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Having plumbed the black depths of despair following last night’s humiliation, I have managed to sufficiently curtail my inevitable descent into total madness to the point where I can now once again regard a computer as a welcome creative outlet, rather than a symbol of mockery that must be punched and kicked relentlessly. Before my sanity deserts me entirely, I have decided to impart my darkest thoughts and desires upon my Carlton brethren in the hope that the very exercise may let my tortured mind find rest. I must write that I may live. Time is running out; cruelest despair closes in. How could we lose to Fremantle? In articulating my throbbing pain, in embarking on this harrowing voyage into soul and self, perhaps something can be taken from The Atrocity. As the navy blue demons pick apart my exhausted mind, the only recourse is to put pen to paper, cigarette to lips, needle to Lou Reed vinyl, and strong humourless whiskey to ice. And now, I must vent:
Nick Stevens is currently a disgraceful footballer. Has a nice neat kick on him, but every other element of his game is an exercise in mediocrity. His ‘one-way’ running is pathetic. He time and again pays his man no respect whatsoever, and the team is repeatedly punished for it. He gives away sloppy free kicks. He puts teammates under pressure with lazy handballs. He has not developed as a leader, and is setting a terrible example for younger players. He is so talented, and is capable of such much better. Should be given a month down at Preston to think about how he wants to be remembered at Carlton.
Our forward line has less positives than Lou Reed’s Berlin. It is just so depressing. Unlike Berlin, however, it is utterly bereft of originality and imagination. Plan A is ‘Kick it to Fevola on the lead’. If Fevola fails to mark it, Betts is expected to kick the crumbing goal. Plan B - if such a thing does in fact exist - appears to be ‘Kick it to Fevola regardless of positioning and the number of players around him, and regardless of whether Fevola is actually on the field’. Fevola is a magnificent footballer, and I will be forever indebted to him for all those games he won for us off his own boot in the dark times: can somebody please help the man?! Wiggins is tough but dour; Cloke has a big heart, but is essentially a plodder in the wash-up. It’s time to tinker with the structure. We lack flair. We lack creativity. We lack invention. Dear Chris Yarran: please rescue our forwardline from this suffocating malaise.
Kade Simpson’s kicking is freaking me out. He appears to have completely lost the ability to kick a drop punt. His left foot is currently on a par with Simon Beaumont’s right boot and Chris Johnson’s left (circa first quarter v Western Bulldogs). As for his right leg, they may as well just amputate it now, because it is going the way of the appendix. It is ****ing useless.
How can Judd, Murphy and Gibbs all play such quality games, and we still lose? How? HOW?! Can somebody please help them? Can Adrian McAdam please take off his Richard Hadley face-mask and head back to the Alice? Talk about flash in the pan... In rounds one and two, Hadley played some of the most outstanding, hardworking and honest football you would ever see, and then followed it up with a month of anonymous rubbish. His bad games are starting to far outweigh his good.
Brett Ratten is being out-coached on a regular basis. Opposition coaches have worked us out. Flood, and you’ll beat Carlton. I think Ratten would be wise to go and get his hammer from the garage and start fashioning a flood-resistant ark of some description, because the deluge of marauders streaming into our forward 50 is only going to get stronger.
I could go on, and on, and on, but what’s the point?
Instead, I’m going to turn all the lights off, play my guitar, and remember. Remember when I could taste my food, engage in conversation, love and be loved, and enjoy my life. And as we part this night, I leave you with the last words (oh how sweet eternal darkness would be!) of a certain raging colonel as he finally acquiesced to his own merciless demons: “The horror! The horror!”
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