I just got home after the game.
Back in Mexico, that is.
I saw one game for the time I was in Oz and I have to say it was the worst game of football I have ever seen live. Lucliky I didn't see the Essendon** game, which looked worse on TV.

My observations are more general than specific and they relate to the game plan.

At one stage we had all our players inside the opposition F50 and there was a line of four Collingwood players on their attacking edge of the centre square and no Carlton player goalside of them so it didn't matter what we did, they were going to get the footy. Jack Silvagni got a tackle against the Collingwood point post, which is what made me look at how we were structured up. If we are going to choke opposition forward lines, we still need a way to get the ball out of there other than hoping they kick a point and not a goal from the myriad of stoppages. I would have had Walker and or Touhy level with the Collingwood line for the hack over their heads and a race to our goals.

Our forward setup is weak and congested. It needs us to hold the ball in the middle of the ground and inevitably ends with a long kick to Kernahan. Sorry, Fevola. Sorry, Casboult, who has to go up against two or three opponents and two team mates for the mark. Inevitably on Saturday he couldn't pull it off and our press was too shallow, enabling Collingwood to run the ball downfield for a potential score. Fortunately for us, they usually mucked it up and so we were able to flood back as per the previous paragraph.

Finally, we have reverted to the Malthouse game plan whereby we avoid the loose man running inboard at all costs, hold the footy until the talls get into position and then kick long to a contest down the line. What happened to the daring footy we played earlier with Touhy, Simmo, Sheahan, Docherty, Buckley running the lines and using the corridor? It has just disappeared. Several times I said to my neighbour, 'look at Simpson running through the midfield to make position' and he was just ignored for the long kick to the boundary. Bolton said we were going to play bold footy. I thought he meant we were going to change the game plan to play bold footy but he was obviosly just talking about that next couple of weeks.

I am now offically off the Casboult bandwagon and the Everitt one as well. Casbould has more strapping than a trotter and hasn't taken a mark for weeks and the only time he did last week was fifteen out directly in front for a miss to go with Jack's, Walker's and Gibbs's, all which were gettable and that was proven by the little league players who slotted them at half time. I didn't see Gibbs call for that ball from Jack but if he did he should be severely chastised. Bolts shrugged it off after the game but it was as stupid a piece of play as one would see in a round of Under 14's. The fact Jack actually passed it was even worse.

I left the game gutted with the system. OK, we kept the foe to eight goals for the game but they were marginally less inept than us and so won. Had the four goals we missed from less than twenty out and the one they missed from less than twenty out all gone through, we would have won four useless points.

The single biggest thing I noticed from the game was that after the siren, the Collingwood players didn't go up. They knew they had just played in the worst game of AFL footy in history and were lucky to escape with the win.

We need pace and we need it urgently and we need a game plan that lets what is really a decent defence get the footy out of the opponent's attacking zone without it coming straight back. And we need McKay and Curnow to succeed. I think Jack has the makings and I think Curnow has. But if we just persevere with the kick it long to Kernahan game plan, we are doomed to mediocrity forever.

We need to play bold footy. That's how we won against more fancied opponents.