I dont . The positives FD highlighted are correct but the negatives outweigh the positives.
Judd is clearly not right and should not play until he is ready.
Stevens, Houlihan Scotland are senior footballers now who dont lead by example. Its not just losing. Its how we are losing. These guys dont put their bodies on the line.
The problem is that we dont seem to fast track our youngsters.
Reading river rodents report from the Ants game today it seems only 3 or 4 deserve a game.
Eg Benjamin doesnt seem to be kicking on as much as we would like etc

On top of this I cannot understand why you would play Gibbs in defence along with Simpson.
Gibbs came to this club with terrific reputation for his inside game and footy smarts. And he spends the whole night getting cheap stats in defence. Forget about the fact he is too young. Challenge the kid now.
Simpson is young guy who is prepared to run and make things happen. So why not play him further up the ground.
We need another ruckman to work in tandem with Hampson. Aisake could be the man. Apparently Jacobs did an ankle. Either way we need 2 specialist ruckman to develop toghether just like Taylor and Campbell.

Then you could play Cloke at CHF. We are crying out for someone there

st kilda played terrible last night and still flogged us - we can kid ourselves all we like and say they are a top 4 side - and they may well end up being one - but they didnt play that way last night.

we continue to accept mediocrity and settling for getting within 40 points , WHY !?!?!?!?!

we wouldnt have gotten withing 140 of geelong today the hard questions need to start being asked - this isnt about gameplans and young lists etc - its about passion , pride , hunger , teamwork etc etc

if we play the way we did lastnight against essesndon next weekend we will all be here again next weekend having the same conversations

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

St Kilda are the most overhyped, overblown, overrated team in the AFL
and wont get near Hawthorn or Geelong this year. And the third quarter is the worst of the 8 quarters we have played this year.

I'm sure the club are properly managing his game time at the moment. As well as being restricted by his groin, he's lacking match fitness. He's not going to get that sitting on the sidelines.

This also leads into your second point. I agree that Stevens, Houlihan and Scotland don't lead by example, but if you don't play Judd thats who our youngsters are looking to for example.

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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

Aker was on AFL Gameday this morning and they asked him about the same groin surgery (adductor release) he had as Judd back in 02 or 03, and Aker's response was along the lines that it takes 9 months before you get your full speed back and full follow through of your kicking. Aker has been running pretty much at full tilt since that surgery uninhibited by his groin.

Judd even said it will take until midseason before he's back to his best - his op was done in Oct so you could expect by around June/July Juddy should be ready to switch on those after burners.

He is a 5 to 6 year investment so I'm content to let him ease his way back into it.

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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 believe it doesnt help when a full forward loses a contest, drops his head, puts his hands on his hips and lets others around him do the chasing. I am a huge fan of Fev but his body language was deplorable..... I know the delivery often leaves a lot to be desired and he is double teamed but he needs to persist and be positive. Hands on hips, shaking his head at team mates WTF........



[quote]

Agree mate as I would have him in my CONS too.... I find it hard to continue watching his negative body language. IMO it is happening far too early in matches. Hopefully we will see the professional athelete side of him very soon.

The answer is we have no CHF and until we find one we will continue to do this.

PROS

Waite - BOG by a mile (for us)
People are finally seeing what I've been saying about Nick Stevens for the last 5 years.
Murph - Class
Gibbs - Some as above
Cloke - Effort
Hampson - Should be in for the rest of the year
Backline - held on for nearly 3/4 of the game

CONS

Stevens - The biggest downhill skier in the game. As usuall buttered his stats in junk time. Opponents ran of him at will. Whats with the Whitnall arms infact thats probably an insult to Lance.

Forward line - We just don't have one at the moment
CHF - ???????
Fev - I'm a fan but I get the feeling he might not be at Carlton next year
Gibbs - No run in his game at all
Cloke - 7 hitouts for a ruckmen
We need WALKER back badly

Pros: Waite is our best player at the moment. Thought he did such a great job on NR and is one of the few players in our side turning 50/50 situations into clear wins for us.
Simpson continues to set the standard with hardness, commitment and boldness at all times.
Thought the defense was generally okay.
Cons:
No forward structure at all.
Inability to fully capitalise when we have momentum (we should've been 5 goals up at quarter time). It seems as though we are almost sabotaging ourselves when we are going well by giving away 50m penalties, missing easy goals or just generally stuffing up at the wrong time.
As much as everyone loved Murphy last night he was completely unaccountable and was rarely near his man when they had the ball.
The hysterical criticism of JR on this forum. Thought he had a crack and was a real victim of his teammates poor skills/decision making at times last night. He made a few blues but so did everyone else. Can't see how anyone who was remotely impartial would walk away from the game with the overwhelming impression that he had a shocker and should be dropped.

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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!

The club has done amazing things off the field and now needs to be backed up on the field. We need people that will have a red hot go. Players such as Scotland, Houlihan, Fevola etc have proven over the last few years that they are incapable of improving our side.

Lets face it, we are not going to play finals this year. I fear we will be lucky to win 3-4 games.

Why don't we then get games into the likes of Jacobs, Aisake, Benjamin, Browne, Anderson, Armfield, Austin, Kruezer etc to see they are worth keeping past this year otherwise we are wasting another year.

Where were St Kilda last year?

Nowhere

Why?

Because they had a new coach, and it took him 15 months to get a new style of game drilled into his players.

Lyon has an older, and more experienced list than us, and it still took him 15 months to drill the side properly. Yet people on here expect Ratten to have our list firing in five months. It is la la land talk. Absolute la la land. To top it off, our two best midfielders are coming back from serious operations, and can't run out a game. So not only are we expecting our younger, less experienced players to implement a game plan three times more quickly than the St Kilda list was able to, we are also expecting them to be able to do it while 'carrying' their most experienced and brilliant players.

The big con for me from this week is Talking Carlton... it has turned into an absolute rabble.

PROS

-Defence worked well a unit. My favourite piece of play was Riewoldt's mark near the goal post, that he was just too cool to kick so tried to pass it to his mate, which he managed to stuff up and our defence mopped up well. Last year we would have been left flat footed pointing at each other.
-Pfeiffer made a strong debut. I loved his long goal, and his general hardness in the contest. A good example to our more "senior" players.
-Murphy and Gibbs making strong contributions.
-Cameron Cloke's consistent effort, the guy never stops trying.
-Waite officially making Riewoldt his biaatch.I just wish could have Waite in the forward line too.
-Thornton regaining his 2006 form.

CONS
-We lost.

PROS

-Defence worked well a unit. My favourite piece of play was Riewoldt's mark near the goal post, that he was just too cool to kick so tried to pass it to his mate, which he managed to stuff up and our defence mopped up well. Last year we would have been left flat footed pointing at each other.
-Pfeiffer made a strong debut. I loved his long goal, and his general hardness in the contest. A good example to our more "senior" players.
-Murphy and Gibbs making strong contributions.
-Cameron Cloke's consistent effort, the guy never stops trying.
-Waite officially making Riewoldt his biaatch.I just wish could have Waite in the forward line too.
-Thornton regaining his 2006 form.

CONS
-We lost.

I wasnt too depressed on Sat night.
Our endeavour was ther for the most part, we had our share of the ball. To use a Paganism, we butchered it badly. It may be optimistic but if you learn to use it better, our results will improve markedly. Although we have been saying that for 4 years.
We must be the worst tackling team in the AFL. We share a training venue with the Storm, surely we can give their tackling coach $1500 a week to take 2 sessions per week

IMO you could count on one hand the number of players who worked to their limits.
Yes, we'll get better with improved skills but the workrate for eachother must lift if we're to be competitive.

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There's so much I could say...

I was Buzzzz - Vey, very depressed. We have just been beaten by 7 goals again after losing to last years wooden spooners. If that doesn't get players fired up and making doubley/tripley sure of their disposals then nothing will.

I understand that we have blokes coming back from injury and young kids blah, blah - but the 50/60/70 game players players that should now be good enough to finish easy shots at goal are almost non existant.

This week will be their last chance to prove they have heart. I'm giving the kids a break, and even those still catching up on a pre-season, but Eddie Betts, Scotland, Carrazzo, Fevola, Houlihan must now stamp their mark on the game or I'll be beying for blood.

I'm not singling out one game in particular, this has been an issue for a long, long time and needs to be fixed.

I'm sick of people protecting or making excuses for players - we have the worst W/L record in the comp and everyone here wants to wrap them up in cotton wool - FFS there's a reason why we're last.

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end of message

My favourite bit was when Riewoldt marked deep in the forward line and handballed it into the teeth of the goals only to have us thwart the play, and O'hAilpin's little top poke to get the ball moving away from the danger area.

That is instinct. You can't teach a player that, he just has it. He was using his instincts and didn't have time to think, didn't even have time to bend over and pick it up, he just did what he had to.

Loved it.

Judd calling Stevens over after he gave away 50 and clearly telling him to zip it. Haven't seen that from a Blues leader in years .

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"I had to eat"

Was about to mention this. I saw it for the first time on OTC tonight and my first thought was I don't know that I have really seen that from a Carlton player - not recently anyway. I must admit that it made him even more impressive in my eyes. I just haven't seen that anger in anyone for a long time.

Lots of people get angry with Straunie

Well, my two-game visit didn't fill me with confidence for the year. Richmond showed us what a good full forward and sensible delivery into the F50 can do and St Kilda showed us what the centre corridor is for. The end result flattered us. The fact is we were thrashed and apart from a couple of goals in the last quarter when the game was over we showed not much.
Pros:
The backline is starting to show something in terms of winning one-on-ones. Waite was exceptional and Thornton also. Bower is getting better every week and may well be the new 'woof'.
Gibbs and Murphy are getting better.
Pfieffer had a nice cameo.
Betts got his mandatory goal and should have had a couple of assists apart from poor finishing by others
Hammo will get better.
Cloke puts in and may make a CHF.
Kreuzer might make a difference up front next week.

Cons:
We missed Jamo. I am a big fan.
Stevens game was the worst I have seen from a supposed great player in about 40 years. He was undisciplined and seems to lack fitness and even footskills. His decision not to kick from 10 metres out was appalling. So much so it took Judd by surprise and cost is a goal.
The game plan seems to avoid the corridor. Good teams run the ball through the middle in attack and defence. We gin around with it and go wide. Then kick it to Fev who is inevitably marked by two defenders. If we kicked it to Edwards or Fisher a few times, Fev would not be double teamed all the time and would get more.
I could not believe Houlihan lined up in the backline and Bannister on the wing. Both players suffered as a result. When Houlihan went forward in the last, he actually had some impact, although his decision not to have a shot from 50 surprised me.
Judd looked proppy and I seriously hope we are not causing him more damage.
Fevola gets poor delivery and doesn't seem to want to play. I was in the 'trade-Fevola' camp last year and still think we should have done so.
The tackling is a disgrace. Two weeks in a row we have allowed players to waltz past and kick goals. It is reflected in teams' accuracy against us that there is not enough pressure on the ball-carrier when passing or shooting.
We lack pace and flair and the sooner we get Ando and Benji fit and playing the better. Raw pace gives players time and space. At the moment we don't have it. Eddie apart.

I want to finish 8-12th but it will be hard on current performances. I hope we can get the mix of players right and get the confidence levels up and running to start winning a few. I think we will be outrun next week against Essendon*.

Back to sitting up all night for the rest of the season.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)