After watching the Ratten press conference I believe he needs to be replaced straight away, he qualified himself out, get rid of him, no more mucking around.

He takes no responsibility for what happened last night. None! And like a lot of you guys blames the players. The same players he has picked, he has taught and he has supposedly inspired. No one else, just him - and then he has the audacity to blame them! They are such easy targets - and such a gutless, mean spirited and most of all dumb approach for him to take.

If ever there was an example of ‘A bad tradesmen always blaming his tools’ it is Ratten!

Management 101 – When you are coach Ratts, the buck stops at you!

YOU are responsible for the game plan, YOU are responsible for teaching the game plan and YOU are responsible for the picking the players to execute that game plan.

If they cannot execute YOUR game plan then YOU either made the mistake of selecting the wrong players or YOU have developed an un-executable game plan, but either way YOU carry the can, not the players.

Instead of saying I f**ked up and I will be changing this or that you have turned around and blamed the players, their intensity, their skills – well Ratts you put them there, you trained them, you carry the can.

There are 15 other clubs with around 4 or 5 assistant coaches each. Apart from Buckley & Longmire all the rest are pretty much instantly available. That is over 70 candidates…

Sack Ratten, appoint Reilly caretaker and start interviewing today.

If the poor form continues - who cares when his contract expires you have to sack him.

We are in for a big month.

And take sticks with him as well

lol, i know,

look i was furious last night, i would have torn shreds of every single player, expect simpson and lucas last night, but the thing is, we only see one side of Ratten. IMO, he presents himself very measured, regardless of the result to the media, and for many, its like, unless they seem him lose his mind in a press conference then he has "lost the players" etc..

what is he like behind closed doors? none of us know, but i look at his record the last three seasons 4,10,13 and its improving, improving every year.

yeah, we lost to the bombers every single time, but really, in the scheme of thing, who gives a shit.

if we lost to the bombers twice again this season, and end up with 14 wins and a prelim final, i will tell you the season is a massive success, regardless of the results against the buumers.

i know we all hate the bombers, god knows i do, but reality is, they are a single team. we have played three games this year. a good performance and a win, a good performance and a loss, and a terrible performance.

if we go the next 4-5 weeks and play like we did last night, i wont be sitting down saying give ratten time, i will be the one leading the chorus for him to be sacked.

losing is acceptable, well it isnt, but losing and playign like we did yesterday, is totally unacceptable.

I believe its the recruiting that has stuffed us up when will we ever recruit players who are not only hard running tough no nonsense footballers and have the skills to match .Can someone name a player in our team who fits both criterias Judd Simpson and our 3 x 1st picks not included .Pretty hard isnt it thats been our problem for years we pick the wrong type of player . Our skills are woeful

Ratts is a good coach but just doesnt have that killer edge - he is definitely a workhorse but failing to motivate players last night to his own detriment will be his downfall.

Mark Ricciuto anyone.. I reckon he has that killer instinct in the Woosha/Voss sense

Would prefer to be discussing other supporting topics, but felt compelled to express my view having had time to digest last nights game and final result.

Firstly I'm not too disturbed by the actual result, it was the game that we played that was so very disappointing.

As a coach myself, at junior level, I'm very interested in topics involving game plans and strategies. We have heard many times, how we have changed our game plan to help arrest the momentum shifts, which have become a significant part in today's game. I actually agree, even though I don't like the style of footy, with this strategy. What I do believe we have forgotten to do is actually play in front of the ball.

I for one am not too surprised at the results of the last two weeks. It was very evident during the NAB challenge series, that we will struggle to hit forward targets, if we persist with over possesive footy without the actual intent in driving the ball through the many variances of the zone.

At last nights game, in particular, our forward structure was of little use, as the ball seldomly came through either the corridoor or wings with any geniune drive. The forwards were not sure if they should be pushing up for the zone, or actually leading into position. Were I sat, the opportunity to create one on one contests were quickly snuffed out by our own doing and not our opposition.

As this topic involves our coach, I will declare that I support Ratten, as I believe he will work his way through it, as he did as a player. But, he now is entering a difficult pass, he must empower his players to play as they see the game unfold. Meaning, they must be responsible to change the tempo and strategy according to their opposition. For the first time in a long time, I sat watchiing the end of the game with the full knowledge that we would not change the course of the game, as we were not prepared to change our stategy.

I still have faith, but my confidence in Ratten empowering our players to play to their strengths has taken a severe beating!

Go Blues.

Perhaps the only thing we might agree upon. Yes I agree Laidley is blue collar and probably doesn't fit the culture but tactically seems more astute than Ratten.

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The great are great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us arise.
--Robert Collier

In regards to our forward set up:

Setanta is going to be incredibly ineffective now that clubs will do their homework on him

Hendo is inexperienced and at this stage average and not the answer, but definitely worth persisting with.

Yarran - Class, will continue to improve.

Betts - Our main go to man. The way things are currently he would have to kick 70 plus goals to get us to finals.

Waite - Still getting back into it, might be an idea to let him loose on a wing

As for what else we can do, we can try Thornton up there perhaps, I mean why not? Kreuzer is way too valuable in the ruck, but if we can find a good mismatch up forward at times we can exploit it.

I will make a prediction now, and willing to bet money on it, we will not crack 100 points (total score, not behinds) until at least Round 10.

I tend to agree.

He was the one who if anything underplayed this game, bec he decided to not make Ess and Coll games extra important.

That is so unCarlton do do that.

Maybe the players would have been up more had he made a fuss over the fact they hadn't beaten this mob for years.

And at the end of the day the coach should take some of the heat for the poor skills of the players. After all, the coach instructs training, correct??

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It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it

Agree with this.

Ratten was appointed through a farcical process.

Since he has taken over, he has shown almost no evidence that he knows what he is doing. Yes, the team has won more games, but it would have done so with Dame Edna coaching, as the likes of Murphy, Gibbs, Judd etc have an impact. The argument of number of games won simply doesn't hold water.

We need to look at systems, about our ability to react to what the other teams are doing. The simple inability to effectively kick out after a behind, and to defend other team's kicking out after a behind, tells us all we need to know about the coaching department's tactical nouse. That is something that doesn't require great footballers. It requires someone who can kick (we have those, why oh why is Russell a designated kicker???!!!) and an instruction from the coach of where to stand, and where to run to. Not difficult, yet, we have been ineffective at this for nearly 3 years.

Ratten's contract extension was gross mismanagement. He had done nothing to suggest he was going to be a good coach, and was not under threat of being poached by another club. Sheer idiocy.

Yes, it is true that young coaches can take time to develop, as young players can. The question is, with our list where it is, can we risk the lack of development of the young players over the next few years by having a coach and assistants who aren't up to it?

When Walker first came to the Club, his kicking skills were so much better than they are now. Was it poor coaching that led his kicking skills to deteriorate? Will he never be the player he might have been had he had quality coaches around him?

This is what we risk doing to our kids, our prized early draft picks. Not Murphy and Gibbs, they will take care of themselves, pretty much. But Lucas and Henderson and Grigg and Yarran...these are the guys that must be developed well NOW. If we don't have the right coaches in place, this won't happen, and we risk wasting our window.

The current coaching panel instills me with no confidence whatsoever that they are up to the task.

FWIW, neither does the President.

Oh, and can we pass a law at Princes Park please, that we will never recruit anyone ever again who does not have at least 8/10 kicking skills.

I'd be on the phone to Matthews now, making a massive play. It's a plumb job that might, just might, tempt him.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

people that matter are starting to realize

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

Its a press conference. Coaches generally talk alot but say nothing. They answer questions asked. Cant believe this has got you angry ???
Ratts more than knows where the buck stops.

Each Essendon* player stood next to a carlton player before the bounce and said to themselves ' i am going to beat you today ' and then went about putting everything in to make sure they did. Carlton just didnt bother.

Why should a young head coach need a strategic mentor? Normally it's the veteran coaches who are out of touch and rely on younger assistants to clue them in.

A young head coach needs to know who he is, what he stands for and how he wants the team to play. He sets the parameters and defines the "brand" of football to be played. They are also assumed ( by me anyway) to highly tactically astute.

We've watch Ratts coach for 53 games. What are his strengths as a coach? What has he imprinted on his playing group? Toughness? Intensity? Discipline? Attack? Flair? Tactical flexibility? Predictability to each other? High level of skills?

So you're happy with co-coaches. Because that's what Riley is. He's not a mentor to Ratts, he's not strategic - he does teach a certain blue-collar work ethic expectation to the younger mids, but he's not strategic. Worsfold has Daniher, Williams has Laidley, Malthouse now has Buckley. I'm still mad they didn't chase Simon Lloyd. Brilliant football mind and is helping Harvey at Freo this year after 3 years at the Pies. Captained Ratten, Kouta etc in the under-19's at Carlton...but that opportunity has gone...

...you note that Simon is the same age as Ratts. I said strategic mentor and you automatically assumed it was someone in their 50's/60's. Doesn't matter what the age - he still needs someone who is creative and strategic around him during the week and on match day. Otherwise - Ratten and Riley are one and the same. Honest, Workmanlike, Motivated - but it's not quite enough.

Brett Ratten isnt going anywhere with a contract through 2011.

Doc, I really like your suggestion of Ratts being able to access other expertise within the coaching panel to assist with his apparent shortcomings.

I have always liked the David Wheadon model, who wrote the classic book "Drills and Skills in Australian Football", first published in 1989. Wheadon was ahead of his time as a tactical genius, and held appointments at Collingwoood, Richmond (dont hold that against him) and most recently Geelong (2007). Appointing someone to the coaching panel who is not a former champion player is generally not the done thing. But who says knucklehead former great players are going to make great coaches. Former great players certainly start with an advantage around respect and awe. They have also been there and done that. The senior coach also needs to be able to relate to his young charges, something that I think Ratts does well. Most players arent Rhodes scholars, and someone too high brow as coach cant often connect. Just ask Robert Walls (a former school teacher) how successful setting written homework was for some of his players several years ago. Some of these morons could barely read and write.

So a mix on the coaching panel is necessary. Or the use of special consultants. Not Wheadon, but someone like him. Really smart, creative, a lateral thinker, technically astute, and able to use lessons from other field sports.

Great idea Doc

Unfortunately wont happen during the season.

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TC suffers from the social media illness - the death of respect and constructive discourse by keyboard.

Why are we so slow coming out of defense?

Heard on the radio today they rate Swans, for various reasons but mentioned they have maybe the best run out of defense with Kennely, Shaw and the other bloke name escapes who had a knee reco.

We have JR (pick 9) and 1AW (pick 2) both of whom are mature and can run, but Ratten puts them both in pure defensive roles. Why??

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It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it

Can't see anything happening mid-season.


As i said before round 1. I dont think Ratten is the man for us, but we're stuck him (for this year at the very least!) so we might as well support him as much as possible.


I would have prefered Voss, but mind you, his drafting this year is gonna prove to be very troubling in a few years when the likes of Brown, Black, etc etc retire.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

I may have touched on this before but Ratts (with all due respect) reminds me of George Costanza...a great bloke....tries hard but never gets anywhere because he thinks too damn hard about what the other is doing or thinking....he lacks confiedence in himself and his abilities and this has rubbed off on the players....his actions are fear based not insticntive....that is why his coaching methods are reactive and not proactive....

Now the one time George Costanza got his life on track was in an episode called "the opposite" where George (ala Ratts) abandoned all previous beliefs and methods and did the exact opposite of what he had always done...and bang...magic happened....Ratts should try this....why not? There isn't much left in his bag of tricks anyway...he has nothing to lose....

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre