Ratten on observers having difficulty identifying a game plan - "It is there, insists Ratten, and it's based on quick ball movement and switches of angles. But it's a lot harder to pinpoint, he concedes, “when we don't kick the ball well”.

You missed the sentence immediately after.....

"Which is another good indicator of Carlton's erratic ways. The Blues are No. 1 for kicking efficiency, up from fifth last year. But when they turn the ball over, they do so spectacularly, and is invariably punished for it."

It is funny that several don't like to hear Ratts talking about his Stats and many hang it on the players skills and development but this stat probably shocks a few knockers.

Regards Cazzesman

Sides that play a lot of the back half switch and have more low risk kicks are likely to have better kicking efficiency.

I don't think anyone would dare suggest we are the best kicking team in the league, so what does out high kicking efficiency stat actually tell us ?

“It's a really difficult one, and something we've spoken about,” says Carlton chief executive Greg Swann. “Our supporters do turn really quickly. It's only two years ago that we hadn't played finals for seven years and were a young team building, and we still think that's what we are.”

Kicking efficiency is one of the more useless stats IMO.
You can kick 10 times out of ten to a team mate wide on the boundary and allow the opposition to set up a zone, and you recieve an efficient disposal stat for it.
Bret Thornton has a disposal efficiency of 84% yet he's playing in the Magoos. Compare that with Robert Murphy who has a disposal of 76%. Yet Murphys disposal cuts you up in the corridor like a hot knife through butter. If you gave the ball to most Geelong players and they played the gamestyle we did, they'd eat us alive for disposal efficiency.

The real stats that matter IMO are after 8 games we were 5 and 3 and were equal with Collingwood on the second most quarters won for the year. If it wasn't for the ineptitude of the other contenders, we'd be falling out of the 8 now. I dont agree with the rantings of feral supporters but I also dont believe in sticking your head in the sand and cocooning yourself from criticism like Swann and Ratten seem to do.

At the start of the year, Ratten was saying we had to win a final. Now I hear him saying he wants to make the 8 because "no one else expected us to make it". Thats bulltish to me. You dont re-evaluate half way through the year to take the heat off yourself. We will make the 8 and anything less than a finals win is a failure. The supporters stuck with the club through the bad days and they're within their rights to expect the players to give their best. At the moment, the players are well off that benchmark.

Yeah that created a furrow on my brow as well.
To me it suggests a bit of a 'victim mentality' and a sign of mounting pressure.
I think the next 3 weeks are the most crucial of Rattens tenure so far.

"When we win, we beat the opposition on turnovers by a margin of 34 points. When we lose, we're minus 41 and are rated 16th, and seven or eight points behind 15th. So when we have a stuff-up, it's an almighty stuff-up. Others have turnovers that can be defended or corrected. Ours are critical turnovers that create scores for the opposition.

This strongly suggests to me a weakness in the gameplan, not simply in skill execution or handling pressure.

at 7 and 4 with the run we had we should have been well entrenched in the 8 and knocking on the door of the top 4



I dont like this exceptence of under performance- Ratts and Swan should be expressing their disappointment that we didnt continue on from that we produced 6-7 weeks of total rubbish and as this being a product of youth I always thought youth was about energy and enthusiasm we were far from that they looked lifeless

I dont like this exceptence of under performance- Ratts and Swan should be expressing their disappointment that we didnt continue on from that we produced 6-7 weeks of total rubbish and as this being a product of youth I always thought youth was about energy and enthusiasm we were far from that they looked lifeless

Kicking efficiency is one of the more useless stats IMO.
You can kick 10 times out of ten to a team mate wide on the boundary and allow the opposition to set up a zone, and you recieve an efficient disposal stat for it.
Bret Thornton has a disposal efficiency of 84% yet he's playing in the Magoos. Compare that with Robert Murphy who has a disposal of 76%. Yet Murphys disposal cuts you up in the corridor like a hot knife through butter. If you gave the ball to most Geelong players and they played the gamestyle we did, they'd eat us alive for disposal efficiency.

The real stats that matter IMO are after 8 games we were 5 and 3 and were equal with Collingwood on the second most quarters won for the year. If it wasn't for the ineptitude of the other contenders, we'd be falling out of the 8 now. I dont agree with the rantings of feral supporters but I also dont believe in sticking your head in the sand and cocooning yourself from criticism like Swann and Ratten seem to do.

At the start of the year, Ratten was saying we had to win a final. Now I hear him saying he wants to make the 8 because "no one else expected us to make it". Thats bulltish to me. You dont re-evaluate half way through the year to take the heat off yourself. We will make the 8 and anything less than a finals win is a failure. The supporters stuck with the club through the bad days and they're within their rights to expect the players to give their best. At the moment, the players are well off that benchmark.