Been thinking about our forward setup......Not sure Fev and Josh is the ideal combo.Kennedy isnt a superstar who will kick big bags of goals ..he is a blue collar hardworking CHF who will create for others......we dont have the "others" bit.

Its either get a new CHF who can kick bags of goals and demand the football or get a couple of other smart goalkickers who can finish his work off....

We dont have that Brad Pearce type of player that Kernahan worked with...Kennedy isnt as good as Sticks so we probably need two more options rather than one...

Is Fev going to be like a lot of gun FF's........take most of the forward ball, kick most of the goals or create problems as everything revolves around him....would we be better of without Fev and better having more options to spread the workload around...does the champion FF alone bring you success......Plugger, Ablett...couldnt win flags for their teams even though they topped the goalkicking....

I'm a fan of Fevs and what he brings as a package to the club but we dont kick enough goals...Lance would not be part of my future forward line....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

How have you managed to make this assessment of Kennedy. We's what, 19 years old and played a douzen senior games.

@#$%&!, how many 19 years olds are playing A grade CHF in the AFL?

Get real mate. Give the boy, and the team, some time to develop.

I just posted something on this in the pregame thread, but IMO we are too tall up forward. Fevola, Kennedy, Fisher, Whitnall/Waite and Wiggins is too tall. We only have one small down there (and he gets rotated a lot). You see Sydney and Essendon* and they have O'Keefe/Buchanan/Schneider, Lovett/Monfries/Jetta/Davey/Welsh - the ball is never cleared out with ease from these forward lines, and the extra smalls removes some predictability.

fisher and fev out of the goal square leading to the flanks

kennedy leading out to chf straight up the guts

wiggins betts carrazzo rotating on the HF line as marking targets(yep marking targets has worked well for us in the past and they are all strong overhead) and crumbing options at kennedys feet

waite pushing forward at times ala hunter of eagles

we cant leave fev isolated in the F50 and lance seems to always take his man to fev and/or get in fevs way so i dont see lance as a forward option

our midfielders need to look at goals too - they did in the preseason and against richomnd yet against geelong went away from it - there were numerous times where a midfielder should have pinged for goals from 50 rahter than to fev in a 4 on 1

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

I reckon the forward setup could be good... we just neeed to stop being so predictable in kicking it to FEv every inside 50...

Fev should be the focal point, we have Fish who can take any contested mark, and Kennedy is the work horse who breaks packs and boy can he tackle.. We then have Betts hitting the crumbs and adding defensive pressure...

They just need to gell playing in the same forward line! ( last week the amount of time is saw Lance running into Fevs, Fishers, and Kennedys space, and just stuffing the structure completely)

It will be an unstoppable forward line soon, with Hartlett in it...

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"Dont count the games, make the games count"

We need a better forward set up that pressures the opposition backline when they try to clear it out. Fev is ok, Josh is ok - Wiggins is good for pressure, Fisher is ok - though I'm a little suspect over his pressuring and chasing. Waite is ok but gives away free kicks.

Whitnall is a major problem for us up forward because he doesn't chase and he's too easily side stepped.

With Josh, Elwood, the Carlton mids have to look for him - if we keep kicking to Fev and Fev only, when he's double, triple teamed, then that's dumb football.

Josh presents but he's not looked at as an option. This doesn't help his confidence for taking marks. He can be good but needs to get a few easy ones early so that his dukes feel confident.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

forgot to mention hartlett could lead out of the square also and push fish up to the half forward line

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Kennedy is our Spalding. Doesn't need to kick bags, 1-2 and creation of goals from contests is what he is about. As Pagan said a few weeks a go, we need another Eddie Betts in our team. Benjamin could be the one, but he is injured at the moment.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

I am not having a go at Kennedy..why dont you get real and see this as a structure issue its not about bagging players...I like Kennedy but we dont kick the ball to the kid ..its about having a superstar FF vs having more options and different structure...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

This is why i think Josh should lead straight up the guts as he crashes packs and it also forces the mids to look at him - i think he could not only straighten us up but open the space if fev and hartlett/fish lead to the flanks from behind josh - we should have runners streaming past kennedy to pick up the crumbs

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Fev needs to master CHF or he'll never be a complete player.

Seriously Lance will be back, don't write him off just yet like you all did with Fev in 05'. It's not easy playing through injury.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

Agree Kennedy is our Spalding but we dont kick to him and when he does get it he is way up the ground with no work to finish..

One Eddie is fine....we need a Ryan Okeefe .....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

This was the forward line Sydney named on Thursday:

HF: R.O'Keefe, O'Loughlin, J.Bolton
F: McVeigh, Hall, Ablett

2 talls, 1 medium tall, 3 smalls

Essendons:
HF: M. Johnson Lucas Lovett
F: Welsh Lloyd Watson

Again, 2 talls, 1 medium tall and 3 smalls

Compare it to the forward line we named:

HF – Carrazzo, Waite, Fisher
F – Kennedy, Fevola, Betts

3 talls, 1 tall/medium Fisher, and 2 smalls. Some of the talls have the propensity to fall over or be left for dead when the ball hits the deck, the full forward doesn't chase as well as he can while Carrazzo can be a target at HF while also being good at ground level. Eddie has shown glimpses but isn't consistent enough and gets pushed off the ball frequently.

In some ways, Fisher is our O'Keefe - not as good a kick yes, but a better mark.

Agree with Grro and have said this before that Kennedy needs to lead up the guts rather than leading out onto the wing. His big kick into the F50 needs to be deep - 25/30m out rather than what we saw on Saturday night where our kick into the F50 barely got into the F50 - Geelong had plenty of space to clear and run out. If we kick it in deeper, it's harder because we clog up Geelong's options.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Fair point...Oloughlin, Okeefe but no genuine tall CHF........if Hall=Fevola.
The flexibility that Okeefe and Oloughlin give is the key...both can take a mark and can get it on the ground......Fisher for us is a mark and kick player only, Kennedy is a mark and kick player only...both need feeding the ball...........Hartlett is a mark and kick player.

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Agree with some of the comments above.

Kennedy looks like he'll be a good player, just needs time.

The forward line at the moment is too top-heavy. Fev, Kennedy, Whitnall/Waite and Fisher is one too many talls.

I'd like to see Fev, Kennedy and Fisher as the mainstay forwards (and if Kennedy struggles, which he will at times, give him a run in the twos and give Hartlett a go. Whitnall I think should be given a couple of weeks off to get his knee right, and then used forward or back, as needed), along with Betts, Wiggins and another small. Maybe Lappin across half forward, or even Gibbs. But we definitely need an injection of speed and hard tackling across half forward, and some good crummers.

The other thing is that we MUST not be so Fev consious. I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but the number of times we went to Fev on Sat night when he was being double and triple teamed, while others were standing on their own, was infuriating. We need to start going to Kennedy and Fisher as marking options more often.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Exactly - there isn't much flexibility in our forward line. The Swans smalls are very creative with their kicking; ours take a mark, take forever to get back from the mark and then kick it straight to Fevola. They don't seem to have the ability to be creative and use the ball wisely.

Kennedy is a youngster who is still learning and we are expecting too much of him. As a youngster he does not yet demand the balland the team does not use him properly. He's 19 years old and only played 10 games.

The players stream down the field look up and Fev calls for it. Kennedy Whitnall and Waite are not taking a mark up forward and so they go long to Fev. Lance was supposed to provide the direction at CHF and keep the forward line open letting Kennedy play a minor supporting role but Lance has struggled.

IMO it may have been better to let Cloke or Ackland play CHF and give Josh a run down back while he gains experience and gets his confidence back. We must play him as much as possible and like Carlos he will get better with each run but he can't always be expected to dominate at this stage of his career.

From the Geelong match discussion thread, after listing my preference for team ins and outs:



So we'd be operating a 5 man forward line.

2 talls, 3 marking targets, 2 crumbers.

It might even be worth considering playing Fev in the CHF type position because he leads into that area regularly and at the least creates a contest. Not your traditional CHF I know, but then Kennedy could be ok sitting back in the square out-bodying opponents.

Hopefully these sorts of things are experimented on during the season, and we can obtain some value for a Fisher/Edwards type if this proves to be unbalanced.

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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.

Kennedy is our CHF for the next 10 years.

195cm (possibly 198 according to some pundits ), he is still filling out and will broaden across the shoulders and upper body.

He is the player we have been looking for since Earl Spalding called it a day.

At 19 time is on his side, and unfortunatley the delivery to him is sporadic and I think he his being told to lead his opponent out of the forward 50 to clear a path for Fevola - this is unfortunate part of Pagans game plan.

He is also being ignored somewhat by our senior ball carriers and this unfortunately has been part of Carlton Football Culture for as long as I can remember (going back 30 years or more).

He is also being "reamed" by the umpires because its really easy for them not to pay free kicks to a no name junior - and apparently Kennedy has no back that opponents were pushing into and no arms that opponents were chopping either.

No an intelligent coach would have Fevola leading from the goal square, Kennedy at the true CHF position, Fisher floating across the HFF, sometime drifting back to the goalsquare, with Eddie Betts as the crumbing forward - Wiggins as the hard to match up on mid-sized marking option and take your pick of: Murphy, Gibbs, Stevens, Simpson rotating through HFF/FP as they rest coming off the ball.

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

Winston Churchill