Had to go out after the game so can only post my thoughts now. Some good things happened tonight but there's more to be concerned about than to be pleased about. At year's end, Essendon*'s Inside-50 to scoring shot ratio tonight may be the most successful recorded for the year. They scored on nearly every entry. You cannot beat anyone the way we played tonight.

PROS

1. Chris Judd - great to watch

2. Kreuzer - fantastic. 2nd 3rd and 4th efforts.

3. Betts - played his best game for Carlton. Nevertheless, the fact that he is playing true CHF for us is embarrassing.

4. Murphy - gun

5. Fev - played well. But if we can't win when he kicks 8.....

CONS

1. JORDAN RUSSELL!!! Should never have played tonight - anyone could have seen from last week's performance that this guy is NOT, I repeat NOT, an AFL standard footballer. Ratten's worst match selection so far. Get him to Preston, NOW!!

2. Our backline - the only way we're gonna get a rebound 50 is if the other side kicks a point. Btw, Jamo's not a potential premiership full-back - no way.

3. Scotland - yikes.

4. Waite - He matches up well against Reiwoldt so everyone thinks he's a CHB, but he disappoints way too often for a player of his age. Waite will not be a champion player. People talk about him like he is, but he's not.

5. Our stars fired - Judd, Fev stevens, Murphy, Kreuzer all played great games but we conceded about 40 goals. We won't win like this.

Did I mention Jordan Russell????


Judd's inclusion aside we have not moved forward as a football team.

You have not heard the last of the T-word - we will be in that territory in 3 months.

_________________
They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

PROS:
* Judd
* Kreuzer
* Fevola
* Betts
* Hadley 75%
* Stevens 75%

CONS:
* Houlihan - out of form
* Scotland - out of form
* Simpson - rare bad game
* Russell - out of form
* Fisher - out of form

Overall some patches of good football again. Great game particularly early by Betts. Much better performance this week from the team as a whole.

All eyes on the Bullants players now to see who presents,

Has he ever been in form?

Pretty much what keogh said in post 2 on this thread. Betts fantastic, as was judd and kruezer and hadley showed his true class in greater bursts than has in rounds 1 and 2. having bagged stevens for the last 2 weeks i am prepared to acknowledge he had a better game tonight, but still not match fit. improved though.

I walked out of the G sort of wondering how we didn't win, despite the terrible umpiring. What I would call the critical errors of the game which I think made it impossible for us:

1ST QTR

- scotland getting sucked in before bounce against puncey monfries who only ever plays well against us (and how could that have not been a free against monfries for in the back inside their 50 in the 3rd?)

- then us failing to man up 3 seconds later inside 50

2ND QTR

- not shutting down ball in last 30secs

3RD QTR

- see above. With a minute to go, the ball lands in the hands of russell in the back pocket. He hesitates and then kicks slow pass to bannister on defensive 50, who is beaten in the contest = goal. Followed 10 secs laters by Betts (who had no real options to use) having to kick to a leading stevens, who tries to take a chest mark resulting in an easy punch, turnover and another goal after the siren.

- Murph's chip into fletcher(?) on wing when we have possession and look ready to go 25pts up if we get the next goal.

4th QTR

- Russell grabs ball 25m out under pressure, instead of handpassing to the very free stevens tries a left foot snap that doesn't make the difference, turnover, ball down other end, score. I do like the fact that Russell actually backed himself for once, but the fact that he failed to make the distance from there is embarrassing - should have handpassed in this instance.

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"You're my boy(s), Bluuuee(s)..."

actually, sorry i disagree with keogh about gibbs. thought gibbs played ok - he got caught a couple of times but i like the fact that he is trying to create and keep the ball alive without coughing it up. he will start to break tackles with another season under his belt and the added strength that comes with that.

_________________
"You're my boy(s), Bluuuee(s)..."

Pros:

Betts (always thought could be a very good onballer if fit enough)
Kruezer
Surely now players such as Anderson, Browne, Armfield, Benjamin, Bentick, Joseph, Ellard, Grigg will be given a go

Cons:

Stevens (imagine if he did the right thing by his teammates and got himself fit! We are effectively one short come the final qtr)
Russell (hoped we would come good but now severly doubt it)
Our senior players in Scotland, Houlihan, Bannister etc (for years we have put up with their crap yet we still can't win. If we are rebuilding why don't we play our kids)
Pressure
Fitness and ability to Gut run

watched the game on TV so my perspective may be warped however ..

PRO
- best work around stoppages i have seen in a very very long time
- Judd was amazing
- Kruezer has showed in one game he could be our best no 1 pick
- Hadley looked much better and is like a bull in the middle
- Steven's after a terrible first 15 min played good hard football
- Fev
- Murphy continues to play really well
- Betts was outstanding and one of the few people who provides forward pressure

CONS
- are we the worst team to rebound from defence ... the contrast with Essendon* was pretty damning. We still get stuck too often having to kick to contests along the wing. This is the 3rd week i have seen this and we seem to not be doing anything about it and we will continue to loose until we address this .. even simple things like switching to the other side or running through the corridor seem foreign ... WHY?
- defensive pressure in the forward is not good enough. the way the ball is moved out of our forward half way too easy and we nee bring in some players who can address this situation
- backline not working. not sure if this is something we have to learn but the TV commentators were spot on ... Scotland is being asked to play accountable football and he looks very uncomfortable doing so. again we need to find players who fit in here .. may be time for armfield/anderson
- we rotate through the midfield and use the bench well below the bench marks set by the best teams in the competition. we need to get with the times! ask Mick Maulthouse. ...and people wonder why we run out of legs ... it is because we don't rotate enough
- Gibbs. not sure what the answer is but he is being under utilised and it is fustrating to not see him have much influence

Overall I can see we are a much better team but we have a few more holes to fill and as stated by some others too many of our senior players Simpson, Waite and co were down this week and they need to step up

_________________
The glass is neither half full nor half empty. Rather the glass is twice as big than required.

Pros
Astonishing debut by big K, at last we have a draftee on our list who could become the best player in the comp
Judd - still gaining fitness but stellar
Stevo - good first half
Fev - that's what we want to see
Jamo - solid effort at full back
Eddie - excellent

Cons
I thought big K was going to be protected from the crash and bash of ruck, no matter how good he is, use kid gloves, we want him dominant in a few years not a crock. Limited ruck time at present
With our stars starring and Lucas out we still got done
Getting sick of all the talk about how young we are as an excuse. Not sure the averages, but the Bombers youngsters led them to victory. How do they go from slow as treacle to superfast in two drafts? And Gumbo has barely played for them yet

This time last year ag North and Brissy we played similar high scoring games and lost, but withour STevo and Judd. Where's the improvement

Gibbs has class and is young, but is he as intense as Selwood, or as effective. He is a great tackler but needs to use his class to win his own ball
more consistently

CHF we don't have one. Eddie Beets is the shorters CHF in history

Get Waite forward

Find a small defender - Arnfiled, Ando, your time has come

Bring in Setanta and play him CHB. Agree to an extent with his dropping this week as no logical match up,

Our backline lacks dash and hasn't enough height or a decent small defender

If we lose to Melbourne in a few weeks, Ratts will start felling like DP did this time last year.

pros

- kreuzer
- judd
- fevola
- stevens
- our third quarter was fantasic
- further improvement and games from the kids
- 21 goals

cons
- not playing 4 quarters
- Scotland, Houlihan, dont need to say much more.
- Russell, i want to him to succeed, but i just dont think he can do it which is dissapointing.
- 23 goals against
- our last 5 mins of each quarter. This is where i actually think we lose the games. Same last week as well. We should have gone into the last quarted 3 goals up, but ended up 1 point. We go in 3 goals up, we win. We did it last week as well. We should have has the saints goaless in the first quarter. It makes a difference.
- umpiring, i dont care what anyone says, when you have a difference of 25 against and 12 for, that is effectively the equivalent of having an extra midfielder on the field. And some of the decisions or lack of decisions where disgusting.

_________________
Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Pros:

Kreuzer – nice debut

Pfeiffer – continues to show promise, naturally helps his teamates & doesn’t panic!!!!!!

Betts, Judd, Stevens, & Fev – at last

Cons:

No Jackson or O’hAilpin

No defense

No blocking, shepherding or any semblance of working together

Complete lack of understanding on how to protect/defend against an opposition rebound

The inevitable Jamo/Roca match-up next week ……the terror……. the terror

No hope for the future - I have lost my faith in this current football department

Pros
Kreuzer - fantastic debut
Fev back to some form
We kicked some goals
Juddy's best game for us.
Hopefully every crap umpiring decision we are going to get this season has happened in this game.
Good signs for us, I think with some personnel changes could mke this a much better team.

Cons
Our defensive work was poor.
Our fitness is poor or we don't like to gut run.
Thought we lost the game at the selection table. Against a fast bombers side we went in with 3 ruckman. Kreuzer Hampson and Cloke was too much tall timber when we needed runners.
We miss Ando and Walker (or Arnfield and Brown) for pace in the backline.


Honestly IMHO our team balance is not there, we have players out or not selected that we need in the side. And we haven't settled on our ruck partnership yet. We will get better, but we just need a win on the board to break the pressure.

Pros:
- We kept up with them for a good part of the game
- We were the first to 100
- We killed them in the stats
- Fev kicked a bag of 8
- Judd scored two and had a killer night with the pill
- Kreuzer had a killer night in the ruck, as did Cam, and Mattie also kicked two: one with his first kick in AFL Football, and another with his fourth
- Betts proved his doubters wrong

Cons:
- We lost to the scum, even though we'd reached 100 first
- We weren't in the last quarter at all: Fev looked like kicking a milestone by the end of the 3rd but then everyone stopped

Bring on the filth! And the wont to play an entire game!!

PROS:
-Fantastic debut by Matty Kreuzer.
-Judd had great disposal and kicked 2 goals
-Stevens played a good game and hit back at the critics from last week.
-Betts played his best game for carlton yet in my mind (just ahead of his 5-goal performance last year).
-Murphy had another great game.
-Fevola..........he played good, BUT he does this every year. he'll have 1 or 2 eight goal matches and then kicks 2 goals in every other round (i mean, he was playing on mal michael who is past it). However now that he's of the boooooooze he might turn his on field performances on.

CONS:
-Again poor intensity and tackling ability.
-Carlton rely too much on carlton up forward. When he doesnt play well, carlton dont play well. Our other forwards dont kick enough goals (take hawthorn for example; franklin, williams, roughead or stk; kozi, reiwoldt, milne, gehrig). We only have fevola. last night it showed, apart from fevola there were only 2 goals kicked from our forwards (betts and fisher). We need to give fevola support and i think jarrad waite is the key. The consequences of relying too much on fevola shows regularly (carlton scored 3 goals or less in a half).
-Doesnt have the list to become a half decent team in the future. many players arent going to become a part of carltons future (we need to get rid of them). ********* russell, bentick, bower, scotland, bannister, houlihan?, grigg, wiggins arent part of carltons future in my mind. they arent or arent gonna be good players.
-Terrible decision making.
-russell, bannister, bower/houlihan/scotland out --- JACKSON, setanta, anderson in.
- yes the terrible umpiring didnt help and cost us 4 goals at the least. 25-13.....one of the umpires gave 7-1. what has happened to the dropping the ball rule!!?? McPhee, boney cheeked kent, gets tackled and with only 1 arm free just places the ball of the ground, no free-kick. jordan russell handpasses over his head (which u see 5 time a game - never ever ever ever paid for that matter) yet the umpire somehow saw a throw in it. Dustin fletcher, 198cm tall goes up for a specky over betts, 173cm and drops it....instead of in the back or play on, the umpire called betts for sheparding!!!!

gives us about 6years and we'll be fine

PROs

* Judd, Stevo and Kreuz ... enough said.

* Fevola - he's Jekyll or Hyde, you'll never know till the game starts. Disciplined, determined 8 goal, 12 scoring shot effort ... well done Fev. Keep it going and remember the kids are watching.

* Eddie - playing the CHF role and just brilliant, worked his butt off. It wasn't the fancy stuff that impressed me, it was his work for his team mates, his presenting (highest mark taker!!) and 4 assists ... priceless.

* Hadley - more game time (up to 78 mins now, so pretty much a full midfielder game) and a sense that he belongs in this midfield group. 10 tackles. Calling him a workhorse would belie his class.

* Stats wise - contested ball ... we won it convincingly and recorded one of the highest CP counts (125) and CP/Total %s (36%) so far this round. Compare that to last week where we had 112 CPs at 32%. A great sign for a young team.

* Stats wise - clearances ... with Kreuz, a first gamer and Cloke, an undersized ruck, the midfield dominated winning 64% of stoppages.

CONs

* Senior players out of form. Simmo had a shocker ... he had 7 clangers!!! that must be some sort of record. His frustatration evident: giving away 3 frees. Confidence looks down. Scotto looks lost and unsure of his role ... agree with those saying he's been asked to be more accountable and it doesn't sit well with him. Houla - he can't just lope around like that, he just jogs as players burn past him ... not sure if it's fitness or down on form but even he's usually better than that.

* Hammer - needs to be dropped, not for poor performance but just to give him some game time. Only had 36 mins or a quarter and a half of footy last night and that won't develop him. The team would be better served with Setanta pinch hitting in the ruck as he at least can play back or forward when not required.

* Russell - any one want to try and argue his case this week or have we had enough? Passenger at the moment and he's not even doing the 1%s. The team can't afford to carry him, he should be dropped and come back when he's hungry ... there's no desire or hunger evident in this kid at the moment.

* Dead time of quarters: every game we seem to give away goals in the dieing minutes of the quarter (this time the 2nd and 3rd) ... Carlton supporters are losing their hair Ratts ... please, hold the ball!!
(ie. don't just the raise the ball and then turn it over).

* Stats wise - we killed them at the stoppages and won the contest ball, we brought it into our 50 some 58 times (7 more than them) .... and we lost.

* Stats wise - coversion: we were unlucky. The Bombers conversion rate was unbelievable at 45%. Ours at 36% was bloody good too ... to compare, the Hawks won with a conversion of 27% and Freo with 21%.

* Stats wise - scoring shots: our defence let the bombers get off 35 scoring shots, way too high. Freo and the Hawks both won with 27.

* Stats wise - clangers: killing us. Bombers had 27, we amassed 48. They were much cleaner with the footy. We improved from 54 the week before but when the opposition make almost half as many errors, you're always going to get hurt.

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

So on that basis do you think JUDD is 100% match fit????
Therefore according to your stupid theory we are 2 short with JUDD.
Seriouslly your embarassing yourself now with this sort of crap.

STEVENS played a fantastic game.........yet you wanna keep on bagging him.

Yet imagine how good he would play if he was fully match fit and not overweight.

_________________
Lawrence Lawrence, The man who knows all the rackets and all the racketeers!

TB

You must be related to him.

I cannot understand how a professional club can let a player like him present himself in that condition.

As for playing a fantastic game that is debateable. I sat with an ex AFL coach who was clear that if he was still coaching Stevens would not play until he was fit enough to last four qtrs and learnt the defensive side of the game.

You can support him blindly all you want but the fact of the matter is we have now lost a record 14 in a row and have conceded 100pts or more in 24 straight games.

The Stevens scenario is a syptom of WHY.

As for Judd his attitude is entirely professional. He has had less training time than stevens yet is in much better physical condition and will bust a gut for his team.

why is it that hampson was given only 36% game time?

Ok i'll go with your theory this week.

Let's drop Judd, Stevens,Hadley and Betts cause they cannot play 4 quarters and bring in yound fellas that can.

Geez i'd love to be smashed by 100 points

I think its time Ratts settle's T-bird, Setanta and Jammo as our 3 talls down back week in week out. Jammo showed he is more than capable and was a shinning light in a game where Lloyd should have kicked a bag.

But our biggest issue is small defenders. We are getting slaughtered by small forwards kicking goals and creating so much pressure on our defenders. I believe Armfield and Browne were recruited to play the small defenders role so why not give em a shot. It's early days i know, and maybe Ratts is giving the likes of Banno, Russel and Houla one last chance before he gibes them the flick. It could be both Armfield and Browne's skill just not up to it, i don't know but somethings got to change.

I'm sure Ratts (well hope) will clean out our list come years end. Houla, Banno, Russel, Cloke are not the future of this club.