Cons:

There's something about this club at the moment, and the way it prepares for winnable games. Despite all the long-term positives, we doom ourselves to finish bottom again, because we save up our non-competitive efforts against the bottom sides. And so there's no way we're going to attract quality free agents. And so we'll limp along for another year or 2 until our young players become seasoned. Can only hope we manage to hold onto Cripps, if we finish bottom for another 2 years.
Injuries. We don't have enough senior, hardened players as it is. So the plague of injuries we've had over the last 3 years is killing us.
Not enough from the few senior players who were out there. Murphy, Plowman and Casboult were diabolical. And Cripps was invisible in the first half.
Set shot kicking. They didn't miss. We couldn't hit. It meant we never had a chance.
Diabolical defensive turnovers early in the game.
Williamson and Stocker are the future. But they clearly weren't ready. (Although we probably didn't have a lot of choice.)

Pros:

Fisher.
Phillips, Walsh, Gibbons and SOJ were okay.
Good 2nd half from Cripps and Weitering.
Nice to see Cuningham get some midfield time in the 2nd half, and find some ball.
Like how LOB runs out games.

One of the most uncompetitive efforts in recent memory. Second to the ball all day, and they were able to spread every single time we turned it over. At one stage the ball was locked inside their forward 50 for over 60 seconds and Norf still were able to find a loose.

Not willing to work hard enough defensively, panic under pressure (see Dow dropped chest mark and Murphy’s one handed effort near the bench) and a poor/uninspiring game plan.

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I stopped believing in God when I realised it was just dog backwards...

Belted by a pretty ordinary side. Yes, we were always going to lose this game with the outs we had, but the same old issues just keep emerging. Turn overs, terrible kicking for goal, lack of structure, and once again unable to halt a side once they get a run on.

As I've said before, the powers that be at Carlton must have expected us to rise up the ladder this year, otherwise surely you wouldn't swap first picks with Adelaide. The Crows must be laughing their guts out.

Just home from the game. I stayed to the end.
Bloody disgraceful, but expected.
When will it end?

Let’s face it, we are still a team that is vulnerable when we get injuries and Cripps is quiet.

I hate it, just as we all do, but it’s the reality.

Before the game, I was really concerned about the destabilising effect to our backline of losing both Simmo & Newman. I thought we might be able to cover one of them, but not both. My worst fears were realised; our midfield was thrashed and our vulnerable backline was put under pressure it couldn’t cope with.

We could’ve got away with playing one of Stocker or Williamson, but we erred playing both IMO. I said during the week that Williamson was still adjusting to VFL tempo and wasn’t ready for AFL. I think I was right. I know we wanted guys who have been playing our defensive system to come in but you have to balance that. I hope we didn’t set him back by playing him today. We didn’t have many other options but I think Setterfield should have played instead. It wouldn’t have changed the result, but giving Willo another week to build conditioning/confidence would have been in his and the club’s best interest, plus Setterfield would have given us another option in the midfield when things weren’t working.

I doubt we’ll see Jones next week, but fingers crossed he hasn’t suffered any long term damage.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Good to see Charlie getting through the game, did OK considering.

Could have done with a bigger body around the stoppages today, Setterfield or Kennedy.

Would have liked to see Jack given a run on the ball.

As soon as we start to struggle the rot sets in through the whole team. Basic errors, can't hold tackles, 2nd to the ball and no dare/attacking football.

Unfortunately same old same.

Great Carlton crowd there today, many left early, what a dissapointment. This club continues to dissapoint.

Any news on Jones?

how did stoker and willo go?

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my last one was rubbish

Spot on post Warching the Cats now, and they have completely rebuilt their forward line. A guy like Dalhaus is exactly what we need, but we can't attract these guys. We get the Fas, who looks like he won't play much footy this year.

Brilliant

They weren't our worst players.
Stocker had a bit of it.
Williamson looked scratchy and got a heavy tackle in the last quarter, which was a dangerous tackle, and went off.
It was a tough game for our back line.

I really think this was a winnable game so no excuses about injuries etc

Apathetic collective effort meant a pathetic result

We keep giving them too much of an out

Was almost the most uncompetitive performance in the last years and that is saying something given the opposition

It was embarrassing no excuses no leave passes

Both were serviceable. Willo wanted to give it off as soon as he got it, hot spud style, but first game back that's understandable. Stocker was a bit overawed but did a few ok things in his first game......he'll learn from that as Spud would say.

thanks kezza. do you think willo was injured?

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my last one was rubbish

x 20,000 Carlton members who had left by 3/4 time. Insipid performance.

Was a dangerous tackle that umpire didn't call looked dazed Willo and terrible umpiring again

Was the type of tackle that rule was designed for

We’re still one spot off the ladder ahead of ourselves.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Last 5 weeks we've played...

Swans
GC
Bulldogs
Hawthorn
North

Really could argue, if we had improved, we'd be 5-2, like Brisbane, or 4-3 against that opposition. Should be with the players we have. Had a chance to progress up the ladder to show we have improved.

We are 1-6.

Now we have a real shit run ahead. Maybe beat Essendon* just because we do, lol, but not alot ahead to look forward to. Could well be 1-10 half way. That might cost someone his job.

Yep could see it in the warm-up.

FIIK what goes on inside the tent.

Today was awful, but I saw it coming, a fact I don't exactly take pleasure in.

It's happened time and time again under Bolts reign that we feel all warm and fussy after a decent week or two, which doesn't even necessarily even result in a win then we play like we did today which reminded me of the Freo first half last year.

Without the 4 outs we had, we had reached a tipping point. We simply had too many young guys in and not enough experience out there. Without Kreuzer I think we have to play Kennedy, as weird as that sounds, as he provides another bigger body in the midfield, or even Setterfield. Today it was Cripps and a bunch of little guys getting beaten up.

Casboult was awful, but hes been producing games like that throughout his career, so shouldn't come as a big surprise.

We actually started off with a bit of energy, but the early turnovers killed our confidence and run, and it just snowballed from there.