Where playing like millionairs expecting things to happen instead of making things happen. We are not serious enough on the opposition ball carrier or in our endevour. I can't say this enough at the moment and the wizard cup victories has given our players a sense of grandeur, which is unbelievable considering what we have been through. Our running in numbers, our gang tackling, our creativity, our efficient ball movement and accurate disposal to our forwards all a feature in the preseason have disappeared. We are getting caught out on the rebound and are allwoing the opposition to kick the softest goals imaginable while transferring play and having the loose man across the wing. I don't know how many times I have seen goals kicked against us this way over the past three weeks.

We have been caught out by not paying enough respect to the opposition. If they make Lapps accountable and double team Fevs we have little run apart from Stevo who still slogs his guts out. I dont know if Rowe even had an opponent on Sat and that squib Shaw had a good game. We should be ashamed of that performance.

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I stole Sheedy's Gatorade...

You know you're in trouble when Rhys Shaw is having a good day.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

I thought our midfielders were very good PJ.
The trouble is our forwards were not capitalising on the good work they did.
We needed to score or neutralise as many contests as possible.
Too often we handed the ball back to the opposition.
As an example Justin Davies lost a one on one contest to Woewodin in our forwardline. Our midfielders worked hard to give him every opportunity to see the ball go straight out the other side. Their midfielders who had been beaten and sagged off the contest won an easy ball in space.
Between points and OOF in the forward line, we gave the ball back to the opposition 17 times.
That doesnt include contests where they beat our forwards pointless.

We won the clearances, won the centre square and got the ball inside our attacking zone more often.
Thats better than we've done for a few years now.
Considering we have less players in our rotation being asked to work harder than any other midfield, i'd give them a medal.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Hmmm.
Fair point.

Another thing that has got me very worried is Denis' reaction to their loose man.
As you pointed out before, Archer and Colbert killed us against the Roos.
Fletcher looked set to tear us to shreds until we made him acountable.
Clement did what he liked to us.

I find it suprising that Denis takes awhile to actually do something about this and when he finally does, it is basically too late as the match is already over and a victory to the opposition.

Thank god he woke up to it and did something about it against the Bombers or we would be 0-3.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

You know it's got me thinking.

All year this year, since the start of preseaon training, all we have been seeing is positive carlton stories out in the media. (which was a great change over previous seasons)

saying the future is bright and we are heading in the right direction, so on and so forth.

The the wizard cup comes along and the guys are all champing at the bit and we play well together and take out the cup.

confidence is sky high and the media love us.

then the real stuff starts and when the challenge gets thrown down to us, we have two few stepping up to the plate, as if things are going to just look after themselves.

i mean were such a good team all of a sudden.

look at the way the pies rebounded after being shocking the week before, and getting a hidding in the media( just like Port will be this week)
it's time these guys too some more pride in their perfomance and hurt when they have let the team down.

for the first time in the Pagan years, we have been a hunted team. going from push over, to a bit of a jack in the box last year and then winning the WC in impressive fashion. Clubs have sat up and taken notice, that if we are taken lighlty we could well roll you. Unfortunatley our boys haven't lived up to these expectations and we are now getting beaten by teams, that we "surprised" last year (pies and roos).

it's time we were stung into action and our someone other than stevo, lappo, kouta or teaguey take the bull by the horns

While those stats are true BV, my own observation said they do not tell the whole story.

For example, much of our delivery into the forward line was of the up and under variety .... high floating ball allowing the loose defender time to double team the intended target.

We also seemed to choose to kick the majority of these floaters to Lance and Fev instead of to Archie, who is at least capable of taking a contested mark.

Collingwood disposal in the 2nd half seemed to me to be much more direct with much less floating ball.

I also believe we became undisciplined in our approach when Collingwood came out with a higher intensity level in the 3rd Q, with a number of careless tackles around the Collingwood 50m mark. In my opinion, the lack of required intensity in our game and some undisciplined frees resulted in loss of team confidence. Also throughout the game we had players rejecting the first option and trying to take on opponents when they were already under pressure (e.g Karl playing on in the 3rd Q).

We were also whipped around the packs during the 2nd half of Q3.

It was interesting to note in the Essendon* game how our disposal and decision making improved in the final Q when our apparent intensity level increased in the final Q.

Not to mention that DeLuca will generally have a height advantage over his opponent, unlike Lance and Fev who usually give away a few centimetres.

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OK- we sit at 1-2 at the moment..
I think a realistic W-L ratio at the half way mark should be 4-7, or even better 5-6.
If we can even get the 5 wins up on the board by Rd 11, and hope for 7 of the last 11 with the returning Livo and Thornton, then we can slowly get the train back on the rails..

Who says take it one week at a time..
Crucial for us to win one of the next two matches though. Crucial.

But that is the problem Josh. We have squandered the chances and the odds of us winning one of the next two are just too unrealistic, especially with the continuous loss of players. Who the hell is going to man up on Treadrea/Pavlich? I'm getting more depressed by the minute , I felt Livo was going to come in this week and at least provide a contest.