Hi all, A mate of mine is an avid Roos supporter and went to the game on Sat night. Below are his observations. Did anyone else notice a game plan change in the last? I didn't, i just thought they ran out of legs and were outworked by a more determined team.

"I am the first to admit that the Roos were sh!t, but I didn;t really feel Carlton out played them. I couldn;t believe that in the last quarter North decided to change their game plan. Why would you go from running football to a plan of handball at every opportunity, but really make sure you give the ball to a person under pressure so a turnover occurs. I think Carlton kicked about 6 goals in a row from turnovers caused by
handballs given under pressure when a kick should have been taken.

The North supporters were livid at the end, not because they lost but because they wouldn;t kick the ball. I was really sh!tty, not because they loat, but because they decided not to play football in the last qtr. It was almost as if Laidley said protect the lead, we can;t lose from here.

As we were walking out a few of us were having a bit of a post mortem when we walked back to the cars (just people I had never met) and they all were of the same opinion, if North want to build a base here, why play unattractive negative football. I agreed. One guy said to me he was thinking of joining but decided against it as hes not going
to bother to drive down from Brisbane to watch negative football. I couldn;t belived the amount of people who said the same thing. I almost feel like sending them an email tomorrow to feed it back to them.

I have never felt at the end of a game where I have said to myself they deserved to lose, but last night they did. They had a golden opportunity to win over fans and make a final but decided not to and I think signed their own death warrant. They have to get rid of Laidley, he's a dud.

As far as the crowd goes, 6pm on a Saturday night, worst time availale for crowds. Right on dinner time and either 2 hours too late or 1 hour too early. When the game started, I think there would have been about 4 000 people there, during the second quarter it started to fill up, which made me think even more it was too early.

I think the AFL need to have a think about the Gold Coast and get it right, it will succedd if its done properly and a couple of things need to be improved in the ground, like have more than one exit, but thats another story. "

To my mind they were handball obsessed the entire game so couldn't see a change in game plan.

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"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies." - Gene Hill

Agreed.

They tired, we covered up field options with ease, they had to handball and carry and resultantly tired further.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

The Roos had no choice but to handball more in the last quarter. The blues were constantly peppering their backline and the roos had no petrol in the tank to get back down the field to become creative. Additionally the few players that were up forward for them were being well held by their blues opponents, and were unable or unwilling to run and create marking options.

To say that the roos Laid down is ridiculous. Their midfield didnt work and besides stevens they had no spark in their forward line.

Put simply Carlton outplayed them for 95% of the match...... Winners are grinners

Same.

Laidley has no "Plan B", so it's hard to see how he'd change his game plan at all.

Two words for your North mate: Midfield. Dominance. We controlled the clearances, pure and simple. Even our "mates" at the HUN are looking at our midfield and saying that it's going to be an impressive engine room.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Gerard Healy was banging on all match at how fit the roos were and how that they'd run over the top of us.

He fell strangely silent from the last half of the third 1/4 onwards.

The Roos changed nothing - we shifted it up a notch and they couldn't match us.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

The was a huge momentum shift in the game midway through the third term because of a couple of ump's decisions going Norths way.

Regardless if those free kicks were warranted or not, it did change the tempo of the game, and thank god too cause i thought the first qtr especially was awful!

Feel sorry for Setanta. Few iffy decisions that were 50-50. But to his credit he pulled through the game in was in my top 5!

I think North's problem is similar to what we have had over the last couple of seasons. They are realying heavilly on Thompson to kick their goals and certain others to set him up.

For the past couple of years, If Stevens is tagged or Fev has two-three defenders on him then the whole team will suffer and the result is on the scoreboard.
But with Murphy giving us all far-more than we could ever have hoped for & Scotland re-inventing & Waite finally seeming 'grounded' with a sense of belonging..................well, i guess what i'm trying to say is that if one of our keys players are having a bad one, we can still put in a competitive effort thanks to others who can step up.

Thats the only reason i think North will fail this year.

If Stevens is tagged this year...............FINE. Send him forward and let Murphy loose on the ball. If he's tagged too then throw Kouta & Simpson (and maybe Gibbs) into the middle and play Murphy as a small forward.

If Fev get's two/three defenders, drop him into the goal square & let him contest (free kick will probably come our way with this crap new rule) & move Whitnall up forward leaving Thornton / Waite / Setanta & maybe even Bower to fill the void down back.

Sounds easy in writting, but we just have more options now with drafting and youth coming of age. But sadly i think North have drafted poorly in the past few season and just don't have to freedom we now have or seem to be creating.

It's the importance of Depth really isn't it?

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

His reply below

interesting, i didn't know blues supportes knew how to string that many words together, must have collingwood fans i was thinking of!!!

I will agree with some points raised, however, the real issue was during the second and third quarter, norths moving the ball out of the half back line was pretty good, going wide and kicking to spare men, the issue was in the forth they refused to kick the ball from half back and ended up turning it over due to the guy receiving it being under pressure. I think Leigh Matthews said 2 golden rules of handball are;

when in the middle of the ground, never handball, always kick, that way a turnover occurs at half forward and not in the centre

never handpass to a player in a worse position than you

These two rules were broken constantly by North.

The funniest thing in the game was in the last wen carlton weren;t too far behind and north was stuffing around, one yelled out in a real loud and frustrated voice, "Just kick the fu3king thing". I think everyone agreed. It was that sort of sentiment that had people annoyed when they were leaving.

Tell your mate, at least we can bloody spell.

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There's a simple two word (no, not that one) answer for your mate.

"Ya Mum"

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

I was at the game, and the handful of North supporters I was near would disagree pretty strongly with your mate. Throughout the game they believed their team's ball use was poor, and that there was no switch of gameplan. All through the first half they were upset with the use of the ball - especially the overuse of handball, and the inability to find space. They thought their boys would beat us in the end because they believed them to be better than us, and fitter than us. But at no stage did any of the North fans I was near think that there had been a change of gameplan - they thoguht their team was ordinary from the start.

In the end, the momentum only changed in North's favour early in the third quarter because of one man - umpire Stefan Grun. I went to Uni with the guy and knew him reasonably well. He hated Carlton with a passion then, and he still does now. Anyway, he provided North with the spark. But even during their run of goals there was nothing as fluid or as concerted about the North gameplan as there was Carlton's. I felt all game that we were better at hitting targets, freeing up players, and significantly - we were much, much, much better at switching play. North doesn't have a plan B from what I see, and significantly I don't believe they have the players to execute it anyway.

I still think we'll be bottom four, but I really think North and Essendon* will be fighting it out for the spoon this season.

Tell your mate we'd be rebounding all quarter and would have had a field day if you'd kicked it to HF blindly.

Laidley was on the right track by going small after getting slaughtered early on but we were breaking them down just before the 50 later in the game and it resulted in few genuine crumbing opportunities.

If the roos had the legs to run to provide a link option infront of the 50 then bombed it into about 25m out, it may have done some damage because our defensive half wasn't small (Scotland the shortest by a solid 5 or 6 cms and he was playing loose), so Thommo or another tall could have brought the ball to ground and Thomas and the like may have had a chance.

But they didn't have the legs. Maybe they had the legs to play out a VFL game, but they didn't have the legs to keep pushing across the ground to provide a release valve for their team mates when under pressure. I barely remember seeing them do that all game.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

excuses excuses excuses - just get a new mate.

people cant believe and dont want to believe that their team was outplayed by the blues - same with the media - its been excuse central all pre season.

fans who's teams are out of the nab cup are quick to throw up the 'its only the nab cup, who cares' line, @#$%&! them all !

we outplayed the roos and shut them down - they didnt kick because they couldnt

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Spot on. They looked up and saw an Irish monster standing alongside their great white hope in nathan Thompson, and towering over him by a good inch or so. For his whole career Thompson has had the advantage of being a poor mans Kernahan, a key forward of 196 centimetres but with enough pace to attract the fastest yet tall defender - generally needing to give up an inch or two because that combination is rare.

And then Setanta comes along, who has the pace to more than match him but isnt shorter, he's in fact taller.

What else were the Kangaroos to do but try to find another avenue to goal. This one was closed by Council!

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Still amongst the best 16 teams in the land

For years our backline has bled goals...

This year, Setanta, Waite, Thornton, Walker & Simpson have been superb. Almost robotic in their teamwork getting it out of defence and giving our running mids every opportunity.

If they can keep this up we will have a VERY different year.

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"...that's the thing about opinion - you don't have to know anything to have one..." Andre Agassi commenting on Pat Cash 2004
"...the less you know - the more you believe..." - Bono 2006

Basically, your mate is full of it.

North didn't sieze the opportunity so much as us dropping our guard and letting it slip in the 3rd.

There was an essential ingredient separating the 2 teams for mine: confidence. Confidence in each other, in themselves, in their abilities to rebound and deliver.

We had it, North didn't. Game over.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

QFT
The teams we beat selected their best available team and all wanted to win, they may not be gun teams but all were outplayed by our boys, fair and square.

i didnt know north had any fans!

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dane's trolling again

They certainly don't have any members!

Agree with you ryan2000 - a few touch-and-go free kicks and umpires goals in the 3rd quarter, in the middle of North's 7-odd goal run - could have killed us...

Instead, a combination of our midfield shifting it up a notch and getting those clearances - and North switching to the defensive instead of trying to bury us - was their undoing...