And as I said, should also result in a free every time. They aren't going for the ball, they are going for the man.

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Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. Fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem, qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores.

I have nothing to justify.

We were competitive but should have got spanked by them.
71 inside 50’s
36 scoring shots
That’s not good enough.
They kick accurately and it be a different story.

Stop sugar coating last nights performance.

I’m not going to pat our players on the back for that performance.

Some players did well and a lot to look forward to.

Clearly you and many others on here accept mediocre performances and get off over them.

And if my auntie had balls.....

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

Yep, I bitched about this during the live thread. Someone else on this page mentioned "umpiring to reputation", and of course "commentating to reputation" goes hand-in-hand with that. The replay of Dusty shoving Daisy square in the back to put him out of the contest was clear as day, but all the commentators do is purr over Dusty's strength - which is substantial, I agree, but it's pretty easy to show "good strength" when the rules don't apply to you.

I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - we need to cultivate Cripps's reputation for being an unstoppable contested possession machine (someone beat him to it? Free kick Carlton!) and Charlie's reputation for being a superb, athletic mark (beaten in the air? Free kick Carlton!).

"I call BS" on the Carlton-shoulda-lost-by-10-goals argument, it's far too simplistic.

I don't recall Richmond missing many sitters, in fact most of the "wonder goals" were from Richmond, like Riewoldt scrubbing a left-footed soccer goal from the boundary. And their set shots were very accurate, especially whatshisface who's goaled with two-thirds of his possies as a Richmond player or whatever.

Nor do I recall us slotting any 50m shots from the boundary.

The fact is, our shots were high-percentage, many of Richmond's were low-percentage, because we attacked more centrally and more efficiently, and because Richmond lacked discipline around the protected zone rule (which I expect will be relaxed in the weeks to come, but was applied consistently if harshly). Looking at forward entries and scoring shots alone only tells you a part of the story. I reckon the margin was perfectly fair: we were right in the contest until early in the 4th, and eventually overrun.

Yeah I enjoyed those first 10 minutes but didn't celebrate, I knew it would mean little in the final wash. Learned my lesson from writing off the tigers after 10 minutes of the granny.

Totally agree. They hardly missed any sitters at all. Some very dumb posts in this thread, and more inside 50s doesn't mean you'll win.....happens every week that team wins inside 50s and gets rolled.

Actually Richmond didn't too many easy shots and seemed to nail their set shots ok. The building of their behind tally took me by surprise. We had about 4-5 gettable shots that didn't score at all.

What I did like that when Richmond we seemingly getting on top we'd always reply with a goal to keep us in front. Lead changed 7 times in the 3rd qtr. Their bigger bodies worn us down in the end but it took to the middle of the last qtr. Hardwick spoke glowingly of Carlton after the game.

Didn't Woewodin thank "Dr Ageless" in his acceptance speech?

Nearly kicked 100 points!

Richmond supporters fast overtaking Collingwood and Essendon* as the worst in the AFL.

Weird game for me, wasn't excited when we were 5 goals up and wasn't nervous when it was close. Am I just too used to losing?

Still, good signs.

We played a lot better than I expected. Losing 2 players didnt help.
A few no shows in the line-up also didn't help.

We are going to give up inside 50's if we are going for this gameplan. I am happy if we sit back and learn to absorb. Then hit back the other way when we get our chance.

Overall a very positive start to the season.
Game Plan - A- Much more attacking, generally faster ball movement but poor forward pressure.
Game Coaching - B Bolts didn't adjust on the run to Richmond tactics e.g. Taking Jones out of position.
Forward Offence - B+ Much better, last year we just bombed to the square, this year much more direct, many more options.
Forward Defence - C Missed the speed of Pickett (12 weeks) and the tackling of our forwards is a big issue particularly Levi who stood and watched way too much. A couple of others not at their best.
Disposal - C+ hand balling looked sharper, still missed too many targets by foot. e.g. Murphy to Kreuzer when way open and ball rebounds in a flash.
Defence - C+ Lots of endeavour and great individual efforts e.g. Simpson, Marchbank. Lacked cohesion as a group. Concerned about the flexibility if Rowe back in next week as mooted.
Tackling - C Lots of effort, didn't stick some tackles at key moments, too many arms free.
Umpiring - D

Our list still lacks depth and experience. Our top end talent is as good as any but our bottom 5 fall off a cliff. SOS and Match Committee still will need to turn a few over to find out who can play, eg Fisher and our development coaches are going to have to fast track some of the younger kids. We can't expect Cripps and Curnow to play at that level every week and we need some new talent to help share the load.

Good to have the footy back, much better having a competitive team, exciting kids and with hope for the future. A big step forward from the pre Bolton days of 100+ point blow outs!

CB

Here is my assessment of the game from last night. Feel free to disagree with it, which I am sure many will.

Some Pros:
Charlie Curnow showing a taste of his potential, ditto for Cripps.
Quick more aggressive style of play that led to more scoring opportunities
Usual suspects of experienced players standing up for us and some new ones like Kennedy doing well until he was injured.

Some Cons:
Apart from a goal Casboult was poor. Either giving away frees or not markng balls
Following on from last point. No marking tall forward (still wanting to know why Casboult was re-signed, surely they can't be that desperate)
Overposessing of the ball and then resultant poor disposal and turnovers when under pressure
Not manning up. This has been a problem for many years but still not fixed and gives our opponents easy transfer of the ball from one end to another
Giving away stupid free kicks
Inabililty to play four quarters

I am not throwing in the towel by any means but I think that the problems that we have had for many years are still there and still not being addressed properly. The experts who think we are only a couple of years off of being grand finals contenders are seriously kidding themselves as long as these issues remain. We may be able to beat poor or average teams if we play out of our skins but we cannot hope to win the tough games while there are so many deficiences. Lastly we need to stop letting this club be the training ground for players to become experienced and then go to other clubs. Going through batches of new kids each year is not going to get us to the finals.

What part of Casboult's 9 2nd half touches and 19 hitouts, many to advantage, did you miss. After a diabolical first half when he went into the ruck after Kreuzer went down he suddenly did well. Remember, he does play two roles. The of the cricket all-rounder who makes a golden duck then bowls taking 4/40. Bit like Casboult's game last night.

As for being a contender in a couple of years we certainly will be. Yes, we have things we need to fix up and iron out but i'm sure every premiership had to before they contended for the flag. Their big bodies wore us down, remembering we are still young and developing. Remember who we were playing and lead most of the game.

Yeah its called tunneling and it should be a free kick against. The umps missed it on a couple of occasions.

A lot of good points in your post. Much respect.
But to play devil's advocate if he racks up so many kms shouldn't he have got a bit more of the ball? His numbers for an experienced quality midfielder were pretty average.
Furthermore for a class player he had little to no impact in the second half.

Nobody mans up any more. t's a think of the past when you had an opponent and he stayed in his position. If you man up now, you are being taken out of the team defensive plan.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Umpires gifted us about 4 goals.
Should have been a 6-8 goal loss. We allow way too many I50s for the opposition. That will continue as we are only just now learning offense and so defence will suffer in the short term.

Disagree about Riewoldt. I like him.

But, the Martin - Thomas one - you're spot on.

In fact, I reckon Thomas was hard done by on THREE occasions:

- Clearly handballed and was pinged for throwing - goal to Richmond results.
- Clearly marked the ball and was called play-on (may have even been pinged for HTB that time).
- Clearly pushed in the back by Martin - play on, goal to Richmond results.

Take those two goals out and our momentum in those cases results in one extra goal, then it's a very close game - one that Kennedy and/or Kreuzer may have turned. So, no excuses, but just saying we did ok - closer than it looked.

Also, the fact that we were more accurate. BFD. This new game style allows for that. In fact, my guess is that it's actually designed for that.

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

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Quality, measured post as usual.

_________________
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/