“The problem with Carton at the moment is that they've got a lot of stars or perceived stars on their list in their team and they're underperforming against expectations.

“So, we understand that the two particular matchups that I thought worked so well for Brisbane and exposed Carlton's weaknesses at the moment were (Josh) Dunkley on (Patrick) Cripps and Young (Jack) Payne on (Charlie) Curnow.

“He (Payne) was awesome, he's been coming for a while too with his intercept marking since Marcus Adams hasn't played as often.

“Dunkley is a great get for Brisbane, he played on Cripps and then worked off him and Patty Cripps looks like he's not quite at 100 per cent fitness.

“But you the balance of the pressure they had on Carlton's ball user and the intercept marking, I thought Payne was first-class.

“If you look at them statistically, they're up in contested ball differential, their clearances are ok, they're defending turnover ok.

“Their ball movement is very similar to St Kilda. They try and build from the back and then they try and go when they get their opportunity, and they actually finish better inside 50.

“So, there's a lot of things to actually to drill down and look at it, it doesn't give you the full picture.

“The picture is that Carlton's game is taken away from them too easily by the opposition and Carlton don't spend enough time taking the opposition's game away from them.

“They think they're going to win it on talent, they think they're going to win it on ability, and they've got every right to given what they've got at their disposal and they are handling some loss of personnel at the moment, but they don't work hard enough at taking the opposition's game away.

“That is more than half the game of footy … all of these little things add up.

“I think tactically Carlton need to drill their game down to contest and pressure, and they need to work out how they're going to take the opposition's game off them more readily because that brings your strengths to light rather than just thinking that you're going to match people and then just trade blows until you see who wins.

“That's one way to go about it, but I think the best teams take the, take the game away from the opposition.”

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/four-points-the-self-destructive-blues-the-plan-to-stop-daicos-in-his-tracks-20230506-p5d6ai.html

Why Carlton have the blues

The theory has been you stop Paddy Cripps and you stop Carlton. And it’s true, to an extent.

The other part to the newer theory is that, presently, you can rely on Carlton to do your job for you. Carlton helps stop Carlton.

This is not to diminish Brisbane’s outstanding, intelligent effort and intense pressure on Friday night, but Carlton are the most self-destructive of the top eight teams. They’re ball use is just dreadful for a side with pretensions to finals.

Carlton gave up 85 points from turnovers on Friday night, their worst turnover performance since 2021 and the fourth-worst of any side this season. Bearing in mind some of the poor teams at the bottom of the ladder that is quite some feat. They now concede 46 points a game from turnovers on average.

In the last month, Carlton have given up 62 points against Adelaide, 52 against St Kilda, were ahead against West Coast in outscoring them by 16 points from this scoring source, and then they had the 85 points they gave up against Brisbane.

Clearly in those last four games lowly West Coast distorts the figures. If you take that game out (and therefore look at them against three other teams in the top eight) then Carlton have been just awful and bottom three with North and West Coast for points conceded from turnover. Even Hawthorn is above them

Bear in mind they were not always this bad, even this year. In the first month, even against other good teams, they were the opposite of what they are now. They were very good at forcing the opposition into turning the ball over and in that first bracket of four games they outscored their opposition from scores created by turnovers. But in the last month they have fallen to pieces.

What Friday’s game revealed is that Brisbane did their homework on the Blues. Yes, they went to work on Cripps and the Carlton captain consequently had it only 17 times, but they also went in with a plan knowing that Carlton have been vulnerable to giving the ball back and being scored against.

Both articles make great points although there are still some wild assumptions, like we are not trying to nullify the oppositions game plan.
Just because we have been unable to, doesn't directly correlate to not trying.
Our disposals have been woeful, you can't build any attacking or defending plan if players can't do the simple things AFL players are supposed to do.
The club needs a new psychologist if our players are getting beaten in the head, it's just not good enough for athletes of this level.
And our game plan is about contest and pressure, it's the turnovers that open us up the other way, every time.

We have turnovers because we don't know what we are doing

It is clear as day ... to some of us at least

“Either their players don’t understand what their best method is or they don’t believe in it – because it looks to me like they kick when they should be handballing, they handball when they should be kicking, they blast it forward when they probably need to have control. Then they control the ball and go slow when they probably need to go forward.

Montagna

or, we have too many players who can't execute consistently. That shows in turnovers.

There's no 100% correct answer otherwise Vossy and his coaches would be honing in on that answer.

A bit of chicken and egg argument. Catch 22 me thinks. Bad kicking. Lack of intelligent Leadership outside of Doc.

Also, any chance our midfield coach can some up with something apart from "All you blokes converge on the ruck contest leaving at least a couple opponents free on the outside"?

I put skills down to lack of confidence in what we are doing. Weitering turned it over several times and he is very good kick.

I put skills down to lack of confidence in what we are doing. Weitering turned it over several times and he is very good kick.

“Either their players don’t understand what their best method is or they don’t believe in it – because it looks to me like they kick when they should be handballing, they handball when they should be kicking, they blast it forward when they probably need to have control. Then they control the ball and go slow when they probably need to go forward.

Montagna