Pros
It was a nice day to do laundry.

Cons
I was barracking for the Saints last night.
And I'm missing Fev

Cons: the entire Ponsford Stand

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"I had to eat"

Pros:
- We tried much harder than last week
- Henderson tried his best
- Watson will be better for the run
- I love Kade Simpson, rarely a week goes by where he doesn't contribute

Cons:
- We didn't try hard enough
- Hendo's best wasn't enough
- Watson made a few horrible blunders
- Our KPP depth needs addressing/fast tracking/extra development
- They are very good

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Pros:

Judd was clearly our best player
Simpson was good on Thomas
Gibbs had a good day
Duigan & Laidler continue to impress down back

Cons:

Warnock didnt impose himself on the contest again
Curnow needed the run
Ellard didnt do enough
Missed opportunites in front of goal.

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You heard it here first!

Pro's
Murph, Gibbs, Simmo and Scotland are now almost as reliable as the great man.
Warnock's ruck work.
We displayed shite skills, couldn't kick to advantage nor take a contested mark, had no idea how to get the ball back in (20 times) from a behind, gave the match up with half a quarter to go, and still just loss.
Twomey

Con's
Yazz's non effort in the first contest of the day.
Jeffy and Eddie's inability to get involved and our utterly retarded belief that pumping the ball on their heads is a good idea.
A potent left foot is no good if it takes too long to reach it.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

At the game yesterday and then watched parts of replay. Major difference. TV flattered us and several players.

Pros.

Gibbs in Midfield
Usual suspects

Cons.

Our depth is an illusion, potential yes, depth not yet.
Selection
Use of players
Team Balance
Being totally brutal, guys like Warnock, Walker, Betts struggle in big time game. They are front runners and front runners dont win you finals! They will tease and tease and tease but never deliver. How many would get a game at Collingwood?
Lack of bigger bodies around the contest. We need some size.


I believe we are currently about a 4-8 ranked side. The issue is that there is a massive gap between 4th and 1st!
Tactically we get found out in big games all the time. Ratten says we need a key fwd and I agree but until we get one why do we play like we have one?

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Warnock was good and against a guy who's considered about as good as it gets. Clearly won the ruck contests and had comparable stats for everything else. No doubt you'll bring up contested marks, which I have to point out, are a lot more difficult when there's three opposition fists trying to smash the ball as opposed to one fist.

I'm not sure how much more the guy has to do.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

I thought Warnock and much of the midfield were pretty good.
Our forward structure and entering it wasn't great again. Having said that the amount of people mentioning Fev in the last couple weeks is embarrassing.

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I thought we clearly won in the ruck contests. Around the ground both of our guys could do more.

At the end if the day, we don't have a key fwd after Waite and their midfield bats a little deeper than ours. Compare sidebottom, ball and Johnson vs Curnow, thomey and Ellard.

Good effort and proved we are about 3 goals a game off winning a flag.

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Go Blues

Agreed Sticks
Without Waite Jamison carrazzo Russell I thought it was our best performance since the loss to Geelong
Good to get another game in Watson curnow Laidler duigan and the debut of Twomey
The club keeps introducing new players and blooding new players it augurs well for the future

Need to take our opportunities when presented I love Jeffy but misses yesterday really costly
I think Hendo did well albeit cloke won the duel
Hendo will be better if he had the experience of Jamison and Russell around him
Very inexperienced defence yesterday
Much improved performance than west coast and dogs game
Like Finals game yesterday good experience for our young blokes

Warnock's got a long way to go IMO. Given time I'm confident he'll be a very good allround ruckman but at the moment he's very light on.

Pros:
Simpson, our BOG
Gibbs did well and really sought to impose himself
Judd
Walker kicking 3 on a opportunistic basis
Found a few ways through the press
Good to see Twomey kick a goal and do a few nice things
Joseph / Duigan did well on their smalls.
Duigan generally was very good.

Cons:
Composure in the first half. Panic, panic. jeff G has been very skittish of late and needed to calm down - if he gets caught I dont care, I'd much rather he take some time sometimes.
Watson's kicking but we know that will recover
Kreuzer is still in a flat spell, but that's OK as we know he is coming back from a long way
Ellard out of depth
Henderson as a Full Back. He did a few nice things but I think we say he is doing OK in the same way that Livo did - he is not winning any 50/50's but can do a few nice things when it goes his way.

Main comments:
* Depth - not sure if those trumpeting depth really expected us to be able to cover Waite, Russell, Jamison, Hampson (well his form in the 2 weeks before he was injured) given where we've come from. Our depth promises to be good in future but we're already in a position where we're testing it

* Forward structure - You cant rely on mids and smalls to kick 100 points each game, let alone against the top team. We have no big guys who can kick 3 goals in a game let alone consistently. Love Kreuzer and bringing it to ground but we need a bit more. I wonder whether Ratten and the MC see 2014 as our time and whether we're just a bit too happy to be competitive against the top teams.

Cons:

1. Why do we choose to play-on when we mark the ball? They are doing the "Press" thing (they are the best in the business) and we kept playing on and put ourselves in huge pressure, resulting turn-overs. Seems like we are playing with fire.

2. Kick-Ins - absolutely horrible. Too many times we kick the ball to Warnock, don't think he has taken a mark from our kick-ins in his entire career at Carlton.

3. The long bombs - we kick the ball so high in the air, an easy spoil for the opposition defenders.

4 Walker - yes he kicked 3 goals but his efforts are pathetic.

5. Gibbs - he had some fantastic stats but he needs to go harder at the ball. I really don't like the way he's developing, I don't think he has improved much from last year.

6. Scotland playing as a defender - he is wasted back there. Having a career-best year so far playing in the wing, should continue to play there.

Pros:
- Duigan.
- Henderson at the back - he is so much more confident playing there.
- Twomey, he will be a regular player next year.

I'd have thought quick movement is the best way to beat a press.

_________________
"I had to eat"

Agree with Diugan and Twomey but Henderson confident? He looked as nervous as a kitten.

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Bawditawaba

That's what happens when you are not played in your natural position, it's no surprise Cloke had 7 shots on goal. Cloke is in career best form and would have done the same thing to Bower/Thornton/Watson/anyone so it made little sense to have Henderson in that position.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Pro's
I thought our third quarter was pretty good. We had them on the run for a while. (still lost the quarter though)
Simmo
Judd man
And the back line did quite well as a whole considering some heavy pressure.
General effort was there but poor skills under pressure (cept Yarran jumping out of the way early on )
Con's
Betts on Harry. WTF how many times does Eddie need to get pantsed before we try something different.
The fu$%en goal post.
Walker trying to take mark of the year every time. Mate go for the car when we are 10 goals up!
The rocket scientist who let Watson continue with the kickouts after they started to go astray.

_________________
I support the Navy Blues whatever happens!

Setanta might have done OK on Cloke. He's quick enough.

_________________
Bawditawaba

Pros
The MC had a chance to look at our set ups and the players performance under real pressure.
We have blooded another player who looks like he could step in if there is an injury in the finals.
Our forward line coach has a lot of footage he can use to improve the set ups and positioning of the forwards
Cons
Unfortunately Yarran not stepping in front of Cloke. It may be good for self preservation but it looks bad and the MC may have to make an example and give him a week or two in the Bullants to make up for it.