I'm gonna try and do this every round if work doesn't get too busy. Whether we win by 10 goals or lose by 10 goals, I'll try to be level headed and give 5 pros and 5 cons for every game as we watch this young bluebagger side develop.

Add your own list if you want!

PROS

1. Walker - getting to where we want him to be. I won't say I've never had doubts, especially regarding kicking, but it seems to be coming together. Some really nice kicks today. Great game.

2. Stevens - sensational. Nothing we didn't know already, but beat the tag well.

3. Bentick - Liked his game, won the footy, kicking improving

4. Resilience - we might've gone to water in the past, but remained in the game and won.

5. Boost to the club - Whilst many of us are aware of the bounty that awaits us if we win 4 or less, this win was good for the club and keeps the air of positivity around. Hopefully more memberships and more donations.

Special mentions - Gibbs (hail), Cloke (I'm still tentative, but can't ask for more), Setanta (lot to learn but we've got plenty of time!)

CONS

1. Manning up in the second quarter - go with your f-ing man! We were chasing bums around a bit. In the second half we forced them to kick to more contests and won, but we can;t allow such processions against better teams.

2. Waite's attempted tackles - Runs straight at the player too fast and even a sumo wrestler could side step him. Smarten up, jockey, and do the hard thing right. Also, better decisions required re: when to punch vs. mark

3. Fev off the boil - I'm not really concerned but if he played like his true self we would've won by 6 goals

4. Russel - some will disagree with me but I feel like he's always one step behind the play and panics a bit. I still hope..........plenty of time

5. Kennedy injury??? - please no - he's so important (any news would be welcomed)

Special mentions - Fisher's field kicking (but what can we do?), Murphy's gonna get tagged for 287 of his 300 game career (but he'll still f*ck em - LOVE HIM), Lance (I'm sure there'll be plenty of discussion so I won't expand)



Overall, good night, good win.

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

Pro's:-

- Stevens
I was a big critic of Stevens last year but since missing out on the captaincy Stevens has done more than anybody could have asked from him and is playing his best footy for a few years,

- Walker
Keep it up.

- Some Missing?
When you think about it, we won by 17 points but key players like Murphy, Simpson & Whitnall didn't really have that much of an impact. Imagine how much we would have won by with all those players putting in their usual efforts?

- Pagan's move of Waite @ half-time.
Let's face it, he was beat in his first game at CHB but was a key in our come-back when Pagan moved him up forward.

- Gibbs's handball.
That over the shoulder handball to Waite was the highlight of the night for me.

- Setanta's run.
Setanta used to scare the crap out of me when he chose to run with the ball but last night when he in-stepped Richo was great stuff to watch.

- Less Flooding
One of the biggest things that pissed me off last year was our flooding and at 27 points down last year, we would have done a tsunami towards their forward line! I loved that we chose other options when down by 4 goals last night.



Cons:-

- Still too Fev-luving.
Seriously i thought we were beyond this. There were about half a dozen occasions last night that we went to Fev despite the fact he had 2 or 3 defenders on him. At one stage, we had Cain Ackland free but still went to fev in the pocket with 3 men on him.

- Bombing it in!
Still doing this. I cannot think of one time last night that we hit a leading forward on the chest. It's always just bombing it in.
Find a leading forward and hit em on the chest. It's the hardest way for a defender to spoil for god sake!

- Kennedy Injured?
God i hope not! But if he is...............BRING IN BOWER!

- Whitnall's down.
Hmmmmm, what would you do to lift his spirits. I don't trust anybody that's down on form enough to send them back to defense. Just continue to play him forward.
If this crap play of bombing it inside 50 is gonna continue (god i hope not) then play him in the goalsqaure and leave him their to contest. At the very worst, he will drag a good defender away from fev.

- The crowd!
Carlton Vs Richmond on a beautiful Sunday night.................i would have thought that'd bring in at least 70,000! Maybe the Twilight matches will take some time to kick in.


Oh.............and one more positive....................the fact that the Membership stalls were packed out up to an hour before the game. Great stuff! Easilly a few more hundred signing up yesterday.

Seriously a push for 35k-36k is not out of the question this year. A few more wins would help too!

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

pro's- number of shots at goal we had 40 (+ a couple outon the full)

con's- number of gettable goals we missed (accuracy is s till a major concern)

Pros - "The Premiership Quarter is BACK"

Cons - Kicking for goal.

Pros - we beat Caro's team

Cons - none

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"I had to eat"

Pros - We were the 2nd Highest scoring team of the round

Cons - We kicked the most behinds of the Round.

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when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Feelgood Hit of the Winter - GHRP-2, GHRP-6, CJC-1295, AOD-9604, Humanofort and Hexarelin

Pros - we had 40 scoring shots not counting OOF... that's huge.
Cons - 25 of those counted for only 1 point.

Imagine if it was the other way around - 25.15.165 to whatever Richmond was... HUGE win!

Your kidding - thought Russell's game, particularly when he went onto Deledio, was very good.

He's starting to learn to attack and defend at the right moments - this will be calibrated and refined over time.

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

I thought Carrazzo was terrific.

Walker was solid as a rock.

Cloke is really putting in. Hope he and Stevo are working on some more 'tricks'.

AB was terrific & hard as nails.

Eddie worked liked a trojan. Great stuff!

JK getting into it more & more.

Fish is a pain in the arse to the opposition

Setanta sizing up to Richo before the first bounce was electrifying!

Gibbs' little cameos here & there

Hollywood FEVOLAAAAA!!!!

The biggest 'con' is one or two players getting a game based on their surname and seniority and not on form.

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There's so much I could say...

Pros

1. Once again we showed our ability to run out games, which is in stark contrast to last year when we faded badly in the second half. As a side note to this point, the players also never lost confidence in themselves even when they got 27 points down and actually took this as an incentive to play a more attacking game with more risks which paid dividends. Last year, we would have seen them go ultra-defensive to try and not get blown-out.

2. We had 40 scoring shots and a few more shots on goal that didnt even score. Sure, the accuracy was down, but even if we can increase it to a 50-50 ratio, we'd be having a total of 140 points per game and thats going to win a lot of matches. Included in this point is that we kicked a decent score with Fev only scoring 3 goals. One of my keys that I've highlighted for us to become a better team is more goals from the midfield and that happened last night with 6 goals (Bentick 2, Walker, Gibbs, Carrazzo, Russell).

3. The defence. While some may say they got carved up, and they did at various parts of the game, I'd say that this was more due to a lack of midfield pressure resulting in loose players having plenty of time to deliver the ball into space for the forwards. Thought Carlos had a really good game on Richo and was only really beaten in a 1 on 1 on the one occasion in the last quarter. Richo's two other goals came from a free kick and a 50 metre penalty against Waite. Thornton had a good game and continues to impress with his poise under pressure. We struggled to find a match-up for Pettifer, but how good was Gibbs on him in the last quarter. Kept our opposition to under 100 points and I'd be interested to hear how often we did that last year?

4. Centre clearances - this vastly improved in the second half, but the factor for me that makes this a pro is that our centre clearances are becoming more definitive. We are getting clean takeaways rather than just the centre clearances where we grab it and boot it forward quickly. The Cloke/Stevens combination is working beautifully. Add to this, Bentick's performance and his improved delivery by foot - very good unit.

5. Flexibility and the ability to change a game in our favour. Examples - Waite's move from defence to the forward. The way we switched our forwards around to go tall at stages and then small at other times. The ability to play Gibbs on the last line of defence on Pettifer. The midfield rotations.

Cons

1. Accuracy.

2. First half - poor decision making delivering the ball into the forward line, possibly due to increased pressure in the season proper and a bit of a lack of vision.

3. On a few too many occasions, our tackles either didnt stick or we didnt pin the arms and allowed them to release the handball. Something they have worked hard on at training, so lets hope that picks up. We did tackle and pressure well though, just the clinical finishing was lacking at times.

4. Gave opposition players too much latitude in the first half and even if it wasn't in an attacking position, it allowed them to always have a release valve when under pressure.

5. Umpiring - some disgraceful decisions, none moreso than the free kick paid to Pettifer against Stevens for in the back 20m out from goal.

Don't forget that ripper goal he kicked in the 2nd quarter

..Pros..

1 - ..kennedy, come on down.. ..it's all there to be seen.. ..murphy started fantastically, gibbs shows promise.. ..but kennedy is the real young player that shows true definitive potential.. ..at 6'5 and broad of frame, once he fills out he's gonna scare folks a'la jonathon brown.. ..he's got strong hands, and has no fear about crashing the packs.. ..with him and fev, the crumbers are gonna have a field-day.. ..i really like the look of him..

2 - ..stevens is a bloody machine.. ..pre-season comp is a tricky barometer, but this time it's rining true.. ..he looks the hungriest i've ever seen him.. ..fitness wise he's on top, and it just looks like he's had a belly full of losing.. ..he practically dragged the team back out of the hole.. ..he's gonna have a big year, plain to see.. ..the captain we needed to have..

3 - carazzo.. ..simply brilliant.. ..far too under-rated, perhaps because his kicking left something to be desired.. ..he's improved in this area, and it won't be long before coaches start paying him the respect he's beginning to deserve.. ..a hard nut that will play above his weight division..

4 - walker's run and carry is now getting the benefits of his improved kicking and composure.. ..that intercept and run through to kick the goal in the first half was fantastic.. ..his drive off half-back and his freedom to run forward and press an attack is great.. ..it's been too long since we had a player that can now effectively break the lines..

5 - dare i say it, cloke.. ..admittedly we played a team without a proper ruck in, but his tapping to stevens thru the pre-season and during rd1 has been spot-on.. ..and he's becoming a very handy player around the ground too.. ..at times during the match, it was hard to pick who was our first, and who was our second ruckman.. ..if he keeps this up, we'll be a very good clearance team..


..Cons..

1 - ..whitts.. ..the captain we wanted, but currently don't need.. ..therein lies the shite of it all.. ..i can sympathise with his off-field woes and can fully understand how they may impact on-field performance.. ..i still think we should perservere with him in the seniors, a player like him won't regain confidence in the reserves..it won't test him properly and a good game there can just as easily translat to shizzel in the afl.. ..switch him from CHF (too hard a spot when out of form) to a fwd pocket.. ..play him about the goalsquare i reckon.. ..let mr kennedy get the feel for chf.. ..nowadays i reckon i dig that look more..

2 - ..wiggo.. ..sure he was played off the bench, but i'd rather blackwell or hartlett got played off the bench.. ..yes he's a hard, courageous player.. .but his skills let him down.. ..we put up with teague to no real benefit once he slipped.. ..wiggo's slipping, if he ever truely had it.. ..and both bentick and carazzo will charge in head over the ball, shite even stevens and murphy do it so we've got our fair share of hard nuts.. ..as for forward pressure, both betts and kennedy provide plenty of that, and fev's doin' his bit most times in that regard too.. ..i think it's time for wiggo to step aside for a couple of youngin's.. ..and be ready to step in if injuries mount..

3 - ..team slumps.. ..we were lucky it was against richmond.. ..a fade out like we had against a punishing team will see us down by more than 4 and a half goals, and can very easily be the end of us for the match.. ..we need to address these in-game slumps faster, before they blow out to bigger margins..

4 - ..a few players having lacklustre days.. ..though this can be seen as a positive, provided they turn it around..

5 - ..having to wait so bloody long over the weekend for us to play..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

60 inside 50s and 40 scoring shots is phenomenal.
When was the last time Carlton had 60 inside 50s?
Many years I'd suggest.

The Tigers were horrible so lets not expect that every week.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Pros:

We beat Richmond, one of the eight wins i tipped for the year.

Cons

We had 40 scoring shots/rushed behinds and only won by 17pts.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

Tackling was much better than last year - still a little way to go but a big improvement!

To be fair, there were 8 rushed .. but I tells ya, I've never seen such a lop-sided score! Hope that gets reined in through the year!

My pros
- Gibbsie's first kick in the league produced his first goal in the league
- Ten goal-kickers
- Stevo
- the DVD copy of the game in the post! (Thanks killpies!)

My cons
- too many behinds (rushed or otherwise)
- too many missed shots at goal: what about those out-on-the-fulls from basically right in front!?
- Lance
- Seven and Ten deciding not to air a game on Sunday night / Monday morning! Flowers!

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[Sam Jacobs] looks like a 7' Lance Whitnall, and [Mitch Robinson] looks like a 4' Lance Whitnall
(The SEN team during the Carlton v Cats 2009 pre-season match)

i looked at the stats after the game and 10 or so behinds were rushed.

defensive pressure in the forward line?

still the great teams do much better

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thats pretty bad-ass!

This was as big as the man himself because I am pretty sure Richo initiated it to try and impose himself and Carlos showed himself to be just as big and willing.

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Hey Rocky; there are too many rabbits ... in China.