I wish that we did not need to trade Fev, but understand why the club had to. I agree that we may not be as good this year as we might have been with Fev, but think that we will be a far better side in two or three years as a result of the trade.

DOA, can understand you expressing your feelings about Fev and your previous concern we lost Josh Kennedy. I would absolutely love to have Fev out there killing our opposition on the field and behaving himself off field, but how many chances did he get?

But DOA you might want to PM the detractors who post crap about 1AW. If I was in your shoes I would be asking each of them to post their credentials and how many AFL games they have played.

If I were to accept the proponents of the theory that AWs disposal is lacking occasionally I would still prefer to play someone who gets the ball 20 plus times a game and stops his opponent from getting the ball 10 times a game even if he has a couple of crook disposals.

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“Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile a way and you have their shoes."

Not Yet... apparently I am taking Mr Ratten's advice and following some of his famous quotes for this year " Our forward line is going to be very unpredictable and we have few surprises installed for our opposition. "

mortgaged yours yet dane???

no game plan.. no drilling = struggle

bank on that!

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Dreamin....

Look.. youll find this year we will be doing the same things as last year ....

We had a gameplan last year... give it to "The champ"..."kick it to Fev"

Weve lost 50% of 'the Ratts gameplan'.. and stupidly the other 50% for the first 3 games.
Seeing footy is about momentum.. were gunna struggle to get any up this year.
Those that believe that cos we made the finals in a weak season last year... and that were going to improve and noone else will .. are in for a nasty shock.
We will struggle to get any momentum up.. and if we lose to Richmond round 1 .. God help us!!!.....There is no pressure on them this time... and it will all be on us.
Ratts is really going to have to earn his money coaching now.He is totally exosed and i dont believe he has any answers.There is nothing he has done to stamp his coaching methods on our sides.
Ive already seen first year coaches make their gameplan apparent.

We dont have one.. and if you dont have one.. it means confusion... and thats what im expecting to see alot of .
Im really not convinced and think we will be even more behind the eight ball... in case you were wondering.

All this hoping and keeping fingers and toes crossed or expecting just cos were Carlton doesnt cut it anymore.

I dont think im wrong....

i might be ... but i really doubt it....

By the way i giggle to myself when someone replied to DOA... "If thats what 1AW thinks blah blah blah"

Those of you who dont know him knew that he is totally his own man.. and has played the game pretty extensively in the bush.. and has his own opinions on most things... you wouldnt think what you thought ./..
The man has opinions and hes entitled to them.

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That "Ratts doesn't have a game plan" stuff is rubbish.

I completely agree with you Synbad, I think we will finish bottom 4 this year.
I dont have alot of confidence about round 1 either. Last time we played Richmond we only won by about 3 goals. That day Judd starred, Fev kicked 9 goals and Richmond kicked themselves out to the game.
I think other sides such as Port, WCE and Freo will improve and jump ahead of us.
I may be wrong and i hope i am but we may have to take a step backwards to go forward.

in my opinion if youre drilled properly.. and you ahve the right structures in place.. youre prepared as best you can be.
then you need momentum.

every team is working to get their momentum swinging forwards for the season....

some of us are very confident about this year... syds talking top 4...

the stupidity of what is about to happen is we will be play a very defensive style of game.

just as ratten had joseph tagging jetta against sydney in the last part of the game... (instead of concentrating on winning it)
sydney had no forwards really.. yet he persisted in Jamo Bower and T Bird in the backline. when T Bird could have been swung forward to take a mark and maybe steal a goal or two.
Ratten is blinded with reactive coaching.
We wont win games because he rarely takes the initiative.
And now we dont have Fev we will try to keep the opposition down instead of attacking them.

Lets see if im right and i understand the coach....and his complexities.

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Sounds like it was an exciting last quarter.

This could be the year Eddie Betts kicks 50.

You do realise that it was merely a practice game and no one was playing for sheep stations...

How anyone can make such an assessment on 2 preseason games is mind boggling
Swans took a full strength saints to with in one point on Saturday night
make no mistake swans wanted this preseason more than any as members are dropping like flys
that same side plus it's best defensive player beat us by a goal when they were on show to the entire western Sydney
we will get better this year don't care what you think

a few months back you were singing thr praises of McLean yet most are writing him off without a blow been thrown surely ratts hasn't destroyed him in 4 months
warnock walker Maclean Waite all big pluses for this side

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

yeah i do... and nothing will change come the real stuff.

cos .... u play the way you have been prepared...

were unprepared.

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..again...you're guessing...no one is suggesting that we'll be world beaters. It's going to take time to adjust to life without a power forward, but if you don't like the direction the club is heading in...don't be a part of it...the way you and Keogh post it amazes me that you hand over money for your memberships each year.

And I don't care that you don't like Ratten as coach...but please suggest some alternatives...and some alternative game plans...suits me just fine if we're defensive this year and the mids take some more accountability instead of sitting off their opponents waiting for a cheap posession...but please Synbad - don't just repeat the same argument ad nauseum time and time and time again....no one with any power to do anything is reading this.

That has become apparent following the disappointment of going down by 1 point against last year's GF team, after the Swans had the game in their grasp.

It was obvious from the beginning of the game with Judd in a FP and Kreuzer at FF that we were experimenting whilst we could given it was a practise game.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

These are good points - but T Bird was swung forward in the last quarter - he kicked an over the shoulder goal.

I would like to see T-Bird in the forward line a bit, he could be a surprise packet. My impression was that he was trying the big blokes -Henderson/Hartlett at fullforward but they were generally swamped and it didn't work well.

It seems Henderson is more chf...but I think t-bird could be good closer to full forward line.

Dodo 27 and Club 29,

Will put my money on us not to make the 8 although it's a painful thing to do. You guys pick a round (not round 1) where you will be willing to continue this discussion & we can have an in depth discussion/analysis of who is right and who is wrong. My clear belief is we won't make the 8. I know its a couple of practice games but I just don't see evidence of improved skill execution or tactics. I don't know how much football you guys have watched, but comparing the way we play to when we were successful, we are still miles off it. Basically I think you are dreaming if you think this will be a good year for us......I am happy to continue the discussion you name a round 3, 4, 5, 6. There's a Tsunami coming and you can not see it.

We played a practice match against a Brisbane team with half their starting lineup out.
Several of our key players were having their first hitout for the year.

Let's not get too over analytical.

Wait until the Richmond game - if we lose that THEN you can start up the Sky Is Falling and Sack Ratts threads.

Until then just try to relax and enjoy the fact that we had a win and kept Fev relatively quiet.
Save the heart attacks for later on

Football has changed a lot the last time Carlton was sucwhcessful...so I'm not sure many of you know exactly what we're miles off. I suspect that you want Carlton to play a dominating, ats tacking brand of football...i think with the cattle we have - that's a distinct possibility...will it be consistent? No...and that's where we have to get to...

I dont think i said anything about betting or even where i think we will finish on the ladder ? Maybe you mean someone else.

Now there's a shock.

But you do think you have the right to hijack every thread with your anti-Ratten rants.

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"I had to eat"

if 16-17 goals (100 points) generally wins you a game, then over a H&A season we need about 365 goals to come out in the top 4.


thinking aloud ... we need 16-17 goals from 22-26 players every week or about 2/3 of every week's team to kick a goal each.

we'll possibly get over the H&A season;

40-60 from Betts (2-3 per game)
20-40 probably from a dark horse up forward during the season (1-2 per game)
20-30 from the other smalls (1-2 per game)
80-100 from the mid field (4-5 per game)
50-60 from the bigs rotating up forward (2-3 per game)
20-30 from the backline (1 per game)

by my calculations, we'll get between 11-16 goals per game (230-320 goals over the H&A season) or about 70% chance of getting into the top 4.

My gut feeling is we won't make the 8 this year, let alone the top 4 so have I just got the goals totally wrong ????

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NG
S M C , S F L