PROS:
- JUDD
- Jacobs
- Robbo
- Waite
- Another game in front of 70,000+ at the 'G for our young players. You can't buy that type of exposure to finals-like atmosphere.
- An early season wake-up call to all those Carlton people (players, coaches, committee, supporters alike) who forgot we are still developing our team. WE HAVEN'T PROVED ANYTHING YET!! I was one who was worried during the week by the "They aren't coming, they're already here!" & "Fab Four!"-type bullshit media articles. Actually, it wasn't the articles themselves that bothered me - it was that I knew some Carlton people (and, again, I'm not necessarily just talking about supporters) would be sucked into believing them to be true...
- We are all HURT by the loss. A good sign we are heading back towards a 'winning' mentality (let's hope the players are hurting as much as us....they certainly looked like they were after the game).
CONS :
- We lost a winnable game. It may come back to haunt us later in the year.
- T-Bird getting sucked in.
- Disappointing games from players who had been good in the first two games (Hadley, Gibbs, Houlihan, JR, Garlett, Cloke and, to a lesser degree, I thought Betts was down on previous weeks).
- Simmo's slow start to the season continues.
- Inaccurate kicking.
- Should we be resting Fev until he's totally over his foot problem?

If it's true he's having injections before games, is that going to cause longer-term damage? (not exactly a CON I know, but just something I wonder about).
- Umpires
- Knowing that Essendon* had more blokes than us who wanted to run hard for their mates and work their backsides off for longer periods of the game.
I'm not sure I agree with the school of thought that the MC got it wrong. Would playing Carlos made a difference? Maybe, but I doubt it. Who knows - without the extra runner, we may have been run off our legs sooner? A somewhat underdone Carlos would have struggled on a fired-up Lloyd, IMO (and it's not a stretch to imagine Carlos getting sucked in the way T-Bird was).
I just think Ratten would have felt let down by his players on the night.