Looks like 12th is the highest we can finish this season now that we're 2 games behind Power and Swans...

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

Probably should have put some money on my pre-season prediction

Ah, hindsight! Seems to be the one distinguishing factor for being a Blues fan

You should have. You did pick it.

I don't know how you, or even people like David King and Nathan Buckley, who didn't know our injury list was going to be as bad as...USUAL.... make the right call with your predictions.

We showed what we could do with only 5 players out vs Cats, not counting Duffy: Newman, Jagga, Kemp, Cincotta and Fantasia. We won by 10 goals, because we could cover the missing players.

Just looking at Charlie finally move and mark with freedom and class last week reminded me that he has not been 100% to play all year, as has been the case with Walsh, Harry, Gov, Acres, Cottrell,and Elijah, and even SOS in some games, carrying the groin issue, when they played.

What a fkd up year.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Doc posted this before season started

I have us finishing somewhere between 10-14th. I do hope they prove me wrong. A classy mid and a good KPD short of finals imo. Having said that, if this happens, I'd still keep Voss. Will watch with interest

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

Its awful to think how far we have fallen.
As far as players have fallen off the perch.

Lose against Dees this week, and I don't see us higher than them end of this year.

Only because Effendopes have been decimated more than us by injury, we have a chance to end higher than them.

We are not even trying to tank. Our injury toll has been just that constricting ... and that's before we even look at the coach, his Assistants and the Game plan.

I can only see us winning one more game in round 24 vs Effendopes.

Regardless if we win or lose against Efendopes I can see us landing 14th, behind Dees and Saints. Pick 6 in the Draft will be the Compo for TDK.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

You did too SB. Before the season started.

I thought you were kidding at the time given we only had Sayers, Smith, Cincotta and Newman injured....that we were told ofcourse.....the club just bullshitted to us re the health of Charlie, Harry, Walsh, Elijah and Fantasia. Why? I can't trust the club anymore TBH. I actually want to send my protest and not buy memberships, but after 4 decades of Membership ... I don't think I could do that to the kids.

You don't think SOS filled the CHB role effectively ?

I'd like a running HB, a quick mid, a quick small and good marking medium forward who can kick straight.....and a better ruck than the stats laden TDK whose opponents seem to be the most influential on the ground....all year.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Yes BB I was very pessimistic before season started. Worse than I have ever been in my life. This season had disaster written all over it.
I just don't understand how anyone could not see it. The way the list was constructed we had to get very good at the one thing we totally suck at and that is keeping players on the paddock.

What concerns me the most going into next year is they will blow the place up and other clubs will come and feast on the best bits of the carcass we have left

Sent from my SM-F956B using Tapatalk

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

Mike Sheahan nailed it tonight on
“ On the Couch”
Club is still stuck in the past is what he inferred

Bondi, it wasn't anything to do with injuries or lack thereof. It was the modern game style coming into vogue and this playing list not being able to play it or defend against it. There are other things, sure - and there are other sides guilty of the same thing, but it's a copycat league and instead of copying from the writing that was on the 2024 wall, Carlton chose to buy a 2nd hand 2023 playbook off eBay and stubbornly believe this was the modern game style everyone should be playing.

Mike Sheehan is re-hashing plenty of past truths with the "club stuck in the past" line, but he's referring to the boardroom driven successes that bought players, coaches and flags. But Carlton has had more upheaval, chaos and mismanagement than I've had hot dinners, and I've had a lot of hot dinners. That's the past that makes his line the better argument. Forget the 16 flags. The past is riddled with men who believe in institutions, make that institution their life and strive for power within it. We've just ticked over 20 years of the Blueseum. Pick a year or player and see for yourself. There's a Netflix special on every page.

Yes Doc , that's how he got the nickname Solvol . Ken " Dirty " Hands .

_________________
All my dangerous friends

Gotta say I find it lazy journalism saying “Carlton recruited the eyes out of interstate teams.. they’re the bad guys.. back in the 1980s/90s.”

Does Mike Sheehan know that Hawthorn “magically” outbid all teams for the Brownlow medallist & Magarey medallist John Platten, plus Buckenara, Ken Judge, Tony Hall, Darren Pritchard etc etc..and the best of them all … Darren Jarman.
I guess they just got to Hawthorn by osmosis and no “paper bags”.


The reason why Hawthorn didn’t go down the gurgler since the 1990s is a combination of factors.
One was the Tasmanian assistance, AFL funding them, Waverley park for $10, better coaches, better picking with their priority picks.. (Franklin, Roughead)… but to say Carlton is living in the 1990s is stupid.
We still use the draft etc..as per all other teams.

I find it difficult to understand how anyone can dismiss injury as an important factor for our failures, and you can see the impact injury had towards the end of the 2022 season, when we missed Finals by 0.6%.

Late 2023 when those filling in for the injured ran out of puff, let alone those with disrupted preseasons also ran out of puff. Everyone agreed. It was that obvious.

Then in 2024, after we were 2nd on the ladder, injury, and nothing else, derailed our season. We finished the season with 20 out injured, and people want to dismiss injury. How? Why? Forget game plan for a minute, and focus on facts we can pinpoint, and consider the importance of having a healthy list....for every team, not just Carlton. We are hearing the Saints and Effendopes have huge injury lists, andlosing is acceptable for that reason, but you don't hear anything of the sort with Carlton when we have been 2nd hardest hit by injury.

Its not an exciuse, its a fact.

Every team is different, and every team in some way is the same, but health of the list is paramount for success, or, incase you missed this line over the last 50 years," a bit of luck with injury" will help alot towards winning a Flag.

No idea how anyone could guess what the injuries we would face this year, before the season started. A lack of trust in our club, I can buy.

We beat the Cats by 10 goals this year, with OUR game plan, when we had only 5 players missing. Newman, Smith, Kemp, Cincotta and Fantasia. Obvious we lost a lot of run and speed losing Smith, Cincotta and Fantasia, but we covered them with Cottrell, Williams and Hollands went to HB, and won by 10 goals. 10 GOALS, from a 4m quarter effort.

How the Fk anyone predicted we would start the season with 13 missing, and by half way mark of season we had 11 missing against Swans, and now sitting at 11 out injured, is beyond me. Its fantasy.

Injury has disrupted our year, as it has Effendopes, and the saints this year. Shit happens. It happns to have been our story for 3 years running. Fix that, and we might go somewhere. If that trend continues, no game plan can fix that.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Bondi mate, we beat Geelong by 18 points. The 10 goal win was last year (Orange Socks day!)

Yeah but…

_________________
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Injuries to some degree are used as an excuse
All clubs have injuries
At the moment I account 138 players out
That’s an average of 7.66
You plan for it
Successful clubs have depth
We don’t
Our recruiting whether it’s drafting or trades has been shit
Russell to a degree was a scapegoat
No coaching changes
We could have kept pick 12 and 14 and got Reid and Hynes
We put all our eggs in one basket to get Smith
We did it with Judd
We give up to much whether it’s salary cap or picks to get Saad Williams Cerra McGovern
Our injury toll this year haven’t been that bad
Look at GWS
Probably more injuries
Different results
Coaching development and list management have been poor
And I keep saying it it’s the board and the culture they create
The club never looks deeply enough as to why we can’t have success
In this century we haven’t had a period of 4 to 5 years where we have contended
Finishing higher than a dozen other teams
We have had the occasional sugar hit in 2011 and 2023
That’s it
So why is that?
The club blamed Russell based on its actions over summer
Like 5 years before
Just get Cook and Lyon give Liddle and Teague the arse
No real review of the football department or list management
That’s arrogance overrating yourself lack
Of foresight whatever
Can someone tell me the last time in a AFL/VFL final the score line was 60 to zero
That’s not just because of just injuries
So the club gets what it deserves
I live in hope Wright can do something
There has to be a circuit breaker to break this 25 year cycle

Yes all teams have injuries and the number of injured players can be largely misleading. But I don't think it's debatable that the quality and where they play can have a significant effect.
If we had 10 injuries and they were Lemmey, Monahan, Duffy, Binns, Young, Boyd, Campo's x 2, White, Evans etc, would it really have an impact?

The issue IMO is we're missing our half back line and probably our best users from defence. One's an All Australian , another was runner up in our past 2 B&F's and the third was the 2nd highest rated key defender in the AFL before getting injured.
Couple that with an All Australian midfielder who is also a John Nicholls and Gary Ayres medallist and a no. 3 draft pick. Being a running game more than ever, we can't be without the outside run that Walsh, Cottrell, Elijah etc give us.

Then forward of the ball a Coleman medallist is out, plus our other Coleman medallist missed the entire pre-season and is struggling badly for form.

We've seen that when we have a reasonable run with injury and we kick straighter than the opposition, our ceiling is 2nd to 3rd week of the finals. When we get too many injuries in areas we are deficient, we fall away badly.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

my take is 1 bad recruiting Austin /agresta 2 bad game plan Voss and co i said after a practice match v saints nothing changed still play same way . i thought that final v lions 60 / 0 demonstrates our weakness yet the club failed .