Pros: 1 round gone.
Cons: 21 rounds to come.

Before I start, now training reports have dried up, this is the thread I look forward to the most. The passion of CFC supporters comes through here.

Am glad to have slept on this post as I too would have been in over reaction mode. Today things seem far less gloomy.

Simply put
We were underdone ( which is not necessarily a bad thing) and a little complacent.
A few poor decisions running into goal, a few marks that didn't stick (remember fev did have surgery on his hand in off season), a few tired midfielders who couldn't ( or didn't) run the other way towards the end of the game.

A couple of crucial periods IE we were 25 up and unlucky call on Waite sends the ball down the other end and a 12 point swing.

I truly believe that the next 7 rounds could be a little disappointing until we gel, improve our match fitness and our guns coming back from injury ( judd, stevens, fev, fish, Walker, Hadlee) start to get back to their best. I can guarantee if our midfielders were able to run out this game, run the other way and not let their direct opponent run unmarked, the result would have been totally different.

We weren't that bad, just rusty, underdone, and a little unlucky.

My Prediction is a 2006 Hawthorn like finish to the season.

PLAYER REVIEWS
Murph - awesome

Judd -70% and still dominating

Stephens - Great "offensive" work....

Setanta - Please, please, please give him a position (NOT RUCK) and leave him. I have always been a play Setanta down back and leave him there advocate, however gee he looked good in the forwards last night. I was not at the game and can not comment on if he was blocking Fev's space or leading well etc, but unlike many of our forwards, I am above 50/50 confidence when he kicks for goal, he has very good speed and hands on the lead. ( either way, please, please give him a spot and even if houlihan has to be our ruck, leave Setanta in a position)

Hadlee -underdone

Simpson -love him, kicking will improve over the season.

Waite - unlucky a few times I though, wait til round 10 or so, I really think once our backline plays together a bit more the improvement will be rapid!!!

Jamison - For how outsized he was, did ok. Can't believe from all training reports that I thought he was a monster. Looked like richo's little brother. And I would be putting someone a little larger on the big guys.

Edwards - I like this guy, but felt he played his own game tonight. When he marked, there was no pre thought into where he might go next. Always stopped held up play, went back and look for a target instead of wheeling around and playing on. Just didn't do the team things, but hey first game.

Betts - Still don't know. At times you think he is a world beater and other times you think meh....

Gibbs - I remain solid on this. Is the most skilled by foot person in our team. 2 weeks ago everyone was bagging murph and praising Gibss. He has one quiet game and all of a sudden he is ordinary. Sorry my friends, this guy is a gem and is sooo needed int his team. Kicking and reading the play is everything, I guarantee he will be a massive part of our next premiership



What my post would have looked like last night - This team is pathetic, why do I get my hopes up all pre-season just to be let down time and time again. I give up, it is not worth the pain, I am not watching another game for the rest of the year etc etc. Yes,

So to Recap
underdone
Watch the back half of the season.
Wait til the team gels a little.
Give our guns 7 rounds til firing
Rapid improvement from round 10 onwards.
Setanta - give him a spot or two ( JUST NOT RUCK), how the fffff is he supposed to improve playing there....

_________________
Window = Open

synners that Fev Edwards thing is a wonderful example of what happened as we fatigued.

Edwards was in space for ages as Stevo ran the ball into our forward line, but Stevo didn't have the vision to see him, then he did and kicked to to where he was running and Fev was leading to.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Fev had the vision however to see Edwards going up and should have stayed down. At worst would have worked it off the ground as he was in the box seat. Fev was a disgrace last night. It pains me to say it but I have had enough.

Pro: 21 More rounds to come, bring on the Aints!

Pros Its round one 21 rounds to address the faults

Cons Too many to mention

but


Why wasnt Jacobs elevated to play in the ruck.

Pure and simple Carlos and Cloke arnt ruckman. So dont play them in the ruck. Jacobs should be elevated and played if we are short in the ruck.


Another point that hasnt been addressed is that Simmonds and Pattison were palming the ball behind them. If your ruckman are getting thrashed rove to the opposition ruckman. Time and time again the ball was tapped to 2 or 3 Richmond players with no Carlton player near them.

Dumb and stupid.

Hartlett. Finally gets his chance tp peform regularly on the big stage and does that. Ratten should have taken him off the ground immediatly and let him recover and cool down. Dont worry about Howat. he will get his at the tribunal.
Message. You cant tribute if your not playing.

Anyone who reckons that Stevens is captain material if last nights game doesnt convince you he isnt you not looking. Does not know what a hardball get is and when he is tagged becomes ineffective. Soft

The reality is that this year will bring more pain.

To gain we need to play everyone on our list. I would be playing Browne for Bannister for starters in defence. The MC need to have the guts to sort out the good from the bad .

Margetts is the new Goldspink. He is the worst umpire ever on tonights peformance. God help any 2 teams if you ahve the triple treat of
Chamberlain, McLaren, Margetts officiating in your next game.

Pros:

Judd - 100% efficiency from him in the first half. 2nd half dropped way down to about 45% as he tired. (according to the radio). Can't wait to see more of him in Navy Blue.

Stevens - fantastic effort after serious injury and long time out of the game.

Hadley - thought he looked good and provided some level-headed experience in the short bursts he was on the ground.

Edwards - presented very well and should improve with experience.

Cloke - not a ruckman but battled on and provided other options around the ground.

Cons:

Forward pressure needs to improve.

Tackling is weak.

We are still too slow. In foot speed as well as reaction times.

Our ruck division is still years away from strength.

Nothing wrong with being a blind optimist, just don't call others names if they don't agree with you.

And you're way off the mark with me mate. I believe our list is taking shape nicely (and have said so on TC before). I love this club as much as anyone, and it pains me to see us lose. However, I'm also a realist and it was my opinion leading into last night's game we would probably lose. I expressed that view and gave logical reasons to support it (as did others) in the days leading up to the game, and, in response, a few posters rolled out the "nervous nellie" line.

If I think we're gonna lose, I'll say I think we're gonna lose. If I think we're gonna win, I'll say I think we're gonna win. It's called making predictions.

I think the long-term furture looks positive, but there's more short-term pain to go through (especially in the 1st half of this season). Any Carlton supporter that thinks otherwise is kidding themselves IMO. There's every chance we will lose the first 4 games. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, or that I don't think our list has made progress. It's just how I see it.

And for what it's worth, I still think we will finish above Richmond.

_________________
It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

i was sitting in perfect place to see what happened there. Stevens had seen Edwards all along. He was running down the middle all alone. However he wanted to get him close to goal. Fev then led to that position and stevens didn't see fev. Stevens shouls've had a shot on goal himself

as for people bagging fev and saying he was selfish and played terrible. Stop listing to the media and have a look at him yourself. Sure his hands were'nt the greatest tonight. but as soon as the game started. He set up simo with the first shot a goal (unselfish), he then set up murph for our first goal (unselfish), he then scored our second goal, should've then scored our third which all his hard work achieved, but was smothered in the last second...edwards finished it off. He continued to lead, chase, rundown and bump the whole game...fev gives it his all no matter if we have no chance of winning. He is a champ. Plus it doesn't help to have woefull kicking into the forward 50 and even worse the fact he had up to 4 players on him.

I have also read that people saying that simo's kicking will improved and he missed a few targets. I failed to see that, i know carrots and stevo did some shokers, but i thought simo hit his targets well.

and adding to my disappointment in ratts. We were dominating and had just kicked a goal to lead by 15 points i think, so wallace brings brown into the centre, ratts kept thornton on him. Thornton is not a tagger. Who is more damaging, delidio in the forward pocket or brown in the centre? well brown destroyed us from then on. Thornton should've gone back to defense and bringing bannister to brown.

Funny, sitting in the crowd, as soon as we got ahead by that much, we saw brown getting moved to the centre, a richmond supporter screamed out, get a kick browny. 10 seconds later, he kicks a goal. if that wasn't an indication for ratts to move thornton, i don't know what is, and so he kept thronton on him.

Very weak coaching by ratts. I said that earlier. But hopefully he will get better with experience.

I also think we have a chance against the saints. Noone will tips us and the odds will be heavily toward the saints, but we're playing them at the MCG, not the dome and i think having less pressure on us this week and also a wake up call is enough for us to have a sniff of a chance

_________________
cruise (Kreuze) missile:
a very accurate flying bomb.
SOURCE: http://library.thinkquest.org/3785/glossary.html

Pro's

Murph - looked awsome and showed what class he is

Judd - Special player, nuff said

Stevens - Tried hard all night, but looks a little out of touch, will be better in a few games

Hadley - Great pick up, will do well

Ratts - For keeping focus on the more important issues. There is no point in learning a game plan for 5 months only to drop it after 2 quarters. Lets keep the bigger picture in mind.

Fev - Good first half, but dropped off badly in second half

Con's

Betts - should not be allowed outside the forward 50. we bombed the ball to Fev so many times and more often than note is went to ground, so where was betts or any other crumbers?

Skills - Why does it seem that we are the only team that kicks high floaters that give the opposition enough time for a latte before the ball reaches our players. Get these guys to kick with authority and our team will look twice as good.

Tackles - I know that we are a young team and lack bulk, but this needs improvement more than anything else. We will never win a game if we give the opposition all the time in the world to kick the ball and our defence will always look crap, even if SOS was there.

Floods - We need to recruit Noha as we still make the same mistakes over and over again when the opposition floods back. Hold possession just ouside our 50 and wait for someone to be free, bombing away only hands possession over and leaves our defense out of position.

TC - I know the loss hurts, but round one is all about learning for our team, they need to understand where we went wrong and learn from it. Now is not the time to ask the coach to start swapping things around before they have even learnt the simple things.


Go Blues!

There were some positive signs last night. In the second quarter we showed the football world that we can play exciting footy.

I couldn't believe we had all momentum in the second quarter and we decided to play tempo footy and were content with a four goal lead.

We went in underdone Hadley, Stevo, Judd, Setanta, Fev all had a interrupted preseason. The tigers had a full list to chose from, every player that played last night played at least 3 practice matches.

T-bird got a lot of the ball, but was to slow releasing it. He'd go this way, that way, side ways then try hit a target and turn it over.

We didn't use the corridor nor try switch into it. And simply did not run hard enough to create space nor did we run and hunt in numbers.

We lack genuine crumbing forwards. The tigers just sat under the ball as it was being pumped in and cleared it out. I know its early but come years end we need to inject some pace into this team via the draft.

We can only get better. That was the tigers at there best. We have walks and Fisher to come back, Hammo in the ruck and Just like the pies, port, crows & swans we will build on our fitness as the season goes on. Ratts has mentioned this before preseason started.

Sorry, game is at Telstra Dome. You're going to be very lonely if you head to the 'G.

_________________

************************************************************
NOW YOU'RE JUST SOME CLUB THAT I USED TO KNOW.

PROS

great to see my team on the park playing a real game.
we're not playing for the flag this year
we're giving the kids time on the park
it's a development year
we do have very good players to play midfield roles
class shone through with Judd, Stevo, Houla, Scotto, Murphs, Simmo, Fev
Bower was very good in the first half. His run is in line with modern football (see Tigers backmen)
T Bird was solid in the air
Judd, Hadley, Stevo, Setanta really underdone and will improve
I was happy to be happy about Betts' first half pressure
Good to see Scotland push forward.
I thought Hartlett presented well, but was never in a scoring position (ie within 60m).
My best were: Simmo, Houla, Murphy, Judd, Stevens (no big men)

CONS

not enough class across the ground
ruck was a weakness, (but that's not what cost us)
long passes missing
Grigg, Gibbs, Banno, Jacko
zoning non existent, Tigers had easy passage through the corridor
fitness level in round 1 is a poor excuse. Only raises questions re conditioning
Short passing is a huge concern. Short passes must be 15m not 7m.

I must admit I'm hugley disappointed....more with my rose colored expectation.

The good thing about the game is it gave me a reality check.

If Kreuzer and Hammer were playing, and Setanta was fit,he would have matched up on Richo. That's a result from injury and a question on depth. Jamo would have learned a lot, and he is a good backman

I actually thought Cloke and Setanta did better than expected. Setantas reach helped nullify Tigers.

Gibbs should be playing HB imo. Less pressure and gives him an opportunity to use his good delivery where we need it...coming out of defense.

Geez Hadley reminds me of Bentick in style. If you like Hadley, you gotta like Bentick.

Playing so many underdone players on the G is a bit of an embarrassment.

We needed more pace from the backline. Bower and Simmo gave us some, but maybe that's where Anderson or Browne may help out.

Quite a few posters liked Edwards' game. He didn't give me a fat! I thought he was good for a first gamer, and the jury is still out.

I'm not expecting Banno, Grigg, Betts, Jackson to make the grade.

Fisher, Hammer, Kreuzer and Walker would make a huge difference, as will match fitness.

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

oh really, i thought when i saw the fixture, that the first 4 rounds were a the G, my mistake

_________________
cruise (Kreuze) missile:
a very accurate flying bomb.
SOURCE: http://library.thinkquest.org/3785/glossary.html

Not sure what game others were watching but Andrew Carrazzo is possibly the worst kick in our team. Gets the ball which is great but his field kicking killed us. Not his fault we lost but gee it rips the heart out when we turn it over and they score.

Murphy, Simpson and Houlihan were our best.

Setanta isnt a ruckman.... is Hampson back next week?

Next week Hampson and Kruezer in for Hartlett ( suspended - i love that we need more of it smacked that bloke clean ) ... and Ohailpin out omitted

How far is Fisher away ?

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Matty Kruzer you star!

That Edwards/Fevola collision was clearly Fevolas fault.... Edwards was on his own and was running backwards, how was he to see what was behind him. Fevola should have stayed down and blocked his man from getting to Edwards.

Brendan Fevola owes the club big time.... he was poor yesterday, he looks unfit and he continually dumps people after they kick it, he will never learn

_________________
Matty Kruzer you star!

Can't believe how many Blues fans are accepting and positive as we enter our 7th year of dismalness with a dismal performance.

I know we are learning a new game plan and we have several stars underdone, but we were playing Richmond. Next week against the Saints will be really ugly.

Cons - Desperation, endeavour, intensity. Thrashed in all aspects by the Tiges. two examples - Waites lackadaisical effort when running towards the ball being outmarked by Hughes running with the flight because he was more desperate. The contrast between Tambling running full bore with the flight to mark with Richo and Jamison barrelling towards him and Gibbs dropping an easy uncontested chest mark on half back because he took his eyes off it. Result Richmond goal! I hate it when other supporters highlight examples of him pulling out but he is super talented and needs to keep his eyes on the ball. He is young and very talented, an excellent tackler and a smart kid, but compare him to players of similar experience, is he as intense and as desperate as Joel Selwood?

Tackling - Are we training for international rules or Australian rules? How is it that the guy with the best tackling technique - Gibbs - has been at the club for the least time!

Waite is not, has never been and never will be a CHB. He ineffectively double teamed Richo, made his requisite number of mistakes and was barely within ten metres of his opponent all night. I like Waite, and he is super talented but he is a natural forward. Move him up forward because we need someone to kick it to other than Fev

We are so predictable, kick it to Fev no matter how many are on him. If he has 4 opponente how come we don't have 3 free players?

Jamo is more suited to smaller opponents - would have been ideal match up for Pettifer

Play Setanta down back, give him a position and leave him there. He is potentially a very good half back.

Pace - we need more, the Tiges ran all over us

Badly need another small forward

Pros
Judd and Stevo got thru the game
TBird was terrific can't believe fans are criticising him
Murphy very good
Edwards promising debut
Grigg looked lost at times but did enough to suggest he has real talent. Needs a right foot
Bower - looks like an athlete who took up footy at the same time as Setanta but promising in a Gary Cowton type of way. Needs confidence, but has the skills to be a good half back
Cloke - if half our team put in like him we would have won. Fantastic endeavour, hope he stays injury free

I will preface this next spiel with a big I love Fev but...
Fevola is a big kid who is naturally self centred. When the vibes are good and the team is playing well he will go with the flow and think 'team' but when the chips are down he spends too much time thinking about his own game. He wants to take marks and kick goals, all the team things are secondary. You can see that he's trying to improve that cos he makes some fantastic second efforts at times with his tackling and chasing but it's just never going to be instinctive.
I saw a few examples of that last night where he went for a big mark, didn't take it, fell to the ground, wallowed for a second or two in disappointment, then realised his job wasn't over, got up and tried his damndest to get the ball back. He puts in the efforts but they're not instinctive reactions for him which is frustrating for everyone because usually the moment is lost in that initial think time.
I thought he had a poor night last night but I love Fev and I'm hoping he can turn it on next week.

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Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight, don't blame it on the good times, blame it on the WIGGINS!

Good post.

I saw some positives last night. Edwards was good. Jammo had a baptism of fire but didn't drop his head once. Murph came the next step. Bower and Grigg were solid.

We are a team with lots of young kids and inexperienced players and we have to give them time to grow physically and mentally.

Some of our key players were underdone for good reasons and it showed - Judd, Stevens and Sentanta.


While we were beaten in the rucks that was expected. Cloke tried his guts out in the circumstances and his ground play was good IMO.

I see progress this year and that is all I want.

Ask Brett Ratten why he dragged Thornton in the second quarter, Gerry.
Carlton had all the momentum, all the effectiveness and all that was required was disciplined, team play.
Instead of that, Bret Thornton chased the footy and allowed his opponent (Nathan Brown) to do his own thing. Brown did'nt have a heap of ball but virtually every goal Richmond got for the term, he had a creative hand in it.
Even the commentators were rattling on about Browns effectiveness in the midfield.
He was'nt playing midfield, he did what his team required and dragged Thornton up to the wing and involved himself in the play.

When you have momentum in football, it is crucial that you take advantage. We didnt have the discipline and blew it.

Yes T/Bird is a good bloke and he usually gives his all for the team but he had a job to do. Instead of picking up cheap kicks, he should have concentrated on nullifying his opponent and sacrificing his game for the team.
Then he wouldnt have been sitting on the bench with the phone to his ear.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.