You ask for facts to prove the point, I provide them and then you say I'm using the John Howard technique, give me a break two-bob !!

We have a terrible defence and a ordinary attack and your solution is ....... wait for it ..... focus on the midfield !!

Woohoo !!

That's revolutionary, ever thought about going into coaching ??

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

Feel free to skirt around the perimeter with nonsense comments Danny, it's your standard approach.




Oops, sorry, forgot my sense of humour.

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

OK OK I've got it. Your answer to the question:

In 2005, Carlton scored more often, across a broader range of players, but let alot more points go through - 75 goals or something more than the previous year, discuss

The answer is:

Improve all key position posts and stop playing Fevola at Full Forward.

Is that right?

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

hey you can't forget what you haven't got

as for skirting, hmm whose wearing the robes that flow????

But hey we need big men1 Give me a spine! I admit that's so insightful, so on the ball, so, so, so, well i reckon you should set up with Louy Richards, and you'll of course, play the straight men.


ps: This is in no way intended to offend you - you know my feelings about your clear, consise, freindly, non-judgemental, calm, thoughtful manner....

okay now i;m doing a little jig, naked, going whoo whoo!

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Sheik you came on here called everyone a clown and the only fact you had was your opinion that we dont have any key position players!

My feeling from the stats in here plus Jarusa's parallel thread is that the midfield gets caned! Week in , week out. That we have no accountable midfielders any more, with Kouta, Campo, Stevens being as accountable as Pyramid Building Society were. This is my opinion.

Do you have anything to back it up or is it patently clear that everyone here should agree with you?

ps is this why our #1 pick is likely to go on a midfielder?

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

yes but we are planniung to operate on Murph and make him taller - hence the leak about the 'slack shoulder' wink wink nudge nudge...hmm did I just skirt again, sorry i'll curtsey now and be on my way...happily of course...

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

The simple fact is Carlton won bugger all games for the year, that means that they got outscored most of the time - got it thus far ?

Some times, they were on the end of a shellacking too, over 100 points - ring a bell yet ??

So, we can't kick enough goals to win a game but it's like the floodgates have opened at the other end and you want to fix the midfield ?? Great, if we had players capable of outmarking their opponent or actually spoiling in defence or being able to stand body-to-body (just in case I've lost you around here, I'm talking about taller guys with the longer arms etc), we may be what's called 'competitive', heaven forbid but we may even be looked as being lethal.

Fevola can kick goals granted, but if he wasn't the sole focus of our attack he'd be an even better player again. We went Kernahan-crazy (that's kick it to him all day) towards the end of his career but seeing as he had the size & ability to take a mark, it worked for us. Now if we had another Kernahan sized CHF plus a Barry Hall in the goal square, Fevola would run riot as would Fisher & Betts.

Does any of this make sense .................. Bueller, Bueller ??

At the other end, we have prided ourselves over the years at having genuinely savage defensive units, they were bloody miserly. Someone mentioned that since SOS retired we have struggled badly and I agree wholeheartedly. Find a big tough Perovic or Jackovich type and the rest of the defense will walk a little taller, even that blouse Houlihan might even seem a little more gutsy.

You made an interesting comment about the Bulldogs earlier, they did play a great brand of footy, I enjoyed watching them. Why was that though ?? To me, they didn't fart around going backwards etc, they went direct to the key posts with well directed kicks usually through the corridor. Yes, they have got a very handy raft of midfielders I agree entirely, but did they play finals footy ?? No they didn't and one has to wonder why they were sniffing around Whitnall earlier. the reason is simple, they know they have to improve their key positions, otherwise it doesn't matter how many midfielders they get, they aren't going to win enough games overall.

The other thing to consider here is that quality big men bring these smaller running/crumbing types into the game, just ask Brad Pearce where his AFL career (no matter how short-lived it was) would have been if he hadn't been able to play alongside Kernahan. Earl Spalding wasn't necessarily the greatest CHF we have ever had but what he did do was create a clear path for our little guys to scoot through by busting open packs or delivering bone-crunching bumps.

We need bigger gorillas than the opposition's gorillas to protect our group of running players (which is being slowly rebuilt) plus give us a competitive edge in the air and in the packs.

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

Our #1 pick is going on a midfielder purely as he is considered the best player in the draft.

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

All 210cm of him was drafted by the Cats before being traded. Pretty sure he hasn't been delisted yet.. what' that 5 years on an AFL list?

But Sheik I think your summary here is way too simplistic. Of course if a 196cm highly skilled champion plays on a 196cm highly skilled champion they should break even. When have we ever had two identical players play AFL? Perhaps the Lonie twins?

I understand what you're saying about height and how we're all short, thus the recruitment of McLaren and Saddington over the pre-season, but as I keep saying in my job 'We are where we are'. I think our midfield is one of the worst in the competition and I think our forward line is pretty fair, could be threatening to some good teams (notwithstanding lack of genuine talls, ADL is about as close as we get) if we get the midfield right.

I posted this originally as it surprised me that we scored more in 2005. All through the season I thought we were just plugging holes by taking forwards and throwing them up back.

As for man on man stuff, Lappin continually beats taller players, as did Thornton in 2004. Fevola is only 188 and beats taller opponents - to me height is a range of factors in the player. yes we need height at CHF in particular, but strength and agility as well.

Thanks for the history lesson Pastor.

But this para is the crux of it isn't it? Is the floodgates opening up at the other end because, mainly, of:

1) Opposition forwards winning the marking contest over our defenders for the same advantaged kick?
2) Opposition forwards winning the marking contest more easily because the pass to them is unpressured or so perfect as to not give our defender a chance?
3) Opposition midfields running into our defensive 50 too easily and having an easy shot at goal?

Look at Jarusa's post and Inside Defensive 50's didnt increase that markedly, probably 1 more a game. So its not because of many more opportunities in 2005.

I think the answer is more 2) and 3) and Sheik appears to believe it was 1). Granted Gehrig and Hall kicked bags on us in 2005, but this was the only bags ? Did Aker kick 5? 2) and 3) suggest slack midfield to me. 1) suggests poor defenders / spine.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

I guess the best way to illustrate it better is to look at St.Kilda (it hurts me to say that too). They have Gehrig in the goalsquare who is a huge man plus Kozsitchke or Reiwoldt at CHF who are both big tall marking players. That line-up would be a coaches nightmare and where it works for them is that it really stretches the best of the defenses in the league.

I agree that option 2 comes into play and it's be great if our guys could perfect that modus operandi as we wouldn't need to have anyone over 188cm in our forwardline. You'd have to be extremely naive to expect that the game would evolve so far that that's the only way that scores would get kicked.

Look, I understand your views on getting better midfield delivery & it is a valid point but I just can't see how the whole game now hinges on it. I think the other thing to consider is that there isn't a high number of players who can deliver the ball lace-out to the oncoming lead like Jarman used to. This is a highly specialised skill and the players that can do it consistently are in the elite category. Therefore, we can train their rings off and hopefully improve the skill but I reckon the odds are that there will be plenty of contested pack marks still to happen. If not, we wil lbe forced very wide to maintain posession.

There endeth the sermon.

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

The midfield is much bigger (number of players) than it was 10 years ago. The top teams continually rotate midfielders off the bench.

Midfields these days are a marauding army that move up and down the field flooding the area of play in a constant 'full ground press' that needs fresh players.

We had a situation where Kouta had the most game time of any player in the AFL this year. Why is that? Its because we have not got a midfield rotation. We don't need just 1 or 2 extra quality players in there, we need many more than that.

Did West Coast have the best spine in the AFL?
Did Sydney have the best spine in the AFL?

There are now only half as many contested marks taken as there were 6 years ago, yet teams are still scoring as much as they did 6 years ago.

What does that tell you?

Contested footy is dying.

Those big blokes who take contested marks are only half as important now as they were 6 years ago.

You still need a decent spine, but I reckon it is decreasing in importance.

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Its all about skillful runners and mobile forwards.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Its all about Marc Murphy now....

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R A D I C A L B R O T H E R S

Inspired by the One-Minute Sculptures of Erwin Wurm

"All in all is all we are..."

If that is the case then footy is dying as well, I'm sure I'm not alone in not liking the boring mega-possession game that is being played right now. Kick backwards, sideways, then switch back from where it originally came from etc. It is not entertaining at all and I doubt many people will want to watch it either.

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GROUND ZERO + DRAFTING YOUTH = SUSTAINED SUCCESS

Agreed.

Hopefully the AFL will wake up and try to implement some rules to get more contests back in the game.

The 'no mark for a backward kick' that was trialed in the Wiz cup might be a good start.

Maybe we are old fashioned and it will never happen.

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I'm with the Sheik on this one....good quality talls destroy us and we cant cope with them and have none of our own to fight back with.
You need a Jakovich or his ilk to handle these players...Val Perovic was underated by many..big tough unit who also had skill...key component in a successful era.
Drafting wise though you can start anywhere and you cant get it wrong....midfield, backline, forward..doesnt matter....its a win if we can get a quality player and Murphy will be a great start..over the recruiting journey of the next couple of years though we need to pick up some big units who can play like Perovic did as well as find some talls of our own who can be our version of Tredrae, Hall, Kosi etc...I can understand why the club threw a bundle of money at Kosi...big blokes who can mark the footy and who can kick goals are rare as and if they provide leadership, intimidation factor as well like Barry Hall does you are half way to a flag.
It was pathetic to watch us play the Swans and have players not wanting to tackle Hall these past few seasons...we need someone like that...I hope Setanta can get his skills up and also get some of that irish temper happening and give us some grunt because we are the weakest team physically in the comp and our young players need some muscle to give them some cover....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Thanks Pastor. Good logical post. I enjoy your posts, I actually do.

Agreed that its not the whole game. Im just sitting here at work trying to blame one area of the club rather than all of the club and have chosen the midfield. I will find stats to confirm it!

Your favourite player, Houlihan, is someone who can deliver lace out - I wonder if we'll ever play him forward again?

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

Did you just agree with me? Hard to tell with your multi-page responses.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

Good discussion of this here, may hang around this place more often.

Like the first point but I dont think that was the argument?

As for the second, we actually didnt have a 100 point loss in 2005 although we got very close. We had, what, 3 in 2004, and a few before that. We had I reckon 5 10 goal + losses in 2005 but lots of losses where we were technically close but not quite good enough. Not enough polish I reckon.