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ROB'S RANT.........
A few hours has passed since todays game and the strange thing is that I am more angry about it now than I was during the game. My feelings towards the Blues is a mixture of anger and apathy and anyone who knows me would realise that apathy is not an emotion that I am familiar with.
Apathy must be one of the stages of grieving because it actually shows that I no longer care about something that has been so important to me for over 30 years.
I am passionate about footy and even more so about Carlton but today as I watched the crap that my team served up I realised that their pathetic half-assed insipid efforts had now rubbed off on me and now I felt the same way about the club. As I watched my team get pummelled (don't let the score board fool you) by a young team of upstarts I sat there quietly just thinking "I wish i barracked for a team that actually gave a shit & showed some heart".
As I watched GWS playing exciting passionate football my main thought was this is a "sliding doors moment" - Had the club accepted its situation 2 years ago I wonder where we would be now?? would we be in a similar situation to GWS with an exciting bunch of raw talent which to build a team around??? - Had we not picked an ageing injured former star like Daisy who would we have used our first round compensation pick for Betts on?? Had we traded aggressively e.g.. Kreuzer and Yarran to GWS for pick 1 would Boyd be in our Forward line?? Had we not put our eggs in the Malthouse basket would we have discovered a coach like Cameron or Hinkley??
My anger is not directly related to the fact that yet again we lost to a bottom 4 side per se. The reality is WE ARE A BOTTOM 4 SIDE - look who we have beaten - Crows, Eagles, Dogs and Saints all of which will finish in the bottom 6 this year. There are NO easy games for Carlton because we are so bad that we cannot safely put away any side.
In fact I predicted today's result, based on the perfect backdrop of a couple of "honourable losses" topped off by Coach Mick publicly giving the boys a big pat on the back and saying how it had been the best footy the side had played in 18 months. So of course our weak heartless bunch of players would be content with their efforts and serve up an insipid limp performance like we witnessed today.
After hearing Mick Malthouse's comments during the week re: the state of our list and that we can become a top 4 side after I finished vomiting I actually wrote on FB (June 20) that the only way MM will finally see the reality of our plight is if we have a few heavy losses to bottom 8 sides....... how true my statement was!
The source of my anger is 2 fold:
1. The realisation that my club is now irrelevant both on field and off field. The fall from grace has been both astounding and rapid.
2. As a club we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again and despite the rhetoric I hear from LoGiudice and the board the fact is NOTHING has changed and nothing will change until the entire club is ripped apart and rebuilt from the ground up. Until the coach and board truly accept where we are at nothing will change and today was the perfect example of that.
Mick Malthouse has been an unmitigated disaster since he arrived and today he proved that he is a huge part of the problem. He clearly has no desire to rebuild the side and instead is playing only for the here and now. He has publicly made ludicrous statements such as "11 o'clock on the premiership clock" "Current list doesn't need dramatic changes" "The current list can be developed into a top 4 side" These comments on their own should sound alarm bells to any person connected with the club that MM has lost the plot. But if this is not enough evidence lets look at his actions over the season and in particular focus on today's game
1.Appaling team selection
Every week I bitch and moan about the team selection and the fact we persist with proven failures rather than playing the kids. MM tells us that he isn't going to just hand out games to kids and they have to earn it yet how does he explain not playing kids like Graham,Johnson and Buckley (inj) despite their VFL form. Yet again Graham dominates in the VFL yet we choose to play hacks like Armfield. I realise Armfield was a late inclusion but what was he ever going to offer to the side?? he is not a midfielder so no point bringing him in to replace Murphy. He has averaged 9 disposals in his last 2 games. If ever there was a time to play a kid like Graham/Johnson/Holman etc... it would be against a young side like GWS
Ed Curnow - The guy has missed 7 weeks yet we rush him straight back into the senior side as if he is Marc Murphy. Curnow may be our best tagger and he tried hard but he looked horribly underdone, and its not as if you need a tagger when playing against GWS. A smarter option would have been to play him in VFL this week in preparation for a tough game next week tagging against Pies.
So far this season we have seen MM give the usual suspects endless opportunities at the expense of Cripps, Buckley, Holman, Johnson, who are our future.
So far this season we have played 1 debutant for a grand total of 2 games. That is the lowest of any side in the comp. Mick when will you give kids a fair go???
2. Tactics
Today's coaching was appalling here are a few examples:
* Keeping Hendo up forward when he was getting no delivery from a slow midfield and was getting killed. The guy has played his best footy as a CHB yet was only moved into defence in the last 8 minutes of the game.
* Rowe on Patton - Surely the rule of playing your best defender on the best forward still applies and given Jamo was playing on a second gamer (Boyd) whilst Patton took 8 marks in the first half against Rowe.
* Persisting with using Walker as the run off the back line despite the fact he was butchering the ball 75% of the time.
* Docherty off HBF was appalling he needed to play on the wing or HFF to give some run.
* Slow delivery into the forward line which made the job for Hendo and Waite almost impossible.
* is there any actual gameplan?
3. Players:
I could name the entire team but I am going to pick a few fine examples.
* Rob Warnock - After a promising start to the year has returned to his form from a few years ago. 5 Possessions today compared to Mumford's 18. Warnock's grand total possession count from the last 3 weeks is 15 (5,4,6) WTF????. He proves yet again that ruckman are over rated unless thy can truly play dual position. Effectively playing warnock is like playing 1 man down.
*Carrazzo - His Career at Carlton is over. He still has some footy left in him but his disposal is now so bad that he can no longer be played. 20 possessions today at <50% effectiveness.
* Walker, Simpson, White, Yarran, Jamo, Rowe - This is an amazing stat - Our back 6 had a sum total tackle count of 7 tackles: Each player had ONLY 1 Tackle (except for Rowe who had 2). How on earth does an entire back line manage 7 tackles??? To me the only explanation is that the team actually didn't care today and gave up. This is UNACCEPTABLE!!! and it must be punished.
* Touhy - Continues to make fundamental errors. He may be new to the game but repeatedly losing your man and weak tackling efforts is unacceptable
* Docherty - a day to forget. More turnovers than the pancake parlour.
* Waite - Ongoing source of frustration due to poor effort and erratic form. In the interest of both club and player the time has come for him to move on.
* Hendo - Out of form for 2 months. Play him down back!!!!!
For the sake of brevity its easier to look at which players deserve a pay check: Robbo, Gibbs, Judd, Everritt, Curnow and Menzel.
4. Skills
The number of handballs that hit team mates toes or missed their intended target all together was astounding. The same could be said about the woeful kicking skills. It is unacceptable for professional footballers to display skills that would be out of place in the TAC cup. To quote the Rob's Rants catch phrase "IF YOU CAN"T KICK, FU@# OFF" and if you can't handball F£€¥k off twice as quickly.
5. Tackling
When your tackle count is 58 it says that your not really trying. 35 tackles (60%) were laid by 7 players (Carrazzo7, Casboult6, Robbo5, Judd5, Curnow4, Gibbs4, Menzel4) that is just obscene. it says that players are disinterested and not dying.
Almost as disappointing as the low trickle count was the number of tackles GWS broke and the ease with which they broke tackles.
6. Chasing/Harrassing/1%ers
These were all non-existent and yet another indication of the players mindset.
7. Mental Fragility.
This old chestnut raises its head every few weeks. To just say we lack "leaders" is a cop out. The simple fact is that every player that steps onto the ground has a responsibility to be a leader and do their job for the team. By saying we lack on field leaders just deflects the blame from the entire playing group and tries to refocus it onto half a dozen senior players. Gibbs, Judd, Curnow, Robbo and Menzel showed leadership today unfortunately they had 17 lazy mates who CHOSE not to follow their lead because it was just all too hard.
NOW FOR THE JUICY BIT........ Solutions
I have outlined my solution before (after the Essendon* and Melbourne defeats). It involves a full independent review of the entire football club from the boardroom to the boot-studder. Key focus areas include: Board, CEO, Coach, Coachng panel, List management and Recruiting, Player Development, Players, Fitness staff etc....
In an ideal world I would sack Mick Malthouse immediately and install Dean Laidley as interim coach and begin an extensive search for a new senior coach for 2015. A coach who is young and has the intention of rebuilding a list - Dew? Power? N.Lappin? Caracella? etc..
I hate saying "Sack the coach" as it screams of desperation but unfortunately it is desperate times. At best we are treading water but in reality we are actually going backwards and the current coach seems powerless to stop it.
Whilst Mick may have built a team at Collingwood he has not even hinted at doing so at Carlton and the difference is he is 10 years older and unlikely to be coaching in 5 years time. From what we have seen so far this season it would appear he has "lost the players" or his message is simply not getting through.
The cold hard fact is he was brought in to replace Ratten and take us to a top 4 side and in the space of 18 months we have slipped to a bottom 4 side.
I can see that sacking MM now is not practical and the board is far too weak to do this so here is a "safer" alternative: Chairman and Board to hold a press conference this week and announce publicly that MM's position is not guaranteed beyond his current contract (ends 2015) and any extension will not be discussed until late next season. Furthermore state that his position will be reassessed at season's end once the full club review has been completed.
The Chairman and board must make it very clear that the assessment criteria will not be win:loss ratio but rather list and player development and implementation of plan on how to rebuild the team.
(N.B. All this maybe enough to get Mick to fall on his sword.....)
Malthouse must come out and say that he is now going to play kids and work out which players deserve to remain at the club going forward. He must retract his statement from this week re: our list being developed into a top 4 side and admit the current list will be largely overhauled at years end and he expects 10-12 changes to be made. If he wants names I am happy to help - (See upcoming Rob's Rant).
Both coach and board to put it on the record that they will be very active in the trade period in pursuing draft picks (i.e trading players for draft picks). As I have said before the club must aim for minimum 3 picks and preferably 4 picks in the top 25 and ideally 2 picks of these picks in the top 10. (In reality we will most likely have pick 4 and pick 22 anyway based on our ladder position). This sends out a very clear message to current playing list that nobody's position is safe. The reality is in order to get high draft picks we must be prepared to trade players with currency.
Given we can't trade or sack players mid season there is no point in me going into too much details about potential trades and wishful thinking BUT by putting the playing list on notice it sends out a message that performances like todays are unacceptable.
Unfortunately the real problem is that in order to rebuild the club we must overhaul the recruitment department, appoint a list manager, review the player development team etc.. and all this takes time and can't be done mid season. From a recruiting side we have constantly got it wrong so I have no faith in the current team being part of the solution but the sooner we start the process the better.
As I have said before Carlton Football Club needs a complete overhaul to rebuild the culture of the club. There is no quick fix and I predict a minimum of 5 years of pain BUT given we have an Unstable cumbersome board, Interfering "power brokers" no CEO, a head recruiter who is about to walk (thank god), no list manager, a coach half way through a contract, a sub par playing list, disengaged supporters and falling membership there is no better time to start the change.
This is Rock Bottom, this is ground zero. I firmly believe NOW is the time to start the recovery/rebuild before we become completely irrelevant.
If Mick wants some names of players that need to go here is few easy ones
Delist: Watson, McInnes, Lucas, Armfield, Cacchia, Wood, Temay (if they won't play him), Mclean, Carrazzo, Ellard
Scotland, Bootsma, Duigan - All 3 technically on our list
Trade for late pick 3rd round plus: Garlett, Touhy, Robbo, Warnock, Waite,
Trade for early pick - round 1 or 2: Yarran, Kreuzer, Daisy
Watch this space.......
GO BLUES.......
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