Because he can hide and we can shield him in ruck contests

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

PRO It looks like we'll be 4th at the end of the round (assuming the Saints win). Quite amazing to be 3-3 and still in the top 4

its gonna be a tight year, but for the first time in a long time, we are well in the mix with leigitmate claims to playing finals at years end.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Pros : Strangely I don't feel that disappointed. I think it is the first genuine test the Blues have had in 7 years and instead of getting blown away, as we have in the last 7 years by the real elite when they bring their A game, we matched them
Bower - I know the hype is all about Jamo, but I think Bower is our best defender and right back into form
Murph Gibbs and Big K = quality
Dennis Armfield - really looking good - dash, solid overhead, tough
Stevo - good game
Fev - Should have had ten but back near his best
Hardly any of our guys would have played in a game that hot and will be better for it.

Cons : Clokey is a trier but he is far too slow for a key forward
2nd ruck. Setanta is not a ruckman and Clokey is a battler, Bring in Hampson.
MC - Can't understand the logic with Bentley. Hard for him to step in to a game played at that pace. And Sewell is a gun and Hadley would gave seemed the ideal matchup for him
Wiggo had an ordinary day and his opponent Dowler got heaps of the ball
TBird wasn't big enough for Roughie. Play Setanta on him, may have still got 8 but could have freed Waite for foray forward.
Too often Hawks clogged our forward line and then killed us on the fast break
No-one goalside of Dew when he roved marking contest for easy goal in last qtr (I think Simmo was his opponent).
Wish we'd rookied Sewell - how lucky are the Hawks to get him as a rookie.

Pros:
Played catch up and roll of the dice footy and nearly won.
Fev again kicking a bag at the 'G' in a big game.
Our A grade mids.
Kruezer will be the pick of the #1's.
Defence with the exception of Thornton (as usual).

Cons:
Did not lift when we needed (i.e. at the start of the last qtr) when the hawks look knackered.
Thornton.
Cloke.
Wiggins.
Bentley.
Fevs miss... but more the fact that he misses quite frequently from close range. I was rapt when he marked it but then was nervous b4 he kicked as he changes his kicking routine when shooting from close in. Needs to work on this. Must kick right through the ball like he does when 50 out.

Have blown our our chances to cement 3rd position early on in the season.

I really think our guys are still lacking in the self belief department.

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Pros:

Bower
Didn't get killed
Murphy
Kreuz
Now we knowfor sure that Cloke won't make it.............come on down Hammer.
Looking a lot like the Dawks of 07.......


Cons:

We flowering lost
Bentley.........what WERE they thinking ??? Hopeless.
Wiggo, a return to the bad old days.
Russell (see Wiggo).
Should be 5-1 and a top 4 spot very much for the taking

Pros

- Krooooooz, his first, second, third, fouth efforts are fantastic.
- Fev great effort, hopefully he can continue with the bag of goals
- Murph and Judd
- Stevo, PLEASE play him forward of the centre, good crunch in the 4th by the way
- Bower great game
- Armfields attack on the ball and the player
- Joseph

Cons

- Waite should NEVER kick out from fullback NEVER NEVER
- Simpson not going goal side of DEW several times
- Russell going to ground twice in the first quater
- Cloke, too slow for the modern game, would have been very good in the 80's
- Houlihan got found out against a hard attacking side
- Bentley unfortunately too slow - would have been great to have Anderson, Hadley, Browne or Mitch in today
- Setanta will only make it as a back man, as stated above he could have taken Roughead allowing Thornton to play free (like last week) and have Waite play on the wing/forward


Over all good effort not to be blown away and remember we are coming does not mean we are there just yet - but we are on the way!!!!

Sorry Grro

Is that you, Synbad?

Yep, Cloke was very poor, don't think he is ever going to be anything more than handy - and only every now and then - and that's not good enough anymore

He has a couple of mates

Loved our tenacity but quite a few tackles were broken (nothing like previous years, however)

Blame the HUN for the Chief's demise He'll be back

Felt a bit sorry for Santy, the way he is being thrown around - but I guess he gives us big man versatility

I too was a bit miffed at the Bentley selection and, while it's too harsh to judge a player on one game, it was a match where every mistake was amplified

Hope the kids busting their guts with the Ants get rewarded soon

Kick-ins

Bower's a gem, love Armfield's G&D, Kruez just never gives up

We are starting to win some respect back and justify the media's obsession with us - but we still lost

Have to pump the Dockers next week to go into the break in the black

The full stop key is not working ,,,,,,

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I just want my old club back ... (edit) maybe I have!

Pros

This could well be our coming of age game - we lost but now we know we can beat top opposition.
Tackling count above 60.
Our A-Team brought their A-Games (J, M, K, F)
1 percenters (Kruezer's smother, Armfield's smother, stevos deft paddling to advantage)
Coming back several times (reminded me a bit of the 99 Prelim)
The talk from the game will be about our imminent arrival
Carrazzo on Hodge; Bower on Buddy


Cons
Bentley's selection (& I'm afraid Ratten will keep him in - I think he likes to offer new players 2-3 games)
Playing wide
Leaving Roughead on his own in the final quarter!!!!
Kick outs
99% delivery - just missing, just half volleys, handballs just catching Hawk fingertips etc... gotta get better
Cloke

Important Note: My wife, whilst yelling her lungs out at Fev insists that I tell you all that she thinks he should not be blamed because he kicked 8 and was brilliant. (She & I will continue this debate off line!)

BTW, Wiggins - I think this was the first time Wiggins has been targetted for attention. That's a win for us, I reckon. He'll learn.

We should have won in the end. But it was an awesome game. WE are playing in more and more of the awesome games.
WE ARE COMING!!!

Fair point, but it's because we don't have a quality CHF! We also have 3 genuine ruckman on our list (Hammer, Jacobs, Warnock) and two useful "pinch hitters" in Cloke and Carlos.

Given the silk we have in the middle and our greater number of inside 50's, we need silk like Krooze at CHF to finish off the good work and, significantly, free up our superstar FF from his regular "3 on 1" jousts.

Proper allocation of resources, NBH, simple as that.

If you listen to Rattens post-match interview, he mentions they were considering to move Thornton off Roughead but then realised most of the 6 goals he had kicked before half-time werent really Thorntons fault.

Watch the match again, you'll realise most of the time it was Thornton-Roughead one-on-one with the Hawks player streaming through the middle with no pressure delivering lace out...NO defender could stop that...cant blame thornton...more the midfield turnovers fault.


To people bemoaning our use of the wings...i dont actually think we used them that much actually except from kickouts which were SHOCKING i must admit. Hopeless.
But St Kilda use the wings second only to Collingwood and they are flying, which proves there is no wrong or right. Not to mention that like us, Collingwood have also lost 2 games by under a goal, totalling 9 points...so they could easily be 5-1 as well using the 'down the wings' tactic.

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Carlton Premiers '10

Probably because we want someone good there and Cloke's not good enough. Positional concerns are not needs to be filled they are opportunities. The sooner we learn this the better we'll be.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Reasonable point however our fwd setup is such that we need to use the corridor to get the most out of Fev and our leg speed if utilised thru the middle will cut teams up. Collingwood use the wings cuz they are slow and other than the new boy Anthony dont have much up forward to kick quickly too.

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

cons - some of the posts in this thread

So much criticism of ratten's performance that overlook the fact that despite his 'poor' coaching, we could and should have won. A set shot 15metres out by fev will be a goal 99.5% of the time. Had he kicked it as he normally would, we would have won the game. That is a fact. However, Fev should not be blamed for the loss due to that kick (or a couple of other shots that he missed).

Also on criticism of ratts coaching/matchups - carazzo on hodge, and bower on franklin were big wins for us. Roughhead match up didnt work however most of the damage was done in the 1st quarter. The defence did a reasonable job of holding the hawks twin towers for the rest of the match. In terms of that 1st quarter, 2 goals were kicked on thornton, one on setanta, and one on waite (from a dodgy umpire decision of a dropped mark). 4 goals on 3 opponents would hardly suggest that ratten didnt move match ups around.

It just wasnt our day in the end. In the first half of the match, we dominated virtually every stat except where it counts on the scoreboard - particularly in the clearances and inside 50 entries. Had we been just a bit more efficient, it would have been the hawks chasing us in the second half rather than us trying to catch up on the scoreboard.

Pros
Kreuzer - given how long most talls take to mature and their short peaks, I had my doubts on picking a ruckman with pick 1. But this kid is going to be special. Fantastic performance and is already more than holding his own against most ruckmen in the comp. Highlight for me was his low down one handed scoop/pickup of the ball whilst running forward at pace - even many smaller players struggle to pick up the ball so cleanly
Judd - fantastic effort for the game - bit quiet in the 4th but great game overall
Murphy - continues to improve. Extremely strong in close and seems able to slip tackles fairly readily.
Bower - killed franklin. Nuff said.
Waite - one poor kickout, but overall another solid game from him
Simpson - not a fantastic game but fought out the game well given that he was corked heavily early on and was struggling to run with it. His efforts whilst limited, did help us to maintain our rotations somewhat
Fev - missed some gimmes, but 8 goals was a good return

oooo i like that sentence

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The problem will be made. for the solution to be sold, to your face before your eyes, tolerance is now the new danger

TBH our leg speed is overrated. Army took 'em on to effect a couple of times and Judd got clear at times but any team looks quick when they can get clean ball use through the middle.

Pros:

I thought our defensive pressure was very good today.
I liked what they tried to do today in a game-style sense. I don't think I've see Carlton play a run and handball style for 5 or 6 years. Not surprisingly the handball and linking up skills were a little rusty. But credit for adopting an offensive strategy.
Kreuzer is not only going to be our best number 1. He looks like he's not far away from being our best player altogether. Incredible game today.
Our class midfield runners in Judd, Murphy and Stevens. Real credit to Stevens for getting one back on Bateman after being beaten in recent head-to-heads.
Bower and Fev, for obvious reasons.

Cons:

Some of our forward entries today were very, very poor. Especially when compared with the efficiency of the other team.
Cloke and Bentley. I hope Bentley gets another go though. It's hard to believe he could be as ineffective again.
Gibbs continues to show oustanding class. He's been brilliant in the games at the Dome, but has struggled to be anywhere near as effective elsewhere. Not sure if that's where he's been positioned or form, or a combination of both. Would like to see him playing in the centre square more often. Or tagging an elite opposition player. Or playing forward. Just seems to have been taken out of the game a little too easily, a little too often this year.
We're improving no doubt. Could still do with a little more skill, a little more pace. And I wish we had some players who enjoyed hurting opposition players. Hawthorn is full of them. We don't seem to have any. Well done to Stevens for his heavy bump on Whitecross.

PRO - The bump Stevens made on some Hawthorn player near the interchange (who was it?)

CON - Cloke & Bentley and of course losing.

Pro: Being the game was like a final was a great experience for our club and especially the young guys. It was intense, tough, tight, hard and quality.

Con: Still need to work on our defensive pressure. I know your back line is only as god as your midfield but far to many holes down back.

Con 2: Our stationary players when receiving the handball out then handball to another stationary player. Drives me insane!!!!! RUN CARLTON RUN