Also agree re handling of Watson, Austin and Bower, absolutely mystifying. But I think Hendo playing at full back has been fair enough - he has done well and has got some much needed confidence which he wasn't getting up forward. That said, I would've brought on Bower just after half time and put him on Cloke and put Hendo forward.

Yeah have to agree there, why have we fed Watson to the wolves twice this season? First game, he got smashed up by Cloke, then yesterday he was under so much pressure and made some bad mistakes, cost us 2 goals and we lost by 3.1 goals, go figure.

4th Quarter

watson - thomas FB
judd - maxwell C
thornton - o'brien HF
betts - thomas FF
simpson - reid HF
henderson - ball HB
judd - tarrant HB

collingwood player - thornton FB
cloke - curnow HF
cloke - laidler HF
wellingham - scotland HB
o'brien - scotland HB
blair - kreuzer - HF

Total Marks from Opposition Kicks:

Collingwood: 21
Carlton: 9

I'd like the coaching staff to have an entire session based on kicking to the advantage of OUR players. Easy to do, just play one-on-one circle work . Go around and around until they ALL grasp this tricky concept .

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Agree with this, Bluehammer. Laidler is no fuss, always makes the right decision and goes hard. Reads the play really well, He is clearly a graduate from the very very good Geelong defense and a pleasure to have on board. A proper old-school defender. Reminds me a bit of D Fletcher, but smaller and less of a freak. Duigan is great but does make a couple of blues every game.

Can not believe the critiscism of Watson and Henderson

Watson is a better body on body player than Austin, hence his selection. The test for the MC is not to drop watson after 1 game. He needs a run of 3 or 4 matches. His decision making is an issue today.

Henderson needs to play defence in the lead up to the finals. We are likely to play Wcoast or Geelong in successive weeks where we need two talls. Kruezer and Waite forward and Jamo and Henderosn back

I agree. I thought Warnock was excellent with his ground work especially. It's actually his strength he can mix it on the ground with the little guys and he really cracked in down low a few times yesterday. He gets boot to ball quickly and hes not a typical slow dinasaur when involved in a chain of hanballs. And he bowled Pedlebury over very nicely behind play and hurt his shoulder - we need that stuff.

Obviously we'd love him to take some contested marks but overall i thought he was good on the weekend.

EFA


I'll take Duigan's couple of errors every game, his attack on the ball is second to none.

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"I had to eat"

Duigan is an example to the others on how to play attacking defensive footy; and Laidler is a good pickup too, but without Duigan's flair.

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No ones listening till you make a mistake.

Sanity at last................ Agree 101 %.

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All my dangerous friends

Coaches' Votes
Carlton vs Collingwood

7 Pendlebury (Coll)
7 Thomas (Coll)
4 Ball (Coll)
4 Judd (Carl)
4 Simpson (Carl)
3 Cloke (Coll)
1 Gibbs (Carl)

Isn't it refreshing to see the coaches votes as they are the only ones not influenced by possession tallies or Supercoach points?

Some media muppet on yesterday's Sunday Footy Show (was it Dermie?) had Dane Swan as the 3rd best player on the ground with 7 points, in front of Judd with 6!

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"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

He was obviously listening to the Collingwood supporters who thought he was BOG by the flemington straight.

Think most people on here have actually been pretty understanding of Hendo's use down back, even if some think we should stop robbing Peter to pay Paul - my personal view is that we shouldn't stick stubbornly to his positioning week in, week out but happy to concede that it's better for his development to have consistency for a few weeks.

Your comments re Watson v Austin are a different story though - most people seem to be expressing a level of confusion at how Austin gets into a team, performs decently in the circumstances and gets dropped on the basis of one game, despite Jamo and Waite getting injured in the meantime. What did the bloke do? Cos by all reports Watson and Bower have been just OK in the Bullants. Re bodywork .... I just don't know how you make that call on the evidence thus far. Watson took one uncontested mark on Saturday and I have no recollection of him winning contests in other ways either.

All in all, the suggestion that it's 'insane' to be raising some questions over this is puzzling.

Gibbs really?

Interesting to see Thomas receiving 7 votes and Simpson (who was assigned to perform a role on him) received 4 votes. I'd like to know which coach allocated votes to whom and how they thought it played out.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Gibbs was excellent.

I thought Gibbs was our best.

Nice one skadoosh - really appreciate the time you spent providing this analysis.

For all the discussion about this player and that player and this move and that move, I reckon
this stat by itself is enough to explain the result.

Now if only we knew the magic formula to fix it.

The coaches votes are the only ones I ever take any notice of.
IMO "Dream Team" points and similar can be very misleading.

Also, Saturday was the most impressed I've been with Gibbs for along time. I still wish he'd
stop toe-poking the ball away from a tight contest though and try and take the situation on.