For how long now have we been building/rebuilding?

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THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

My main concern is, as BV says, our reactive supporter group. Sometimes the way things are stirred up borders on hysteria.

We'll have a patchy start because of quality opposition and new game plan, but we will have a crack at top 4 by the end of the year. People do forget the '11 WC final quickly, that to me is the measuring stick for mine for this side, not 2012.

Keep punching BV!

..this.. ..have been going on for a while now about our lack of experienced kpp's, and the fact that any kpp with versatility spends far too much time playing too many roles to become settled in any one of them..

..it takes years to get your kpps' capable of holding down their position, and every couple of seasons we've got new players trying to cut it.. ..meanwhile, the rest of the list continues to age, and at a 'faster rate'.. ..and we pin our hopes on the injury riddled and longshot spec. picks to become the seasoned spine we require..

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

Telling you about the games missed through injury is "not relevant"? Surely you're taking the piss?

In 2010, West Coast had a terrible injury toll and have a guess where they finished? bottom. wooden spooners. Yet they beat us in a semi final 12 months later! They fell further than Carlton and then made the preliminary final! With the same coach! Lucky they had the smarts to retain him in the face of criticism. They obviously didnt think he'd taken the players as far as he could with the game plan. So the theory about why the semi finals are some magical limit for Ratten dont hold up IMO? Ask Malthouse. Look where Collingwood finished in 2005 after a poor run with injury. I'll bet there were plenty of supporters saying he'd taken them as far as he could.
So history tells me teams will underperform significantly with a substantial injury list. Whether the coach is Mick Malthouse, John Worsfold or Brett Ratten If you dont have the cattle......

The facts are we went to Perth in 2011 and were within a goal of a prelim. With Judd out of form, Gibbs missing, Waite missing, Kruezer missing. Ratten and the Blues were lauded for their courage and performance. Yet look at the same group 12 months later.
It shows injuries can have a huge impact on a teams performance. Not just in players available but the extra load on the lesser players and the resulting loss of confidence that comes from diminished performance.





Go back and read the post. I said MM will come to his senses and hopefully he will. You cant go from being the second shortest kicking team in the competition to the longest on the whim of a coach. Malthouse is smart enough to understand we arent Collingwood and he'll adapt. Just as the players will.



Champion datas assessment is based on opinion. Just like yours and mine.
History tells me we had a finals quality team for 3 years. It also tells me we had one of the worst injury lists of recent time in the one year we missed the finals.
History also tells me teams can bounce back to a preliminary final after one bad year of injuries. They're all facts, not opinions.
I'm happy to go with them.

FWIW, in my opinion, the list is better than it was 2 years ago. Lets hope I'm right and we're all celebrating some finals success..

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

You're being very selective with your facts BV. There's plenty of examples of teams that have not followed the 'incremental improvement' theory (eg. Haw make Semi Finals in 2000 and then Prelim in 2001 and then don't play finals again until 2007; Freo make the Prelim in 2006 and then don't play finals again until 2010; St K lose a preliminary final by a kick in 2004 and don't make the GF until 2009; WB play in successive Prelims in 2008-2010 and go no further...the point is you can pull historical examples out to support almost any argument).

By the way, I don't dismiss 'incremental improvement' (it's a very valid concept), but I do think you have to remember that it can be off set by other factors other than injuries - eg. a side might catch teams out for awhile with a certain tactic or game plan but then they get worked out; trends in game style change (sometimes due to rule changes) that adversly effect the team's style or the club is slow to respond to the changes; players go backwards or don't develop like you think they will (they are not robots); sometimes players and teams play 'above themselves' in a season and cannot sustain that level of performance; age catches up with key players; internal issues at a club; bad trade/recruitment decisions; other teams improve faster; even the draw can be a factor.

My point is, I don't think it's as simple as "we played EFs, then we played a SF, it automatically follows that a PF is around the corner". So many things can change from season to season. The step from top 8 to top 4 is almost as big as the step from top 4 to premiers. You've said you think we have the cattle to be top 4 in 2013. I have said I have my doubts about that and, in any event, I think it will take MM a large chunk of the season to ingrain his game style into the players so that they instinctively know what to do under real big game pressure.

And you're misrepresenting me. I have not said that injuries weren't a factor in 2012. I am saying that injuries are not the only reason we failed to make top 4 in 2012.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Last I checked we haven't played for four points yet?

Until we have meaningful game(s) to review all comments are baseless IMO.

If you think preseason is good form, here is a fact for you, we were the second best team!

Actually, the pre-season competition has been a very good guide over the past 5 years. The winner has been top 4 every year.



I agree. Top 4 should be our expectation.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I agree. And thats what I'm asking others to do ABNS. Be selective with the facts.
Look at the injury correlation between Carlton in 2012, West Coast in 2010 and Collingwood in 2005. They didnt throw the baby out with the bathwater and demand a rebuild. They realised the impact injury had on their list and had the courage to stick fat. They were rewarded with instant improvement the following year.

We on the other hand caved in to the hysteria, sacked the coaching group and have radically revamped the playing style.
Yet 12 months earlier with a reasonable injury toll, we were 5 points off a prelim with a team that was 3rd youngest in the finals race from memory.

This team has the structure, ability and talent base to have success IMO. We just need an administration with half the courage and decision making skills we expect of the players.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

We need to firstly beat the likes of Port and the Gold Coast rather than lose to them.

Second: we need to keep ahead of teams behind us like Richmond, Essendon* and Brisbane.

Third: we need to pass teams we are not far behind like St Kilda, North and Fremantle.

Fourth: we need to hope Collingwood still can't beat us.

Fifth: we need to finally beat Hawthorn.

Sixth: we need to beat the bottom sides every time we play them.

Then we may make the top 4. No time for snoozing in the AFL.

I agree with most things you say BV, even in this thread. The only hole in your analysis is there is no explanation for the Port Adelaide and Gold Coast losses imo, and very little accounting for the Essendon* and St. Kilda ones either. I don't think injuries give the whole picture there.

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience!!!

After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says W T F .........
Visit http://fromthemoshpit.com/

Didnt see the game I only watched wookies replay- But if that is Micks Game plan we better start looking for a replacement now. dominated the first 15 minutes and the entire 2nd quarter should have been 40-50 points up at half time and the game should have been all over .
If we keep bombing it long down the line and into the forward 50 we are going to get smashed week in week out . Its the dumbest game plane there is going . I'm hoping its not what we are going to see in the season proper it will be devistating to watch they ball rebound out of the forward 50 over are heads time and time again

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

You have to admit it will give you a certain satisfaction/enjoyment though

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I felt sick watching it too. It can't be the plan. Surely we were foxing. It looked like an old pagan plan where we kick long to a contest where we are outnumbered and the opposition spoil then run off with it and score easily on the counter. So Pagan. Very predictable.

Surely there is more to it. I am hoping we are just in a hard training phase and and could not run the plan properly so devised something else that was simple but not effective. More important to be fit as fiddles for the first month.

I am probably a "glass half full" sort of person so I generally think as far as Carlton is concerned that there is the makings of a very good side based on our current list and I do expect us to be a top 8 side this year.

Where we actually end up willl be influenced by, like it is for most teams, by the amount of momentum we can create over the course of the year. Winning, just like losing, can become a habit. If we can be 3-2 by Round 5 then I think we will be able to develop some very strong momentum as the season progresses.

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Carlton - Nothing's changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love

bring back Ratts ?

Geeez five years and six weeks.. and some people want more of Ratts??

Thats one eliminational final.....

And of course the players wouldnt get over the top of WC... they couldnt overcome any hurdles thrown at them under the Ratts regime...

Most players had had enough of Ratts also....Especially the main group

So was never any chance of coming back from where he was at

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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.

Lets see how Malthouse goes first. I was lead to believe last year that it all had nothing to do with the players and all to do with the coach by the "realists" .

I am keen to see how that goes.

Not for me but lets not reinvent the wheel. The team performed poorly last year with some mitigating circumstances.
We aren't a basket case that needs a total transformation.

For the record, I'm not against Malthouse bringing a longer kicking strategy but lets at least try to keep possession back of centre! Admittedly, Saturday night had little to with our long kicking though. We were demolished out of the middle so the weight of numbers was always going to hurt us.
Wiley needs to get his head in the job quickly. We've been a very good midfield unit for years now and our scoring from stoppages as been as good as most. Our midfield structures were woeful at times on the weekend so hopefully that can be rectified asap.
If we can control the midfield stoppages, we're a very potent team.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

We have a middle of the road list that is mature enough to do well if everything goes our way.

Unfortunately, there are a lot more clubs with mature lists this year than in 2011, for example.


Malthouse needs to work a miracle in getting the team to master a new game plan, and for that game plan to be suitable to handle the best that some very smart coaches will throw at it, all while requiring the players to develop the steel and culture to perform as a team at a high level consistently.

That is a very tall order. And it requires a healthy list and significant improvement in output from most of our senior players - Kreuzer, Hampson, Warnock, Yarran, Garlett, Judd, Gibbs, Jamison, Henderson, Waite, Laidler, Simpson, Walker; plus half a dozen young players need to make big strides, notably Lucas, Tuohy, Casboult, Bell, Watson.

It can be done and it has been done, but it's a long shot. And to say that we're due or "it's our time" or look at history and project from that is probably kidding oneself.

Yes. Its far easier for one to claim "we're a middle of the road list" and back it up with jack shit

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.