you should be dropped for someone who can. When the plan isn't right, it needs to be dropped for one that is.

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"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman

Nah, I don't disagree at all. In fact, you've probably indirectly agreed with what I was getting at - The fact that we are winning the hitouts and getting a good percentage of them to advantage (30% is considered quite good BTW) but still getting smashed at the stoppages indicates that our structures are FUBAR.

Get that same ruck service against a team that doesn't congest the stoppages like Collingwood in Round 3 and all of a sudden we look invincible! The fact that we don't seem to have done anything to combat these tactics over the past 6 weeks has alarm bells ringing..... Hell, we'd be better off getting Warnock/Hampson to not compete in the ruck and just be an extra body standing there waiting to lay a tackle or force the ball into a 50/50.

So frustrating!!

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"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

I agree our list should be better equiped to cover the 7 key injuries we have and our list management has been very poor.

....but why is it that when we use the game when we flogged Collingwood by 10 goals as a reference point that we can play good football with our full team in and in form we get told that Collingwood had injuries that game?

One important thing to note .......

Let's not allow Essendon*'s loss to Melbourne or the Eagles loss to Brisbane this weekend mask our problems. I'd rather they didn't happen. We're in the deepest of deep s#1t at the moment and the stench is getting worse.

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"IF YOU FAIL TO PREPARE, YOU'RE PREPARED TO FAIL" - Mark Spitz

Anyone been on Twitter? The boys must be as devistated as us ay!!!!!

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Happy Days Are Here Again!!

Yep.
Good point you make Roy.

Not just injuries....soft underbellies.

To win a flag we need tough footballers, and 100% commitment to the cause from each of the 22 selected to represent us on the day..

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

an objective look needs to consider the past, rather than just last nights game, so with that in mind

last nights game is a culmination of losing players to injury but more importantly lose of confidence in each other and the game plan. confidence has been eroded since the Essendon* game and I could see after the Saints game the rot had set in. When players start talking about how good the opponent is, you know you are in trouble. what I should have heard is how dirty they were on how they played and that there was no excuse and that the responsibility lay squarly at there collective feet.

if i played in a team, and things were not happening, I would start to lose the motivation to push myself.
too many players are not working hard enough, letting their teammates down and not supporting each other. we have no co-hesion

some of this must be attributed to the coaching panel, as I think some of the moves made have been really poor. we have spiraled into a bad place. some of this has to be attributed to some of the players who have been disappointing

regardless - unless the coaching panel and the leadership group, look each other in the eye and make a stand, we will not recover this year.

as a supporter all you look for is a team that does the basics right and has the courage to fight and work for each other. top 4 is gone and with it, so is the season. what I want from the season now is respect.

an objective way to look at last nights game is to accept that the premiership is not attainable, so start planning for next year.
I would keep Judd out of the guts for most of the rest of the year, why bash and bruise the guy - just so we can make the 8. please! protect him and lengthen his career.

Make a decision on where Gibbs and Lucas ideally should play and play them there for the rest of the year. leave them there (as long as they give 100% effort) and coach/develop them

Henderson plays forward from now on - period. Waite is not the answer, I actually like the guy and think he plays his heart out, but geeze Ratts and co, he is not a power forward and we will not win finals with him as the main forward. Henderson is our best prospect, so develop him in the spot we need him.

the commercial realities of the game (Matty Knights - prime example) dictates that unless the public believe in the way the Carlton Football Club are heading, you will lose revenue and you will lose it fast.

an objective look at the game says the probabilty is very high, that a coaching change is immenent

the challenge for the group is to make the public BELIEVE we are still improving as a group and have the potential to win a premiership soon. that really needed to be a top 4 finish. given that is not possible, they will have to do something remarkable. the public though are not fools. they will not believe unless they see the team believe in themselves.

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'‘He had an enormous capacity to pump himself up and get the best out of himself when it mattered. He had a fire in his belly – a passion for the contest like few other players’' -- D Parkin in reference to the dominator

I saw a moment in the game last night which also happened against Adelaide and St. Kilda ... we are 12 points and having a set shot ... chance to go 18 up and gather some confidence for us and at the same time instill some panic in the opposition ... we miss and in fact we don't even make the distance from 30 metres due to the same bullshit kick from the same player ... opposition take it up the ground and goal ... we have done this 3 times ... chance to go up by 18 but blow it and the other get within 6. Don't under estimate the importance of these moments ... it can alter the mindset for the rest of the match.

You either kill or get killed.

Very intering ideas dominator. I'm not sure its time to give up on the season but again maybe it would be for the best to solidify players in preferred spots.

Tough choice. U make good arguments.

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"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman

Shaun Grigg isn't going to bad at Richmond either. At least we have Collins.

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WE ARE CARLTON, WE ARE ARROGANT AND WE LOVE IT!

I've got one comment.
Nothing original there. It's been said here a thousand times in all its forms and mutations. But at least it was objective.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)