Good post BV. What`s worrying me is our forward line.I realise we had a few out but its still the kick it to Fev option most times.Really hoping Hartlett can stay on the field and give us a target at CHF. Also no crummers at all.Nearly every other club has a good small forward. This has been a problem for some time now.
The encouraging thing from last night was the fight back in the third qrt.We cant let sides such as Haw,Geelong StKilda belt us into submission every time we play them.We need our line in the sand games against these teams.

This is the most accurate assessment of last nights game. Good post.

Our skill errors were bad but it was largely because of the pressure we were under pressure due to poor positioning from the backline up the wings. The "gameplan" (if one even existed) looked shithouse. Kick to the pocket. Stop and then kick long to a contest on the flank/wing. The reciever of a kickout from full back never had a handball option.

Also, i reckon that no other team puts more pressure and agressive attack on the ball than Hawthorn. They are hard and aggressive and fast. And it shocked us last year and it shocked us in the first half yesterday. Carlton needs to get like that.

Hopefully it was crystal clear to our coaching staff that the intended game plan simply cannot work if the players won't run hard, both when we have possession, and even more importantly, when we don't. Far too many stationary players last night, and we were forced into the frustrating merry-go-round of backwards and lateral handball due to a distinct lack of options.

Ratten must sit the team down and show them how the Hawthorn players efforts contrasted ours in regard to this. As mentioned in an earlier post, standing stationary 35 metres up the field waving your arms madly when surrounded by opposition players is dumb football. Surely at this time of year physical fitness is not the issue, so it's a mental hurdle that most of our players must overcome quickly.

Fingers crossed it's just a matter of coming to terms with the coach's gameplan expectations, and not merely the fact that most of our list is just not footy-smart.

Thankgod for the Blueseum the AFL website has nothing in relation to historical results:

http://www.blueseum.org/tiki-index.php? ... Pre-Season

A huge difference to 2007 NAB Cup champions team. 10 players different, below full strength, majority of replacements are kids, but the greatest difference is in 2007 we were already playing our best footy in the pre-season.

Ins: Grigg, Bower, Armfield, Pfeiffer, Austin, Edwards, Kreuzer, Jamison, Ellard and Hadley.

Outs: Whitnall, Kouta, Hartlett, Walker, Bentick, Lappin, Carlos, Fisher, Kennedy and Ackland.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

What's the difference in games played between 07 and 08 mjonc?

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“It is a state of mind, a system of belief, a way of seeing the world, a deep faith that, because you are Carlton, you belong to something great.” - Mike Fitzpatrick articulating what Out of the Blue means.

Agree here.
Hawthorn simply ran harder than us. We often had the ball but no real options because they ran to put pressure on us.
When we coughed it up , we were left flat footed .
Our centre clearences were pathetic as well.
Mitchell is a gun and a natural at getting the ball out. Lewis and Hodge arnt bad either.
The good thing is we now have a ruckman who can get his hands on the pill more than our previous ruckman.
Besides individual kicking skills we need to
1 Work out a centre clearence plan so the game is not over in the ten minutes.
2 We need to simply have everyone running. How many times have we flower said that.

3 We need to learn when the opposition have the upper hand to slow the tempo of the game down and maintain possession. We tried to play the same style of game right through the first quarter and consequently got smashed.
4 We have a lot of dumb players who need to get smarter.
Yep harsh because its Feb and their young, but true as well.

verbs Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:25 am Post subject:

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It definitely was a frustrating performance. Sometimes it seems like one step forward and two steps back. What was also worrying is that we are really only Judd, Walker and Fisher and maybe Setanta O'hAilpin short of our best side.

If we play like that every second week this season we'll still be bottom four.



Heres what i think
Judd, Walker, Setanta and Fisher will stabilise our side dramatically, these 4 increase our experience, leadership, defence and goal scoring ability a great deal as well as put the 4 most inexperienced or out of form into the reserves, hopefully reducing clangers, turn overs and forcing the omitted to improve and fight to get back into the team.[/quote]

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The climbing has alread began

Just saw Wiggins supergoal.

Firstly Stevens chested it in.

Secondly they showed Judd [sitting next to Jacobs AWWWW] and Tex - Judd had a this silly grin on his face - thinking no doubt WTF have I gotten myself into and Tex had the been there, seen that look.

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“It is a state of mind, a system of belief, a way of seeing the world, a deep faith that, because you are Carlton, you belong to something great.” - Mike Fitzpatrick articulating what Out of the Blue means.

Quite obvious if you've watched our games. In Football terms, the tactics are simply Brazil vs England, for those uneducated on the world game that is Passing Style vs Long Ball.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

Well done to Ellard last night. Was at the game and for limited game time he showed composure lacking in alot of his team mates. Speaking of composure: Carrots, Gibbs and Simmo are standouts ... so cool under pressure.

Not sure if it's been reported but 3LO claimed that 10 of Murph's posessions resulted in turnovers. Not sure how many shots at goal he missed, at least 4 ... and not from way out or sharp angles ... he's right down in confidence. At least he's getting the ball more.

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"It was like calling your ex girlfriend after a night on the booze, just a really bad decision".

Positives:

Gibbs Cloke Kreuzer Hadley Ellard Hampson Grigg showed positive signs under pressure.
Jamison Pfeiffer and Armfield have a future too.

Negatives:

Sniping TCers taking potshots at other TCers for daring to have an opinion. Very ordinary.

Campbell Brown for the gutless sniping act on Kreuzer. Weak as piss.

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There's so much I could say...

Houlihan was a positive.

Lol I dont think she was talking about game style, thinking she was asking whats the difference in experience in terms of games played between the 07 and 08 side!

My take on the game was that our first quarter was shocking (know thats not a revelation), but mainly because of Hawthorn's pressure and our defenders trying to adjust to the new game plan. I think we are trying to start a style whereby we have a string of handballs out of the backline until we can get someone clear (a la Port Adelaide last week). However, the players seemed to have a lack of confidence and awareness and continually handballed to someone under immense pressure (which led to numerous holding the ball decisions).

In the analysis though, we lost one quarter, but then after that we won 3 quarters by 20 points. Here's my analysis of a few players:

Gibbs - outstanding and one of his best games in the navy blue, especially in the second half. Was fantastic when put into the middle and had 3 clearances in a row at one stage. Exciting.

Murphy - terrible first half again after last week, but really picked it up in the second half. Most impressive part was his attack on the ball, especially after making a mistake. Just a bit of pre-season rust for him and have no doubt he'll be firing come Round 1. Needs to work on set shots from 40-50m.

Hadley - looked really good and probably the most pleasing aspect of last nights game was his performance. Made a couple of skill errors, but I think we can live with that. Moved really well and did what we hoped he would do - win the ball in close and feed it out to the runners. Looks like being a very very handy inclusion.

Bower - his first quarter was reminiscent of how he played last year - indecisive and prone to making errors - though at least he backed himself in certain situations (even if it ended up being a mistake). His second half was great, especially the defensive side of his game which has come on in leaps and bounds since last year. Promising.

Edwards/Russell - both had roles as medium sized forwards and both looked relatively lost. Edwards made a terrible skill error in missing the target and putting it out on the full, as well as dropping a couple of marks he should have taken. Neither could impact on the game and just didnt seem to be where the ball was most of the time. Russell's chasing was noteworthy, but other than that, disappointing and neither are probably in the Rd 1 team at this stage.

Betts/Fevola - inaccurate. Pleasing sign from both was their workrate and pressure that they applied in the forward line. Betts dropped mark was disappointing because it looked like he heard footsteps. Both struggled to make any real impact on the game. Fev needs to find a balance for his aggression. Its great to see and some of his bumps so far have been terrific and he ran 70m to fly the flag after Kreuzer got hit. The negatives are that when he gets in that frame of mind he starts to get lazy and gave away some stupid freekicks.

Simpson - brilliant, continues to work so hard and shows incredible leadership out on the field. Used right foot a bit more last night, which will be good if he can turn himself into a legitimate two-sided player (though think he'll always try and get on his left when he can). Courage personified and always seems to get to a contest.

Stevens - good to see him get through a full game unscathed. Racked up possies and generally used them effectively. Still think he needs to increase his fitness by a couple of percent, as on occasions he struggled to keep up with his opponent when they were running the full length of the field. Will have a great year.

Carrazzo - relatively quiet performance and main criticism is same as always, needs to get a little bit more penetration on his kicks or kick better to his limitations.

Ellard - kid looks likely, wont play seniors much this season but like the way he goes about it.

Kreuzer - last quarter would have made Carlton supporters drool (apart from the missed supergoal). Some of his work gathering the ball, turning and accelerating or dishing off the handball was very pleasing to see. Kicking seemed a little rush and seems a bit awkward off the left, but just finding his feet at AFL level and everyone needs to be patient.

Cloke - gotta say this guy is quickly becoming one of my favourite players at the club just because of his work ethic. Busts an absolute gut during matches and is one of few players at times that will run hard to present as an option. Definitely in the best 22.

IYO

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There's so much I could say...

His delivery into the forward 50 was quite good last night.

Hadley looked good and having him and Judd in the midfield will be pretty awesome once they have a few games under their belts.

A couple of Houlihan's passes were sublime last night. One to Betts and another to Fevola.

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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

Silky

I know it's only a nab cup game and we were trying a few differant things. But how obvious is Hawthorn's game plan? In the centre bounces they always handball backwards then go forward. Their wingmen will always run staright to the back of the pack. That is why they always have more free men to handball too. Either our wingmen go with them or our ruckman has got to tap it backwards (very hard thing to do), or our half forwards charge into the square when the ball is bounced. Hopefully their defenders follow and that will open up our forward line. It's so much easier to mark on the lead especially with open space to lead into.
Also when the opposition kick a few quick goals we need to slow the game down if we can get the footy, or send a forward pocket into defence for 5-10 minutes. Hopefully when Judd plays he will try and organize things better when they go wrong. Footy is such a simple game, when the opposition have the footy man up and pressure them. When you get the footy run to open space and make options. Who ever can do those 2 things of footy the best willl win the game.Alsong as your disposal is half decent.
On the bright side last night highlights how important it is to win the centre clearance and guess what? Judd is coming.

I thought for a Second that We have Switched to playing Handball instead of Football. We were all screaming in the stands " Just Kick the Bloody thing ".


This Game plan is worth trying in pre-season, Good on Ratts, however they better rid of it in the proper season. You dont play Handball from defence to attack unless you were a Geelong or a sydney side that has the capacity, the skills and the players to do it with total efficincy.


Yesterday, We were handballing to dead Situations, resulting in a Turn Over immediately.

the biggest negative of the game for me was that 3 goals that i remember were the result of players being soft.

In the 1st quarter Houlihan and Waite both could have backed back instead of ball watching and Betts attempt at a mark in the 2nd when he was expecting contact.