I have no issue with anyone being traded or de-listed.

It depends on what we do with the extra room in the salary and what we get in return - re: draft picks and swaps etc.

My main concern at the blues, has been development and leadership depth.

And we saw the problem surface again on Friday night against the masters of leadership and mental toughness....

Cats dont win the close ones because of fluke or umpiring decisions.

Really Cretin. Could of sworn the umpires coach conceded the free kick should of not been paid.
Just as they conceded the Menzel free kick that wasn't paid 12 odd weeks ago was a mistake.

Were you at the game Friday night?

I didnt say it wasnt a wrong free kick given by the umpires. Clearly a shocking decision by an umpire 50m away.

It didnt cost us the game.

First 15 minutes cost us. We were hammered in the contested ball and tackling. Contested ball was about 40 to 10 in favour of the cats. We ended up winning the contested ball for the rest of game apart from the final 8 minutes.

The game we lost to the cats earlier this year, had a similar ring to it in the final minutes. In that game the cats won 17 of the final 19 contested balls of the match.

We dont have the leadership depth or the mental toughness to win these type of games. (hopefully that changes)

We buckle under pressure - opposition know this

I didnt say it wasnt a wrong free kick given by the umpires. Clearly a shocking decision by an umpire 50m away.

It didnt cost us the game.

First 15 minutes cost us. We were hammered in the contested ball and tackling. Contested ball was about 40 to 10 in favour of the cats. We ended up winning the contested ball for the rest of game apart from the final 8 minutes.

The game we lost to the cats earlier this year, had a similar ring to it in the final minutes. In that game the cats won 17 of the final 19 contested balls of the match.

We dont have the leadership depth or the mental toughness to win these type of games. (hopefully that changes)

We buckle under pressure - opposition know this

I am a massive fan of gibbs since he come to the club. In one of his first few games he had 17/17 efficient kicks. Pagan decided that the best way to play a kid is to put him in back pocket for a couple years to learn the game. Then with Ratts, he was played as a HBF due to his efficient kicking and decision making, as they struggled to get the ball out of the backline. Didn't Bucks play a lot on the HB line due to that ability. Then he shut down goodes and a couple other players and he was used as a tagger sometimes.
Even under micks first year, l don't think he played much in the midfield. This season, Everitt has taken on the tagging role, docherty has cemented the HBF role, which has pushed gibbs to the midfield. Also, with brock on the outer, injuries to judd and curnow, he was forced to play in the midfield. He has grabbed that opportunity and is now starting to show his abillity.

If you want to give MM credit for all that, then that is fine. Gibbs has played for 7 years and this is the first year he has had opportunity to play full time in the gig. When your 25 odd midfielder, l don't think you really improve any ball skills, but you gain experience, which grows your footy brain. Majority of that experience comes from the player playing footy with some advice from coaching panel. But, those 0.5 decisions made out there, come from players instincts and experience, you can't coach that. It is interesting in a contract season, he started playing the role he always wanted to play though

Mick is doing a decent job, if finishing 13th is our new objective. I have accepted the losing culture like most on here and l have accepted we won't play finals under MM. Mick is the man to get us good draft picks and we will never be accused of tanking under mick. We really haven't been smashed, but been competitive in losing. I don't read too much in to the loss to Freo, they were smashed by Saints the week before and Geelong didn't have Bartell or Stevie J.

As for Daisy Thomas, this could be one of the worst decisions in AFL history. By MM pushing for his son, they have really handicapped the team salary cap wise. This guy probably isn't in our best 10 players currently and if his ankle is bad as previously injured, then CFC just blew 2.5 million. The guy hasn't even got back to his premium value and you might never see that now. Levi Casabolt rejected Carltons first offer, but if Carlton have barely any cap room left due to Thomas, then he will walk.

Daisy in, Betts, Laider, Levi out could be a reality. We can't lose Levi. Waite's been in MM dog house all year too, so l expect him to go as well for a 2 year deal.

Do you think we milked the clock in the last 70secs? Did this cost us the game?

I really value your insights.

No denying the Cats looked the more likely team to emerge victorious in the last few minutes.

Notwithstanding that the Cats are the masters of extracting wins in close games, you would have to agree that our injuries - resultant lack of rotations & some favourable free kicks at critical moments would not have helped our cause.

FWIW Cats for mine are the least threatening of the top 4 teams & will struggle to get to the prelim

Dear barrass,

thank you for your kind words of encouragement and positivity. they are certainly valued by me and the society. As you may well know this particular thread can really heat up with formal exchanges between different posters having very strong personal views indeed.

With respect to your question, I must say that I really don't know what the carlton players were trying to do in those final 70 seconds when we gained possession in the back pocket and were 6 points down.

I have a gut feeling about what 'they" were trying to achieve and I intend to release the details of the "gut feeling" in round 7 of the 2015 season, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, keep up the great work in here. Your contributions are certainly valued by me. I would be very proud as a recent member of TC to consider you an ally and valued friend.

Yours Sincerely

Cretylus

Firstly, barass is with one 'r'.

Second, I have no friends.

Thirdly, I don't agree with your pearls of wisdom. We were finished Fri night as soon as Menzel and Thomas went down ... we (or "they as you put it) did a great job to hang in for as long as we could. If you were at the game (and I'm betting you weren't but feel free to correct me) our players were stuffed and we had a few who were compromised which has been documented by other posters.

Keep up the good work though, your dullness still has potential to rub off on others.

Cretylus is a flower wrapped in a brick wall posing as an enigma. Seriously, this is the one time it's okay to play the man not the ball.

How's Port going with the real Super Duper coach lately? Throw us some recent stats. False dawn for your Coach of the Century?

I am a massive fan of gibbs since he come to the club. In one of his first few games he had 17/17 efficient kicks. Pagan decided that the best way to play a kid is to put him in back pocket for a couple years to learn the game. Then with Ratts, he was played as a HBF due to his efficient kicking and decision making, as they struggled to get the ball out of the backline. Didn't Bucks play a lot on the HB line due to that ability. Then he shut down goodes and a couple other players and he was used as a tagger sometimes.
Even under micks first year, l don't think he played much in the midfield. This season, Everitt has taken on the tagging role, docherty has cemented the HBF role, which has pushed gibbs to the midfield. Also, with brock on the outer, injuries to judd and curnow, he was forced to play in the midfield. He has grabbed that opportunity and is now starting to show his abillity.

If you want to give MM credit for all that, then that is fine. Gibbs has played for 7 years and this is the first year he has had opportunity to play full time in the gig. When your 25 odd midfielder, l don't think you really improve any ball skills, but you gain experience, which grows your footy brain. Majority of that experience comes from the player playing footy with some advice from coaching panel. But, those 0.5 decisions made out there, come from players instincts and experience, you can't coach that. It is interesting in a contract season, he started playing the role he always wanted to play though

Mick is doing a decent job, if finishing 13th is our new objective. I have accepted the losing culture like most on here and l have accepted we won't play finals under MM. Mick is the man to get us good draft picks and we will never be accused of tanking under mick. We really haven't been smashed, but been competitive in losing. I don't read too much in to the loss to Freo, they were smashed by Saints the week before and Geelong didn't have Bartell or Stevie J.

As for Daisy Thomas, this could be one of the worst decisions in AFL history. By MM pushing for his son, they have really handicapped the team salary cap wise. This guy probably isn't in our best 10 players currently and if his ankle is bad as previously injured, then CFC just blew 2.5 million. The guy hasn't even got back to his premium value and you might never see that now. Levi Casabolt rejected Carltons first offer, but if Carlton have barely any cap room left due to Thomas, then he will walk.

Daisy in, Betts, Laider, Levi out could be a reality. We can't lose Levi. Waite's been in MM dog house all year too, so l expect him to go as well for a 2 year deal.

I sincerely apologise unreservedly for adding an extra "r" to your nickname.

I hope that you can find it in your heart to accept my genuine public apology, so we can move on from this as people - get on with our lives as human beings.

I am absolutely shattered to learn that you have no friends baras

if there is anything that I can do please dont hesitate in contacting my office - anytime 24/7

Finally, I am glad that you dont agree with my pearls of wisdom, because I dont either.

You are most definitely correct in blaming the umpires and injuries during the game.

It really couldnt be anything else

(I almost forgot to mention bar ass, I really cant take all the credit for my supreme dullness in TC - I have a very experienced tutor)

Well you can make up all sorts of reasons why mick isnt responsible for gibbs move to an a grader midfield. But surely if no one did it before him that is acknowledgement that mick saw a reason to, whereas none before had. He made the decision to get another hbf and tagger which released gibbs. He could have easily used both everitt and docherty in different roles, which according to your theory , would not have released gibbs to the midfield. The fact is mick made these collective decisions which resulted in a great year for gibbs. I applaud it. It takes SOME pressure off the need to recruit another mid........perhaps allowing us to go after boyd for example.
The fact is mick has strategies that are born from many years of experience, that result in eventually very competitive lists.

I am quite frankly amazed that your assessment of our list and coach distills into the conclusion that we will never play finals under him. Amazed.

Re daisy. Look he was always going to have a reestablishment year this year. I judge him in his form trend, not his early season form. Surely you can acknowledge that there has been massive improvement? He is still not up to his form of a few years ago, but surely we can wait another year with an injury free preseason to judge. Yes he was expensive, so would keeping Betts. Imo daisy has more flexibility in his game and therefore brings better value ti the team than betts. I think the betts/daisy deals look worse because Garlett has gone missing and yarran is back in defence. But to a lot of people, the three amigo forward line was never sustainable, being too fragile. Mick has now dismantled it and we are going it seems in the three tall direction.
Your assertion that daisy has hobbled our salary cap is wild speculation at best. Lets see what the end of year brings.

Where is Daisy going?

Is Cretylus greek for knob?

Where is Daisy going?