The Blues are No.1 in the competition for clearances, No.3 for tackles and No.5 for contested ball.
Yet they are 12th overall for kicking efficiency and 15th for the same stat if you take away the Thursday night walk in the park against Richmond in Round 1.

As for the killer stat – scores directly from turnovers – Carlton is 12th overall at -37 against its direct opposition.

Blues being hurt by turnovers stats show



It's interesting we have the coach saying that we should hold onto the ball a bit more - I'm not sure how we can do that given the number of poor kicks we have in the team.

He is only saying that because basically he has nothing else to say and thinks that is why St Kilda and Hawthorn have been successful.

In Saturday night’s stinker against the Bombers, the Blues were +21 points from stoppages and -39 from turnovers.

Thornton and Anderson both committed multiple errors down back in the first two games but while Anderson gets the chop seems Thornton is a protected species

We never run with the ball and thus leave ourselves open to more skill errors unlike other teams which run and create.

so he's got us winning clearances, tackling and contested ball not bad for a bloke who can't coach. mind you, he should be out there kicking the !@#$%& thing for 'em.

I wouldn't be surprised if these stats counted some efforts where he's had to secure the loose ball and the bounce hasn't fallen his way with two opposition players on his tether. Happened once each in the last two matches.

Then there was his kick which was turned over just forward of CHB because no one was making any kind of genuine lead, and he had to squeeze a kick no more than 15-20 metres ahead of him at the last second. Didn't pan out. The others would be long kicks.

Anderson had basic handling errors and got caught holding the ball. Big difference VB - but sure - let's throw away what actually happened and mash them altogether as though they are the same thing.


We run plenty, we just don't support said run, or properly take advantage of it.

I'm not going to give u a play by play, bec I haven't seen the games twice, but I do recall against Bris 2 unforgivable errors by Thornton

What the stats say is he has the cattle on the field. Turnovers and errors are just a part of the human trait of making a mistake. We all make them. My point is that
1) Hellas Blue is right on the mark. You will make more mistakes from stagnant play rather than a more urgent play. There are lots of reasons, too much time to think, losing instictiveness, your momentum and that of the person you are passing to, having your opponent halfway up your backside because you've given him the time to man up, and the perceived pressure that comes with that. Running into space camouflages turnovers cause if the target isn't perfect, you may have 1-3 seconds to collect the ball. Think about it. If Thornton passes to Simpson on a wing and misses him by 5-10 metres, and there's no one within cooey of him, Simpson, by the very fact that he is in motion will probably pick up the ball in a couple of seconds and the crowd won't care as much that Thornton missed the target in the first place.
2) Turnovers and errors can also be influenced by the mental state of the player. If there is any confusion about the message coming from above or the script that needs to be followed, players are much less forthright and much more anxious with their decision making

I don't know if the players are confused or not, or if that dreaded 'gameplan' comes into question. I'm happy to admit, I don't know. What I do know is that we have been beaten consistently by at least 4 four teams in Ratten's tenure. That is a worry. Another worry is that I have now heard from two different sources in the newspaper over the last 12 months that there is a perception that Ratten's structures are disorganised, and that two senior players last year were cautioned/punished for mouthing off to other players that Ratten's message was confusing and constantly changing. Yes it's just the media, but sometimes you have sit up and listen

so winning clearances, tackling, winning contested ball - that's a player's skill, but kicking out of bounds nine times, missing easy set shots on goal, missing leading targets, etc - that's the coaches fault.