What were your expectations for us before the season?

Did they change after we won a few at the start of the season?

Have they changed now that we've lost a few, and come back to earth?


My expectations before the season were that we'd finish 7th or 8th, and play finals.

After we got off to a good start, and the football world was gushing over us as top 4 material; my expectations were the same, 7th or 8th.

Now that we haven't played well for the last couple of weeks, and everyone is slitting their wrists, and writing off our entire season (playing list, coach, etc); my expectations still haven't changed, 7th or 8th.


If we don't make the finals, I will be very disappointed, and a little upset and angry.

If we make the finals, and get knocked out in the first match; after the initial disappointment I'll be pleased.

If we actually win a final, I'll be very happy as I think that would indicate that we're ahead of schedule.

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I AM DISENFRANCHISED

Finals are our expectation this year.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Pretty similar to yours LB, but I have to admit that I did get a little caught up in the media circus. I think 7-8 is about right with a push for top 4 next season. If I remind myself of that it makes the disappointing losses a little easier to accept.

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

We are sitting right where I tipped us to be.

I was expecting us to go through the season undefeated...

Yep, 25-0.

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"I will rejoice in their anguish, delight in their failure and revel in our success"

We are Carlton, @#$%&! the rest !!!!!!

I think everyone is forgetting where we are coming from... A long way down.

Remember the slogan is "they know we're coming" not "they know we're there already"

Give it time, this year should only be preparation and development for next year. But anything less than finals will be a major failure.

Having said that Collingwood is the perfect game to get our season back on track

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Good post Lurker, but l think whilst we all look at our own expectations, it would be interesting to see what the players are thinking in regards to expectations and whether the burden of actually being touted top 8 or top 4 has perhaps burdened them with a level of expectation that they haven't needed to live up to for the better part of 5-7 years.

My expectation is that we play finals this year. Whether we win the final or not is irrelevant as I know where we have come from.

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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.

before it began I said to my son this year we might just play finals - might. I still think we might

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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 thought we'd start off quite well, lose a few, some supporters would lose the plot, we'd make the finals and all the ferals would be back on board.

Tracking as expected.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I thought we would lose to Freo Essendon* and Swans for sure...

I thought we would be a third of the way into the new season and we still have the same problems as last year... for sure...

I thought this season was going to be a tough season for sure.. cos alot of great clubs would be putting their hand up ... for sure....

Were seriously underperforming.... no matter how you wanna look at things...

Its not just about the points.. but its about how the team is gelling...

We have probems creating space... we have problems moving the ball fluid.. and we dont have a structure into our forward line...

Defensively we have blokes who dont have a clue how to defend over their heads...blokes that touch peoples backs when they shouldnt... blokes that are unaccountable... blokes that dont run into the right positions... blokes that are still not passing off to others in the right positions cos others arent in the right positions... blokes that wont be organised to be on the goal side of a ball up or kick into our fifty... blokes that just fall into someones back when tackling...etc etc etc
Sure we might make the eight.. but we wont make the eight cos we know what were doing.. its cos its a weak comp....

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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.

..hmm, not sure.. ..before the season started i expected to play finals, but more around say 6,7,8th position.. ..after the first couple of rounds you could already tell it was gonna be a very, very even year.. ..but the way we've played vs the bumbers, swines and freo shows that even if we make the finals, we're not a finals team..

..looking at some thoughts from the players thread, i've gotta ask.. ..do we revise our expectations.. ..do we reach for the finals, or do we bite the bullet and get some serious game time into a half dozen kids..?.. ..(am not in any way advocating tanking, cos even playing kids to get gametime in i reckon we'll finish no lower than 10/11th).. ..am asking the question cos alot of ppl wanna get a bunch of games into players such as Hammer, Austin, Yazz, Robbo to name a few.. ..and we're not good enough to carry kids and fast track their development whilst winning games.. ..i reckon we'll win some, but do we make a serious run for development or finals..?.. ..don't think we're at the time and place where we can do both..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

Well, I expected the MC to finally act on the serial inconsistant senior players on our list who have gotten easy games over the years because our list was clogged with either duds or underdeveloped kids.

The MC have started acting which is good to see. Hope it continues.

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There's so much I could say...

..only senior player dropped so far is Hoops though right..?.. ..and he was more good than poor over his 6 games i woulda thought, and if he was dropped as a result of some acts during the dawks game, well.. ..he wasn't the only player that didnt play their best vs dawks, and he was still better than some other seniors..

..of course, i'm hoping to agree with you hombre', i think this weeks team selection will especially tell us some more..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

Yep. Might...

I expect there to be a log jam of clubs from 4th to 11th with maybe 4-6 points between either end. We might be at the top end of that scale. We should be somewhere in the middle.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Any team that has had as many priority picks and top 10 picks as Carlton have had (as well as having Judd) should be performing better than what we are.


St Kilda are putting us to shame as they only got two? players from number 1 picks. How many have we had? 4? 5?

Essendon* are above Carlton on the ladder without any priority picks and they have numerous injuries.


I think it is largely to do with the selection policy.
Re: forward line. Get rid of anyone who is slow and one-dimensional. replacement - garlett, robinson, yarran etc.

Robinson will run all day, he can apply defensive pressure in the forward line and create goal scoring opportunities.
Our forward line is still predictable due to relying on the old faces from years past.

My expectations have fluctuated a bit I suppose, in accordance with our form line, however, I think it is fair to say I am disappointed right now because at R7 last year we had 3 wins, and so nothing has changed.

Our points conceded and points scored are both better than this time last year, and yet we are still only 3-4 as we were this time last year viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24758

I think the heat needs to start to come onto the coach. The players' figures are up on this time last year, so is it possible there is a flaw in the game plan or structure?

Most probably Ratten is right in saying we haven't matured yet. As good as Murphy has been this year, his kick late in the Freo game when he was steaming forward of center and we had the momentum was very poor for an A Grader, irrespective of his age (he just should not have wasted it the way he did).

But with the same token, I would argue that structurally we have not got the right forward set up, and the coach/MC need to take some heat for this. Why move Waite after he has done so well up forward? Why do we load our forwardline with our least skillful players (Wiggins, Cloke, Carrazzo, Russell)?

Everyone is to blame, and they had better rectify things or else 2009 will start to slip away. We are already down a peg from where we currently were. We were in the 2nd group, but now we are in the 3rd group behind the teams who have 4 wins.

Put it this way - we lose this weekend and I will declare the season a failure thus far.

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It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it

Don't know what you're on mate.

Firstly, St.Kilda are at a totally different stage in their development to us.

Secondly, they have just as many good top picks.

Riewoldt (1), Goddard (1)
Ball (2), Kozi (2)

vs.

Kruezer (1), Gibbs (1), Murphy (1)
Judd (3)

(I didn't inc players who are injured, like X.Clarke (5) and Walker (2)).

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It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it

Don't care where we finish, as long as it is inside the top 8.

Anything below the eight and the season has been an absolute failure.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

Sometimes you have got to cop those 'absolute failures' on the chin.

Perhaps if we didn't just expect the stars of the side to carry us through we could do something about actually performing.

An 'absolute failure' it may be but you still have to look at the reasons why. To perhaps suggest that all the players(etc) need to do is pull their finger out is simplistic in the extreme.

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