Some things in football are unacceptable. I could hack losing to a team 6 times in a row if that team was genuinely better than mine. The fact that we have failed to beat Essendon* in 6 outings is unacceptable.
Essendon* are a rubbish team. A rubbish team who, fair play to them, have our number.
We're a potentially good team coached by a rubbish coach. His failure to beat Essendon* with the players at his disposal, given the players at Matthew Knights disposal, is galling and will, in time, prove to be a key determinant in him losing his commission as Senior Coach at Carlton. He will see out his current contract, which expires at the end of next season, but after that will be replaced. And rightly so.
I imagine when Ratten is gone it'll be like that scene in 'Wizard of Oz' where Dorothy steps out of the farm house into the munchkin city thingo, and instead of being all sepia toned and black and white, the world is colour.
The passage of play that best summed up the evening, for me, was when Tayte Pears was caught like a dog on the wing by Chris Yarran in the third quarter. Should have been holding the ball. Wasn't. Called play on. Then, immediately after, some other Essendon* slug tried to beat 2 Carlton tacklers, was caught, dropped the ball. Carlton freekick, right? No, of course not. It was a Bombers free kick because right after incorrectly disposing of the football following his failure to beat 2 tacklers, the Essendon* slug was adjudged to be held when not in possession (please bear in mind this is the possession he squandered due to lack of awareness/ability to dispose of the football correctly).
I just spoke to an Essendon* supporter who referred to something as "the Lonergan debacle"... he said it was when they ‘took a goal from him’. What typical Essendon* entitlement from the umpires bullshit.
I questioned whether that was the incident where he had 15 seconds to kick a goal, was sauntering in, and was run down by Dennis Armfield for, arguably, the greatest holding the ball ever? Cos, from where I was sitting, it looked like he had prior opportunity enough to kick 10 goals but was caught like the slug he is.
Or, was it the incident in which Lonergan (I think it was Lonergan, whoever it was looked like a munchkin with downs syndrome) received a freekick, which he would subsequently goal from, for what the umpire deemed a shepherd by Jordan Russell? To me it looked like Russell was attempting to mark or spoil the ball over the goal line. The umpire, however, decided his attempts to retard Lonergan, which looked to the layman like minimal contact, eyes completely on the ball and front position in the marking contest was actually an illegal and sanctionable offense for denying an opponent the opportunity to mark the ball.
This is as devastating as being a supporter gets.
_________________ "In fairness it did seem in the early days of the draft teams would just pick a name totally at random out of a hat. I'm pretty sure we picked James Cook at #2 one year. The mediocre forward, not the explorer" - Me, 12/9/2011
Carlton 2012: Lets remind them why they once feared the Dark.
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