Hopefuly with some of Ratts decisions he is just tanking.. and not being fair dinkum....

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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.

Stevens was a one way runner today, and he is very noticable when he does it. Just things like not chasing his man who becomes the easy option for the opposition with the ball...the amount of times today that he could have laid a tackle if he put in a fair dinkum effort. Also the bloke who was playing on him has the easiest ride, as he doesnt really have to chase stevens much, leaving him with petrol in the tank for offensive efforts. The amount of times stevens was on our left half back flank and the ball was on the right wing, he would just be walking towards the contest, only breaking into a jog if there was a stoppage he could make it to.

That said, i dont think you can drop him after one game, maybe a spray from the coach. Im sure someone will have a word to him. WHo knows what was going on with his body/head today.

Give him the chance to rectify it next week!

See if he comes out with a different attitude.

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Blue is the Colour, Football is the game...

so you are saying that the young players would go 'oh my god if I am not defensive I will get dropped!'

as for 10 years, are you saying he cannot change? Because of course he can. He can change if he wants it bad enough - and I'd like to assume he does.

Talk from the leadership group - surely this has happened already (ie Judd had a go at him, I assume that conversation went on after that game).

To your 'affect on the young group' an absolute crock. If they are that soft we are gone already. Kruise that soft? - na. Murph - na Gibbs - na Grigg - na AB - na Jammo - na Tex - na so who...who will it affect?

Stevo is a leader - and so he sets standards - his standard affects the whole group - particularly the kids. All his standards, not just his strengths. Thats the thing about leaders. If we accept his standards in all aspects of this game and hold them up because he is a leader, then I think we are undermining ourselves.

Worse though, it is forcing the mc to make moves to cover his lack - and I think when the weakness gets that bad its time for action. Not against the Tigers of this world but against those sides we will be competing for for finals next year.

It hasn't mattered so much before because so many other aspects of the side needed to be addressed, but the pieces are falling into place. I think Judd next year will explode, Gibbs will rise higher than even the great standard he is setting himself now. Murph too, Kruise, grigg, all the pieces will improve, and we will add some more.

Now I assume stevo is one of those pieces, so we should ask, how can we help to improve him? We should be doing this with all our players - even the 10 year ones. For stevo I honestly think its about making him face that mirror, asking him the big question -how bad does he want it?

All our decisions, all our plans, all our strategies, must be towards that end. What will make us a better side against the best sides running around? What strategies will they use against us ?

if you're telling me stevo cannot improve, that he has reached his pinnacle, then I am sorry, but he is a stop gap who must be dropped at some point, not now, perhaps in a year, or less, because the strong teams of this comp will exploit him every time.

I think he is not at that peak. I think he can learn other aspects. He is not scared, he is not unable to. Its bad habits, laziness of the will, lack of desire to push beyond perhaps, hell I don't know but I hope the coaching staff do and are pondering how to help him so he does not become a liability in the big games.. Bad habits can be changed...its not easy - hence the extreme measure... to help.

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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!

I'd drop Fisher, Wiggins, Cloke, Bentick and Carrazzo before Stevo.

In fact i wouldn't i cant believe this is even being mentioned. Have we all forgot his ripping game against the tigers

And isn't it somewhat satisfying that we almost got over the line without any input from Juddy and Stevo.

Maybe it's a sign we not relying on those two as much as we need to and others around them are stepping up to the mark.

if the Internet posters had their way, we would play 3 guys a week

B:
HB:
C:
HF:
F:
R: Kreuzer, Gibbs, Murphy
Int:

I think you're onto something, doing words.

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Congratulations CK95

We know, you have said it 25 thousand times.

I cannot understand how a Carlton fan can get so much enjoyment out of losing.

have you read my posts on todays game??

... nice.

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

See, I still only see 3 footballers

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Congratulations CK95

except for you verbs, you'd play all oif them and just keep adding a new one each week

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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!

Cuddles, in Melvin's defence he has been extremely positive this week compared to any other week of the season.

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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.

I dispute the whole ‘when we got Stevens we already knew what we got’ argument. You get the best out of trades when you identify why they’d developed those habits and set about changing them. Look at Collingwood and Paul Medhurst, ‘getting that purple shit out of him.’ Look at that anecdote about Norm Smith in The Age during the week when he publicly told his two best players, during a finals campaign, that they weren’t contributing enough. Why? Purely to push them to do better. It is important to challenge players to give their best effort, it is what constitutes good coaching and it is probably the one factor that determines premiership teams from those that fall away from them.

So if Ratten was to take the decision to drop Stevens then what would this show the team? If he were to rebuke him in front of the squad and provide specific examples of his lazy, slothful, ‘I threw some tackles two weeks ago so I’m safe attitude’ then perhaps the young side who sits around him would learn that while you don’t always have control over how well you play, you always have control over your effort. To have eleven possessions and one tackle, one tackle, is not good enough. When you look at Sydney you see a team whose best players work both ways, you see someone like Brett Kirk who has NEVER had the abilities of a Nick Stevens but whose endeavour led him to a premiership.

Exactly what the Carlton Football Club needs to teach this team moving forward.

Now, while I could understand the decision to drop him I think it is too radical. Not withstanding his attitude, he is too good as a player to leave out of the team. He needs to be taught that such efforts aren’t good enough.

I've seem who Stevens hangs out with





I wouldn't drop him

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

I shit you not i was thinking the same thing yesterday.

The continue use of Carrazzo and Waite down back just has me dumbfounded. There poor foot skills are hurting us

One would think that when Browne and Armfield have filled out in mature men that they will push Carrazzo out of the side.

As for Waite, next year i hope he settles the backline with Austin, Bower, Jammo and Thornton as our ket defenders and plays Waite forward so his kicks don't hurt us as much

Trade him to Collingwood.

So you're saying Melvey is out of form. Should we drop him too?

Nick Stevens played with no intesity yesterday. He did not run hard when we had the ball and he certainly didn't when the Swans had the ball...

His intensity was down at least 50% (especially compared to the Richmond game when he really did lead from the front).

Now either a) he was carrying some sort of injury that prevented him from accelerating OR
b) he was just plain lazy

If the anwer is a) then we cut him some slack

If it were b) then he should be dropped.

Yeah! I agree, let's drop the HACK. He gave us nothing

Did Ablett beat him? I think he might have shaded him, but I thought Stevo continued to push into the contests, created avenues of attack & you don't win if you don't attack. The first 15 mins of the game were a rugby scrum (Sydneys game style) & who was on the bottom of the packs alot of the time & maintaining that pressure - Stevo was. We were beating Sydney at their own game & then when we got it we were allowed to play our game, very well, so much so that if we kicked straight in the first half we would have put the game beyond Sydney's reach.

I thought Stevo worked very hard, along with Judd, defensively in the first half in setting up our lead & doing what most of us including me wanted, which was playing intense football from the start & maintaining an advantage from that.

Stevo was constantly setting up & directing traffic, along with Juddy, as they should be & sometimes when doing so was caught on the hop on the rebound (due to others errors) & in this day & age with the pace of the game players are going to get caught out. Even the good ones.

Sometime's Stevo did not work back hard enuf for mine (prob spent) but his good for the team far out did any errors/lack of intensity (etc) he had in patches & IMO he showed excellent leadership, against a very, very good & experienced football side.

Was Stevo the worst yesterday - I don't think so, in fact I thought everyone played well in patches, & also bad in patches - Gibbs, Murph, Judd, Simmo, Scotto, some experienced, some not, ALL showed patches of brilliance & ALL stuffed up at some time which led to Sydney goals, so if you want to dop Stevo, have a look at the others as well. Could Stevo have gotten us across the line if he tried harder - Maybe, but has he gotten us over the line previously & will he do it again (possibly in a GF) -

Yes - He will.

We were beaten by a side with premiership players/winners, premiership coach, experience - We were beaten by a better side than we currently are (by 2 points only).

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"You will always miss 100% of the shots you don't take"- Michael Jordan