Haven't seen the last quarter yet.

Pros:

Couldn't stop Walters, but loved Tuohy's attacking play.
Watson.
Tried pretty hard.

Cons:

Not sure how we were 8 points down at quarter time. Stupid mistakes. Missed tackles. Allowed far too much space for their small forwards. I'm a fan of MM, but Lyon got the game played on his own terms.
Annoying to have to play Freo at Etihad. Effectively gives away home ground advantage to the opposition, since Lyon's game plan was built for Etihad.
Hard to win when 3 of your most talented players (Murphy, Gibbs, Yarran) don't contribute much.
Small forwards. 9 goals to our 3. Far greater defensive pressure. Yarran simply not playing with enough intensity. Even his skills were pretty poor. I reckon he either needs to go and play in defence or with Northern until he learns the required intensity.
Not sure that Gibbs in defence is really working. He's good, when he gets free. But not defending well enough. Not getting enough ball. Prefer to see him struggle in midfield, learning a new role. Then struggling in defence in an old role. We need more class in midfield. Too much falls to Judd and Murphy.
Been a disappointing 6 weeks for Walker.
Carrazzo seems to be really struggling with 'old man' injuries to the lower leg. Wonder if he'll struggle from now on, like Waite.
Gee, we need another decent tall forward. And a defender as well would be nice.

And yet Freo's 3 small forwards (Walters, Ballantyne, Neale) effectively won them the game. Ran harder. Applied far more pressure. And were far more damaging offensively.

But don't you know, all we need are more and better midfielders?

We had close to the best midfield 2 years ago, but our deficiencies in key posts let us down then. I agree that our midfield struggles have seen us drop 3-4 places, but the bigger problem is our spine.

Still very disappointed but actually liked MM's presser. Has to be brutal internally this week and some 'name' players should be dropped. Not rested or managed but dropped.

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We are on our way back...

I agree. Not sure why the early season midfield experiment has stopped? It was always going to take some time to reprogram him.

Get Bootsma back into the side. Too many of our class midfielders are playing in defence at the moment (Simmo, Scotland and Gibbs).

Early in which year?

i FORGOT TO MENTION WE GOT BEATEN BY A BETTER TEAM....oops caps.

they were much better than us for longer.

I thought we competed well for longer than usual but carried too many players.
I was pleased with the boys to fight back and gain the lead in the 3rd...and again later in the 3rd...signs were good at times.

I thought Marc Murphy lacked courage. He should have been in and under trying to attack the ball and make things happen at top pace instead of being dominated.
Don't think....DO!

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Refreshing isn't it... no backslapping or mind numbing statistics

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“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman

It's been good for the forward line having Hendo shifted forward, but it's placed a lot more pressure on the other defenders, especially Jamo.

Its not just about us. Its about what is a successful formula within the AFL. Open your eyes to the trends within the league, not just your sheltered backyard.
But I suspect you knew that.

By the way, that mix took us to 3 finals series out of 4 years with a young list. Not bad compared to the shit we're serving up at the moment.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Im no fan of Malthouse just tossing up the suggestion . I also dont think the players are all shit either
I think a few are lazy but despite that this boundary hugging kicking long to a contest is just rubbish . Why give up the corridor .
Ratten may not have been right for us but Malthouse is all wrong

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

This game plan, that game plan Ratts game plan, MM's game plan, Lyon's game plan, ...sure it is relevant make no mistake about that however doesn't it boil down to team work, team effort, players working at a high level of sustained contested footy.

Freo were a class above but when a 1/3rd of your players are not putting in the team effort required then you are pushing shit uphill.

Three telling visions for me last night:

1. Yazz woeful attempt at a bump on Neale (?) rather than a hard clamping tackle
2. Betts going to Mundy in the middle & noticing the physical variation b/w the two - 60 secs later Mundy takes an easy mark over Betts
3. Lat qtr and Our 2 number 1 picks somehow manage to conspire a goal out of nothing.....unfortunately for the wrong team (and the little turd waltzes in for an easy gimme).

The visions I wanted to see were:

1. Kreuze kneeing the flower out of Sandi in the ruck that would have nullified him somewhat and stopped Sandi from attempting the same - watch the vision
2. When Freo kicked a few in a row I wanted see some fight, an elbow here or there, a sling tackle, a punch or two thrown at Ballantyne.

Alas maybe in another generation.

Carlton are simply soft. Not sticking tackles. Not winning the ball at ground level. Not running hard enough. Not believing we can win

Simmo is the only player I have seen CONSISTENTLY play as though we can win -bless him

SOFT bluebaggers SOFT

I'll be buggered if I keep forking out big $$ a membership etc when they dont seem to care whether they win or lose.

I joined the day after they booted Elliott out so like many, I've seen my share of cr@p but I am sick and tired of paying money and spending time watching alsorans.

At least under Ratten we could see progress (injuries aside) but with a near full list, we are in the same position as last year.

This is simply not good enough.

Its not just the odd stinker. We all have those. This year has been pathetic

For me last night was simply a case of beaten by a better team, no need for too much analysing past that point.

The fact is we aren't good enough to mix it with the top teams , at this point the only team in the top eight i would see us being able to compete against is Port which really doesn't surprise me as at the start of the year i would have picked us to finish anywhere between 7th and 12th.

It's very easy to be making statements saying we should be top 4 or playing in preliminary finals, who of the top four teams can you reasonably think that we are superior to?

I look forward to seeing us play out the season and see how many more games we can actually win, whether that leaves us scraping into the 8 or not is neither here or there as far as our future goes.


What happens post season will set us upon our future path and i have far more confidence in that regard with MM at the helm than i would have had otherwise.

Was very disappointed yesterday, however after reflection I would say this:

a) The Crows are leading - so maybe in with a chance stil... but not so important.

b) Lets just remember that things chnge quickly and small things can have big effects. Aside from the drugs, the Bummers improved a lot by recruiting one top player they really needed. The Power changed coach. WC went from favorites to bottom dwellers in 10 rounds. So all this wrist slashing is a bit early. Recruit 1-2 good players in the areas most needed, get a better season out of a key play like Murph etc. and have ome luck with the kids like Menzel and Graham and things can look very different very quickly.

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

things will look very different next year

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

That's why this year has been good. We have a new coach who has seen what players can and can't do, who can now make decisions to improve us.

Close to the whole presser was stats. Most mind numbing too.

If you sat down with MM after a book signing last September and were asked what each player can and can't do I am sure you could have told him what seems to have worked out now. All of us could. Even a herald sun reporter could have told him.

Does anyone here really believe that Malthouse's ego didn't get a hold of him ? He thought he could turn them all around. Fix the unfixable.

Bit of a waste of time this year.

The era of the small forward has come and gone. Swans show how its done.....you need 12 midfielders who rest up forward and can kick goals. Our midfield is about 7 players short, and not sure Eddie, Yarran or Garlett have the tank to play midfield. So I'd let Eddie go, play Garlett on the wing, and Yarran HBF...where he has played his best football - and just tell him to run and create.

Murphy has had a horrible year. The jaw injury may have robbed him of confidence of late, but gee he's got to show more. Judd in the twilight and Carrots who knows. We've gone from having nearly the best mids to the bottom 4 or 5 in the league in the space of two years. Certainly would play Graham for the rest of the year, as our season's cooked or very close to it. Even if we do scrape into the 8 we're just making up the numbers....but Adelaide just losing the unloseable to Port means we're gone unless the Bummers lose their points.

Need to grab one decent KP fwd somehow, and the rest should all be mids. The premiership window seemed to have opended under Ratts, but now we've got Mick, its slammed shut. Probably not Mick's fault, more that it was a bit of an illusion under Ratts.