BV, with all due respect.
All coaches and MC decisions are scrutinised just as they were under Pagan.


Players dont coach themselves and performances are followed back to the coaching box.
Whether its skills or mindset.

Until the club is exactly where it should be.

The game on saturday night was a disgrace on many fronts.

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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.

Synbad that argument is probably solid if we had been smashed from the start and came out like we could care less but that was not the case.

Obviously in the 1st quarter we had 10 scoring shots and were looking good. So that suggests the MC and Ratts had the boys in the right frame of mind.

Perhaps the 1st Q was too easy and that's when the poor decision making, dumb mistakes and cute party tricks started to enter the Blues play.

Ratts can't be held responsible for the dumb mistakes and failed party tricks. Even the with the decision making it is not his fault if the the players won't run and create as instructed.

All the talk about Setanta is wonderful in hindsight but if the Blues had played with the same intensity, application and desire, as they showed in the 1st two games, then we would have won by 5+ goals and no-one would be mentioning Setanta.

If anyone watched the game it was plain to see the players let themselves down. Probably there were a couple of mistakes from within the box but when the majority of players leave it to someone else you are never going to win. Fev has 12 shots on goal. Normally he would kick 7 or 8 goals. He hasn't trained for 3 weeks. The edge goes off his kicking and win turns to loss. Others missed soda goals and they pay the price.

Hadley is a good player and he has a poor game. Gibbs is a gem and he struggled. These things happen. T-Bird shuts down Brown last week and has a poor game this week. How can you blame Ratts for those eventualities.

I understand the angst about losing but the majority of the angst is stemming from the fact is against an old arch rival in the Bombers

Regards Cazzesman

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Ricky Gervais - “Everyone has the right to hold whatever beliefs they want. And everyone else has the right to find those beliefs f***ing ridiculous.”

agree, synbad.

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Dut, de dut, de daaa!

AND........

we're all hurting for the for the first time in 7 years...........!

i mean...............reeeally hurting............!


kindest regards tommi










it's a good feeling actually...................!

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that'siti'mnotchangingthistagain......!

I'm happy for the MC to be scrutinised but lets not lose sight of the bigger picture.

If we make finals and lose to Essendon* twice, who gives a toss?
The MC's role is to develop the players to be their best. As far as I'm concerned, that's happening. We're building a game plan that will enable us to win more games than we lose. Focussing on individual teams comes down the track when our players have more experience and a bulletproof understanding of our basic structures. It cant all happen overnight. We're dealing with a cross section of the community here. For every brain surgeon in the group, there will be someone who takes twice as long to understand it.
The big difference with Pagan was he was coaching them to do what they were told. Ratten and co. are teaching them to understand the game and make good decisions at the appropriate time.

Yes there will be hiccups along he way but we have to live with it. Collingwood lost to us 3? times in the past 2 years. That didn't mean we were the better team over that period.
We're learning and improving at an acceptable rate IMO. The structures and player knowledge seem to be improving after being a long way behind.

It also reinforces the value of Jamison to the side. IMO, his value to our structure makes him one of our top 5 players. Like Fev and Judd, he can't be replaced.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Id rather we won what we win and Essendon* 2 times cos theyre not good.. and we come 5th..... or 4th...

We rely to much on Judd and Fev when were down....there ios something wrong.

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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.

You can't expect the players to be up all the time, though, Cazzesman. And you certainly can't select a side on that assumption. You have to get the basics right so that you can win ugly if needs be. That's why Santy's non-selection was a poor decision, and one that was foreseeable before the ball was bounced.

You're right when you say that no one would have dwelt on it if we'd won. That's because winning papers over quite a few cracks. Howard was able to ride his successes and repel criticism about his decisions. But once he lost the election, that's when the Liberals were forced to confront their mistakes and learn from them (and the electorate tends to keep a party in opposition if it acts like its loss was just an aberration). Losing gives everyone the chance to improve, but that happens only if mistakes are acknowledged.

The success of the 1995 side was built on strong defence. I can't imagine that Parko would have tampered with that structure and put the heat on that brilliant midfield to play to their potential and thereby ensure that the defensive unit didn't come under pressure. Yep - it was really hard to see that Lloyd or Lucas would have a blinder and we'd need a true key defender in the team ...

I beg to differ - despite being a few players being well down (notably gibbs, hadley, simpson, gartlett), had we kicked a bit better in front of goal we would have won by 5+goals. Thats even taking into account a few of the horrible umpiring decisions!

Had we played to the intensity of the first couple of games we would have smashed them by 10+goals.

I was absolutely gutted by the loss to the dons because by rights we should have won it. Despite playing poorly we created more than enough opportunities to win the game. Unfortunately we didnt however I think its a measure of the improvement of the side that despite all of the poor performances and umpiring, the game was decided by less than a kick.

How about moving Gibbs to the centre in the last quarter? He was tagging all night and so we missed his clear decision making all night. Gibbs is our second best playmaker after Judd and when the game was there to be won in the last quarter we did nothing.

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Silvagni

Dirty FILTHY Black and Red %$#@'S..........!

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

Malee I agree the handling of Gibbs was odd, however maybe he wasn't 100% (some mention of the flu mid-week?)

I think our luck was out for most of the game, and we didn't work hard enough to get back into it.
Some days it just doesn't happen, the lesson is probably the steady decline in effort since round one.

FWIW I had a chat to a player after the game and he commented interestingly that often it's the third game into a season that really hurts, along the lines of first game adrenalin, second game work through it, third game crash. Sure it was Essendon*'s third game too, but I suspect Cordy has set us to peak slightly latter into the season than Essendon*. Some good players had awful nights and as they suspected in the last quarter it didn't just happen for us :because we didn't make it happen.

I still feel we are carrying some ballast in good honest triers who when replaced by others in better form or return from injury will be the mark of our improvement, especially if we want to go to the big dance.

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Green Shooter

Why?
We flogged them at first possessions and clearances. The centre set up wasn't the problem.
The lack of forward defensive pressure created far more issues than the midfield set up.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Maybe its not such a bad thing to be 2-1 and not 3-0 as we may not be so much in the 'hunted' list and we can be the 'hunter' like we were against Richmond.

Seriously it is unbelievable how much we have been talked up so far this year. People in the media such as James Hird calling our midfield the new 'fab four'...opposition players coming out and saying how they will need to match us as if we were Geelong (eg Winderlich tag-fest article)...Betting had us as 3rd in the premiership race behind Geelong and Hawthorn and ahead of the Bulldogs and Saints who have been good for a while now...

I think some people forget that we finished last in 2006, 15th in 2007 and 11th last year with only 10 wins...
I expect us to make the finals this year but i also expect us to lose some very winnable games.

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Carlton Premiers '10

The question is, will the senior players responsible for the lack of defensive pressure and the breakdown of our structures be held accountable or will just a few of the newbies cop it in the neck?

Surely if we're ever going to be 'up' for a game it's got to be games like this against what most of us consider to be a weaker outfit.

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There's so much I could say...

Like it or not, we have adopted a zone defence strategy (with a rattens twist) which requires all players to maintain their zoned area, as the ball is passing through by the opposition player, the players within that zone place immense pressure on the ball carrier simultaneously other parts of the ground are protected by the zone magnifing the pressure on the ball carrier.

If the pressure is not applied, the ball will be allowed to be carried through the midfield, and if quick enough will beat the zone with a long kick forward, isolating lloyd or lucas or even dempsey.

The zone when applied correctly is a great tool employed in our modern game, but it has its pitfalls. If not implemented with the pressure and backed up with hard running, it will also expose areas of the ground not covered. You simple cannot cover the whole ground, with 18 players!

Now the history lesson, Hawthorn took over a season and half to correct their zone strategy. Players roles were changed to twik this plan. If you recall they too lost games, during this phase, that they had penciled in as win.

Players such as johnstone, simpson, stevens will come into greater effect (stweart dew, ozborne, hodge kicking strength) when they are playing further up the ground anticipating a turnover created by the zone. If the turnover doesn't occur other players push hard to cover them. It means hard work, and if your not ready for it , it will bite you.

Lets hope they reinforce the need for the high work rate, and use this game in particular, to illustrate how the importance of working hard and helping your team mates zone pressure!!

Note: Watch the hawthorn and north game!! Take note of the pressure applied!!

We don't wont to be a second hawthorn, but if we are to employ this strategy, you must do it right.

Go Blues.

I agree with lacked forward defensive pressure. However, you look at the last quarter again. We hardly won a clearance out of the middle when the game was there to be won.

I can't be bothered arguing any further. I've made my point. We will learn things from this loss that is for sure.

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Silvagni

I thought Gibbs started the game in the guts and simply couldn't get involved. The move to half back at half time was an attempt to get him into the game through other means.

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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!

alot of babies being thrown out with the bathwater on this site

yeh, a few blokes were down and yeh we should have won. No pressure on the dons when they ran out of defence following a turnover.

but we are improving and it was a cracking game. We will beat the swans.

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Go Blues

Always the same old when we have a loss... hysterics takes over reality.

With a few lucky breaks and straight kicking we would (should) have won, and the free kick against Thornton (which was crap) shifted the momentum significantly in the Q3 when we got a couple of goals up. Let's see how our next 3 or 4 weeks go before we can make informed judgements... I agreed with the MC to drop Scotland and think he is on borrowed time... and I can't believe the bagging Stevens and Johnson get (well actually I can but won't go into it here), these guys I believe are critical to our side cause they can kick. Do you think Dal Santo and Gram are critical to St. Kilda? Unlike Carazzo, Scotland (serial spooner of the ball), Fisher.

And of course now Setanta is our saviour, when he was getting mercilessly bagged last year never to play down back again. Looked to me Lloyd would have beaten most backman on Sat night... he's not a bad player you know.

What I'm interested in is how this playing group responds to this loss, this will tell us more than dropping/promoting players or arguing we were outcoached (which is an easy throw away excuse when we lose).

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17 4 10

I hope many of our forum membes read your post. Especially your last sentence.

POW!

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"our electorate seeks less to be informed and more to be validated." Sad times.