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Obviously terrible kicking for goal almost cost us. Personally I wasn’t convinced with the ‘kick it long to the goal square’ approach, seemed to be geared towards kicking to Hampson and less to a leading Waite ??
Do we think we should persist with the two rucks, esp Hampson as a fwd? He certainly gets to plenty of aerial contests, but 95% of them go through his hands. And his kicking for goal is atrocious. The new Sub rule makes it hard to play two genuine rucks. But then if Hendo plays instead of Hampson, then who is the second ruck? Just goes to show how important Kruezer is. He can be the second ruck, and also a back up tall fwd if there’s an injury such as the one last night to Waite. Kreuzer’s importance to this team has doubled in my view with the introduction of the Sub rule.
Not entirely surprised Yarran had a shocker. Clubs would have seen his excellent work off HB over the summer and how much drive he gives us, and Hardwick not surprisingly planned for it. Like Shaw a couple years back, Yarran (and Ratten) will need to learn to counter the negative tactics of opposition coaches when they try to take Yazz out of the game.
What did we think of Murphy and Gibbs’ games? Hard to criticise them both given their DT scores and they were undoubtedly among our Best, but I sort of felt when the heat was on in the third neither of them really stood up and lead the way out. It was Judd again in the 4th who kicked the goal that sparked us. I don’t think Roos is technically right when he says for CFC to go fwd they need a Gibbs or Murphy to win the B&F (that implies one of them would become a better player than Judd, which is a huge ask), but I do think (and I think this is what Roos was trying to articulate) that in situations like last night, when the challenge was there, it’d be good to see a Murphy or Gibbs kick the goal that sparks us, or a Murphy or Gibbs who wins the all important clearance when the tide is against us. Gibbs got a lot of it in the last quarter, gave us a lot of drive, so that was good to see, and Murphy was the best player on the ground to half time, but I still want to see more from these two number one draft picks, in terms of becoming true leaders of the Carlton Football Club. Hopefully that will come. I’m pretty sure it will.
Down back I was not surprised we struggled to contain Jack. Surely this is Thornton’s last game for the CFC? He was shifted to Jack for 5 mins and had 2 gls promptly kicked on him, on both occasions incapable of applying any pressure on Jack. At least White tried. Just goes to show how important Jamison is to this team. Jack would have kicked only 2-4 if Jamo had played.
Thought Laidler started very poorly, lost his feet twice and in both cases goals were kicked by Richmond, but after that I thought he was very good. Took a couple nice marks and showed a briskness across HB when he intercepted and re-bounded. Less convinced by Duigan. Don’t get me wrong, he was far from disgraced. But like in the NAB Cup game I saw numerous instances where in my view he looked a bit wobbly, unsure. Ball went through his hands once or twice, on other occasions he misread the play in tight and failed to apply any pressure on his opponent. Little things like that which are crucial for a defender. Hopefully it is just nerves and after a few AFL games he will settle down.
Curnow a huge fine, a real bonus as rookie. 11 touches in tough last term were critical. Goes hard and can also run.
Bottom line is, until Hendo develops into a full fledged quality key fwd, and until the young backline beds itself down, we won’t be a top 4 side. Good sides don’t kick more points than goals in first quarters they dominate, and we do this too often still. It’s a sign of a team that has a good midfield but the fwdline still hasn’t hit a groove. And the backline is a worry. Jamo is good, as is Russell, but Yarran will need a year to learn the art of being a tagged attacking half back flanker, Watson hasn’t played a game yet, Bower seems to get injured every 5th or 6th week, and we won’t know on Laidler or Duigan long term til much later in the year. Personally I think we might need to trade something of value at the end of the year to bring into the club a topline defender. When I looked at that backline on paper last night, I wasn’t too excited, and I thought up against one of the worst teams in the AFL (Richmond) only 2 of the 6 defenders last night played well (Russell and Lailder). Duigan, White, Thornton, Yarran I thought were all poor to average. Personally I would be playing Watson every week, to get games into him. He is the future, and is physically ready-to-go, so let’s get 20 games into him now.
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