Didn't worry me that I was called a fairweather supporter, just thought it was another ignorant newbie poster same as someone called me a 'no nothing a week or so ago, besides Synbad calls me much worse on a daily basis. Gotten used to and generally laugh at it, besides I have been guilty of the occassional sledge.

I suppose it depends on how serious one takes oneself.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Theres a river in Africa...............

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Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

David Parkin once said that the premiership is generally won by the side that has the fewest injuries.

ive seen - i saw it for four weeks in the wizzer cup

and if i hear again - how no one rates the wizzer cup - i think ill shot someone

the wizzer cup is irrelevant - the minute you cross the line any professional team wants to win. period.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

But I haven't argued that. All I've argued is that we shouldn't dismissed the media's assessment of our list as the worst in the comp because there is a basis for it.



Granted



True, but good teams can cover the loss of one, and great teams can cover two. I would argue that we've repeatedly shown that we are incapable of doing either.

Melbourne and the Saints have done that. Brisbane's problems are bigger than key position players. I won't make excuses for Port, they should be playing better than they are. We had everyone except Livo back on the weekend and it didn't make a difference.

Would it help if I phrased it differently and said that our players that are being asked to cover for key positions are so one dimensional and limited in skill that their attempts to cover for key positions are, in comparison to other teams, woeful, thus giving us the least depth and hence the poorest list in the comp? (That's leaving aside for the moment the seperate issue of whether our KKP are good enough to begin with)

This weekend we will have a FB, CHF, CHF and FF. We'll see how your theory holds up. Of course ... it will take a few weeks for them to gel ... and there will still be no Barney .... so you'll have plenty of outs if we get smashed ....

and this is what amazes me, at times this year, we have had to cover 3, yet we arent allowed the same leniancy as anyone else.

We arent a great team, i didnt think we would win the flag this year, but i did think we would be fighting from anywhere from 5-8 with injury controlling where we finish, and i still think that, but up until few weeks we have had 3 out of the 5 playing and a couple of cases we have had 2 of the 5 playing.

you simply can not cover these positions

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Teams who were not serious about the Wiz played inexperienced teams and teams that were serious played their more senior blokes. Regardless of who ran out the blokes that did run out would have been serious and commited because if your not you will get hurt.

Synbad keeps harping about playing the kids and how we need the draft picks. Well I agree play the kids but Synbad dont be suprised if this backfires on you. Playing youth and allowing them to play football might just spark a few wins for our battling side. That steal of Simmo's on the weekend was sublime and really seemed to spark the others. Just maybe he is one of those with the required X factor that we need who have the ability to turn games off their own boot. The beauty of seeing thing like this is just maybe it will embaress more senior members into performing.

Ok, if, in a perfect world, we will get all those guys on the park at the same time and in their ideal positions, then I concede that we may have a side that is capable of performing consistantly in practice matches where every team has different motivations and there is a completely different set of rules that don't apply in the real season.

Every rule change has a subtle but important effect. For example, I speculated at the time whether not being able to play on immediately after a behind would hurt us in the real competition. Low and behold, it has. We're hopeless at kick outs now that we have to wait for the umpires to fly their flags and opposition player have time to setup their zones.


Well you can't have it both ways. Either we want to win, but our skills aren't good enough and we can't cover our injuies well enough because our depth isn't good in comparison to other lists

OR (and without getting sidetracked on PPs) we don't want to win because we're distracted by Priority picks ... but you've just said emphatically that every professional side wants to win the second they cross the white line. So it must be the former.

Nightcrawler you a right about a kick ins that lack penetration and we seem to go short to poor options far too often. Not being at the ground makes to hard to see how we set up but if we do huddle and break we must be doing this without any real urgency or purpose.

At the other end last weeked we really stuggled we we manned up in the huddle against them. However when we employed a 12 man(hard to tell exact numbers on tv) zone we were able to slow the run out of our attacking fifty and even cause turnovers. I kept finding myself screaming at the tele to zone up. Why when this clearly was working did we not employ it more often?

Ah which games were we missing three KKP exactly? You're starting to exaggerate.

French and Whitnall have played every game
Thortonn missed round 1-4
Fev missed rounds 6 and 7
Livo missed rounds 2 - 9

Now I'm not a maths expert but it looks like we've:

- never had more that two out at the same time
- had two out for 5 games
- had one out for four games

I think it we were good enough to compete for 5-8 in the real thing, we would be doing better than second last with the worst percentage in the comp. The fact that this is where we are shows that we are basically incapable of covering the loss of even one KKP.

This is not particularily counter-intuitive. We know there is nobody in the reserves to step up into these positions. But what it shows is that the team as a whole, is incapable of coming together to cover the loss of one KKP, and that is sad.

hasnt fev been suspended twice this season or am i thinking of someone else?

but as it is

we have played 5 games with two (Livo went down in the first or second quarter from memory so effectively 6 games) and like you said great sides can cover two, well we arent a great side, we are a decent side at the moment, but we certainly arent the worst side going around IMO, but we cant cover the loss of two KPP.

Our percentage took a hammering from two games is all. We have lost 4 games by under 20 points, and we got flogged in 2 others, and that is what makes it look so bad.

My point about winning and losing is, regardless of the side we field, or the side that the opposition fields, the minute that line is crossed both teams want to win the game.

Indeed - Melbourne had less players than us out, and i think West Coast had about the same amount as out, so both effectively fielded the strongest team they could, and we beat them both.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

SEN boys are correct we have one of the worst lists going around, maybe not the worst on a given day but among the worst.
Mike Sheahan rated our team today in the Herald Sun and for once probably got it right..it wasnt a pretty read....time to get the navy Blue glasses off and pay attention, they cant all be wrong....

You know why Lance played well in the Wizard Cup? You only have to look at his opponents to see why:
Robert Murphy
Adam McPhee
Paul Wheatley

They're all flankers - no wonder he played well.

Then to see how little opposition coaches thought of the Wizard cup - they leave us with tonnes of space up forward. Sticks has said that he was extremely suprised to see us with all this space up forward. No suprise that when the real season starts, the space is occupied and our forwards have little effect.

Well said TP. I don't think our list is as bad as what people say it is. I also believe that the media like to Carlton when they're down more than most clubs - because they're jealous.

We are lacking confidence because things aren't going our way like we expected.

I could be wrong, of course, but I'm with you. Let's turn it around boys

Were a gun side!!!!!

Just having a little bad luck at the moment... but just wait!!!... we will make the finals youll see!!!

Then what will you doubting Thomas` say then?????

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Carlton has a shit list.
the worst in the league.

9 shit home and away games far outweigh 4 pre-season cup games where the opposition didn't give a shit

Prez, I'll make this very, very simple for you.

In any given AFL season, there are different levels at which the games are played. To illustrate my point, I will break those levels down into 3 categories (there's more but I won't make it complicated). The 3 levels are:

- Finals
- Home & Away games
- Preseason games.

Everyone knows that intensity, commitment, pressure, and even Match Day tactics goes up many notches when you play a final compared to a H&A season.

Why?
Because there's a lot more at stake!
In many finals it's do-or-die!... so coaches and players pull out all stops to win the bloody game.

So why the increase in standard from playing a H&A game to a final? Does this mean that the coaches and players weren't really trying to win during the H&A season? Of course not. It's just that the Standard of the game increases. That's why some players who star in H&A games for some reason struggle come Finals time (I'll get back to this point later).

If I was to rank the difference in standard between these 3 levels it would go something like this:

1) Finals matches


2) H&A games




** DAYLIGHT!!! **




3) Wizard Cup games



You keep going on about the bloody Wizard Cup Prez.
Many teams enter that comp with different motivations.
Experiment with different game plans.
Experiment with players in different positions.
Blood new recruits.
Many players are still rusty skill-wise.
Many teams haven't built up sufficient fitness bases.
And many others differences (rules, no. of players, etc. etc.)


Wizard Cup is nothing more than a glorified practice match. I'll repeat that again: A PRACTICE MATCH!! For the many reasons mentioned above, it doesn't necessarily simulate the exact same conditions as a H&A game. The standards are different. There are no 4 points at stake in a Wiz Cup game for a start. Not every team's out there busting a gut to win a glorified practice match.

What does this mean?

It means the form during a Wizz Cup game can be misleading. You can't compare a Wizz Cup game to a H&A game. The standards are vastly different.

So what is the best way to judge your list?

Well you can't use the Wizard Cup by itself. The proof of the pudding is during the REAL SEASON. The H&A matches! So let's just put the Wiz Cup aside for now... How have we performed so far in the REAL MATCHES.... SHIZEN HAUzEN!!


We get all excited about how skillful we performed during those matches.
Why haven't we seen the same things during the premiership season?
Why? Because of the jump in standard.
How else do you explain it.

When the Intensity, the Pressure, and Standard goes up several notches our skills go AWOL.
Many supporters have wondered why we have such shit starts to our games.
For the past 4 matches, we have been absolutely smashed in the first quarter.
I think the answer for our poor starts is becoming clear.
Is it any surprise that the start of a match also coincides with when the pressure, intensity, fitness of the opposition is at it's greatest? I think not.
The only time we have looked any good at all is during Junk Time.
Funny how our skills start to mirror what happened in the WiZ Cup When the opposition starts to relax and relieve some of the earlier pressure.

Bottom Line: You can discount what happened in the Wizard Cup. The TRUE TEST of how good a list is, is during a REAL H&A match. Sadly, after 9 REAL games we have failed this TRUE TEST.

We have been exposed!!

I said it before and I'll say it again till I'm (navy) blue in the face:

WIZARD CUP = RED HERRING!!

Now where's that gun of yours Prez?

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When Dick became President, it was as if everyone at Carlton came out of the hailstorm and into the sunshine - Stephen Kernahan

YARRAN!!





.

We played North... pre season favourite with alot of people for wooden spoon(Lost)
Essendon*.. crap side.(Just won)
Collingwood crappier side(Lost after they had a five day week)
Port (Playing shit .. we drew)
Freo (ran them into form before they came to earth witrh a thud)
Hawthorn.. wooden spoon material we thought.(Just won)
Richmond.. ditto and as above (smashed)
Geelong .. good side(Smashed)
Melbourne... so so side (smashed)


Yep!!Im waiting for us to click... not too long now... im going to go out on a limb and say it will happen against WC over there...

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fitzroy -v- West Coast - Round 22 1991, Fitzroy bottom of the ladder, West Coast on top. Fitzroy get up (at $8) - only had a lazy $100 on it. Dont think I will be doing the same with our lot.

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

Winston Churchill

*yawn* this is getting boring real quick.

What are you doing Sunday synbad?

I'm going to flick the TV on and hope the Blues can fight back and beat the Crows. If Fev kicks a goal I'll be happy, if Campo gets 30 touches and his opponant gets 9 I'll be happy. If Livo comes back into the team along with Norman and one of them keeps Welsh goalless I'll be happy. If Lappin sneaks forward and kicks 5 goals I'll be rapt. If we win by 3 goals I'll be delighted.

Will you be devastated?

Try to answer the question and not ask a bunch of questions about our list, draft picks, the PSD, the future, the only way forward, the benefit of winning less than 5 games....or even point out I've already mentioned these things for you.

Just tell us all, yes or no, will you be devasted/unhappy if we win on Sunday?

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010