Pros

Put scoreboard pressure on early

First game since 2004 we won without Fev kicking a goal

Very inexperienced side but did the job

Won without Warnock walker johnson carrazzo grigg wiggins bentick so Collingwood beaten by an undermanned side

Austin and Hampson best games for Carlton

If both keep form give us added flexibility


All under 20 games -Austin robinson hampson yarran browne armfield


Waite on the forward line is a luxury

Eddie last quarter goals

The kreuz now taking contested marks and the players looking for him in a marking contest if havent got anyone free

Gibbs Murphy not their best games but closing the gap between worse and best performances

Greg Williams handballed to Chris yarran out of the contested pack with 3 opposition blokes hanging off him - yarran nailed it at the end of the second -Juddys hanball today was similar to the brilliant handball by Greg Williams to Luke OSullivan in a game against Essendon* many years ago

Gee Ablett must be some footballer if he is better than this guy


Cons

It will mean nought today if we dont beat Adelaide next week -when they will absolutely choke the life out of the game

Need work on hitting targest

Need still to get reward for our efforts

yeah thats what stood out for me too. off the ball he looks like a headless chook, no idea what he is 'spose to be doing.

Literally a whole bootful of freebies!

Shame BabyKK isn't due until mid-November...

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Pro
Waite in career best form
Hammer and Austin encouraging signs
Robbo's attack on the ball
Judd Murphy Gibbs and Kruezer (thats our REAL fab four!!)
Fev's most team oriented game

Con
still too tentative to go down the middle
Nick Stevens. he's nearly done i reckon. (or is that a pro?)
kick ins

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i don't wanna spend my life explaining myself. Either you get it, or you don't- Frank Zappa

Pros
JUDD - give the guy the brownlow now. Is there a player that can do what he does?
Murph, Gibbs, Kruez - gave it everything
We won

Cons
Sideways kicking, too many handballs, playing the flanks
Stop/start footy
Our 'carriers' that means YOU Simmo continually trying to slow down the play when we are 50 points in front!
NO game plan

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I stole Sheedy's Gatorade...

Today he spent a lot of time filling the line between the contest on the wing/flank and the direct line to the goal square.

Spent a lot of time on the defensive 50m arc clearly cutting off space.

PROs
- Attack on the footy. Blokes with their heads over it was the order of the day.
- We beat collingwood. I don't care how undermanned they were. How badly they kicked. Anyone who hates this mob less than St Kilda, Richmond or even Essendon* is on drugs. Collingwood are the enemy and we beat them by 9 goals. End of story.
- Crowd. 83,000. Proof again that the AFL cannot 'create' blockbusters any more than Grant Thomas can win a beauty contest. You can't manufacture a rivalry like this, no matter how hard those gimps try. Carlton v Collingwood at the G is what it's all about. There's nothing better.

CONs
- We didn't beat the pies with a full strength side.
- Still too many turnovers
- Russell's miss on 3/4 time. Not singling the guy out for any other reason than with such a good mark, going into the huddle that goal had to be kicked. There will be times when it matters more.

But really, we beat Collingwood by plenty. Thanks Eddie.

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Congratulations CK95

Pros:

Intensity seemed consistently better today.
The fab 4 continue to deliver.
Waite up forward. Fev as a decoy. Robinson back in the team.
Thornton.
Really pleased with Hammer and Austin. Both show heaps of promise. Good to see Browne get another game, and do a reasonable job.
Straight kicking for goal.
Hard to believe that Judd will get penalised by the umps as much as he did today. And we still won comfortably.

Pros
Beating the filth
Fab four - stars
Waite is AA -
Simmo, bower, jamo, JR, hadley in close
Joseph, robbo, austin keep ur places plz
browne good inclusion
Fev not worrying about kicking goals - doesnt look fit, but rather big bone
Hammer - good future

Cons:

mess around with the ball too much. we should have beaten the pies by 100 points....but we are too indirect and fluff around
do we know where the corridor is?
Whenevr we lose the ball the teams counter attack straight thru the middle.....lucky for us collingwood were shite. but the bombers et. al capitalised everytime.

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All at Carlton are Equal, Except some are More Equal than others

Also really pleased to see Simmo back in form. His precision kicking was back as well.
And although Hadley didn't dominate. I think we look a better team when he's contributing, and he did a reasonable job in the clinches today.

Please explain why he was disappointing today? What did you expect.

I loved his goal, nice and smooth take. Also great vision with his goal assist.

Overall I was happy with what I saw, room for improvement? Bloody oath, it was only his 2nd game FFS. Can people have some patience please.

looked like he spent quite a bit of time running with lockyer......which would have been a pretty good learning experience. lockyer runs hard from def to fwrd and always finds space for uncontested marks in the attacking fifty. i think yarran would have taken a lot out of today. much like gibbs would have when he used to run around with akka and crawf when he started.

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All at Carlton are Equal, Except some are More Equal than others

That was on Mad Monday last year and it was NOT real.

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Congratulations CK95

Well we just had to win that one...and did. What can be deduced from the game is relatively minimal given the standard of the Filth. Had to leave the G at halftime for work (so hard to tear myself away) and just got home and watched the 2nd half replay.

PROS

1. Was that Judd's best game for Carlton? (Dogs last year maybe but I think this was better)

2. Waite - I have been critical of J Waite and his football (non?)brain for several years - but I can comfortably conceed now that he is A Grade talent.

3. Kreuzer - could he be the best of the number 1's? The way he moves around the contests is unprecedented.

4. Future quality - Aussie, AJ, Army, Bowser, Hammer, Doggy Browne - even if they don't all make it there are some quality kids out there.

5. One positive for Ratts - At least he tried to revamp the forward line (even though I think we just directly copied Freo's 'over the back' tactic from last week). Fev dragged all defenders out of 50 and we targeted a player running to goal over the back. Worked on several occasions and at least Ratts tried something.

CONS

1. Our kickins are a disgrace to all those who have worn the Navy Blue (and Orange and blue) jumper since 1864. Really, I mean that. Kickout defence ain't that much better.

2. We lairize when we're up - All 4 wins could have been very very heavy - we've taken the foot off and ended the game flat in almost all 4 wins.

3. Jammo looks restricted - don't get me wrong, love him, but he isn;t himself and has a mattress on his shoulder.

4. We just don't use the corridor and I reckon that's unfortunate. The game plan is a bit of a mystery

5. I don't need anything from Yarran, it's his second game, I don;t care if he doesn't get a touch - but off the ball he is not AFL standard - no pressure, avoids body contact, anonymously walks around the F50. Laconic. Can we carry that against a wel drilled Adelaide?

Another Con - I rarely quote sources, but I heard from a definite source today (100% has direct contact with the player), that Fev has just gone troppo off field. Gone mad, personal life is all over the place. Some of the stories are hilarious, but still, not great form.

Must back up against Adelaide. Must get ahead of the ledger. Fight Blues! Fight!

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

Pros youngsters did ok
Judd
Waite
betts
COns

I thought we were crap really. If Medhurst played it could have been only a 5 goal win.Played a seconds team yet at times they beat us in general play. Not a convincing peformance

Pros
Fev was made to play up the ground for the first part of the game. Nice to see him experience life outside the arc.
Kreuzer will make a great CHF.
Waite is now a brilliant footballer.
Judd, Murphy, Waite, Kreuzer, Gibbs are our fab 5.

cons
Opposition was crap.
We didn't put them away by 15 goals.
Still carrying a few players

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end of message

PRO
* Still kicked 16 goals with Malthouse utilising full flood circa 2005-7 with minimum 15 players back almost at every juncture + no Fev
* Bower's game - this kid has had a cracking month and lets us set up many other forward options (still our main weakness)
* Playing Waite at half forward is where he belongs
* The standard great performance from our standard bearers (Judd, Kreuze, Gibbs, Murphy)
* Austin and Hampson performing adequately

CON
* Is Betts' knee injury getting worse? The poor fella seems to be struggling on the lead at the moment.
* Forward line still doesnt work, regardless of how many opponents they had.
* Run from defence remains very slow.

Pros- Beating collingwood, even one without any decent forwards.
Austin looking comfortable in the big league
Robinson's energy levels are out of this world
We looked dangerous up forward without Fev

Cons- If Kade Simpson held up the ball one more time to slow the game down, I was going to run ont the field myself and take him out. Its how Collingwood got their first goal and led to other scoring opps. Once he takes the game on and runs, he's a good player. Too often he deliberately slows the game down when he should be running.
- Took Judd to break a tackle and run and bounce. No one else was running at Collingwood when we did it against Hawthorn effectively. It was a case of being afraind of getting caught.

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T E A M

PRO's:-

JUDD - I reckon his best game for us. He may have caught up with Dal Santo and Ablett in the Brownlow. Or nor far behind anyway.
Loved how he gave it to Nick Maxwel after the Robbo Hit.

Betts - Has really stepped up this year and should get his highest yearly tally ever in the next couple of weeks.

KREUZER - God this kid is important. Doing well in the taps AND around the ground. In just his second year too. Amazing.

ROBBO - shows more courage and heart in one game of football than some players have done in their entire career.

NO FEV SHOW - Win by more than 50points without a single goal from Fev. When was the last time that happened?

GIBBS / MURPHY / SIMPSON - great efforts.



CONS:-
Hmmm............. i know i'm gonna cop flack for this but i'll explain why i'm being so harsh after a 51 point win at the end of this list.


GAME PLAN - What is it?

NOT USING THE CORRIDOR - What is so bloody unacttractive about it?

STILL WANTING TO HOLD UP PLAY - I saw Simpson give the 'hold up play' signal at th 15min mark of the second quarter. WTF? Move the bloody thing!

RUSSELL - Ok, so to all you Russell lovers, could you tell me who his opponent was yesterday? (i'm still waiting to hear who he 'shut down' last week).
Apart from that awesome mark (and it was a great pack mark, give credit where it's due) he was just 'Blah'. Shocking kick, not much better handball, and 90% of the time his decision making is cringe worthy. He really puts his team mates under presure with alot of his dissposals.

HADLEY - Ditto Above!

FORWARD LINE SETUP - Is there any?

YARREN - Boy, he needs some serious attention. Only young, and has years ahead, but you can't rock up to a football field with that kind of laziness. Maybe he was just taken in by the crowd?

NOT ENOUGH - Seriously, no Didak / Mehurst / Cloke / Thomas and Rocca..........we should have won by 100points minimum.


Ok.......... so i know i'm sounding all negative coming off a 50 point win, but.................. if we play like that against the up-coming teams in Adelaide, Brisbane and StKilda and we will loose all of them. We cannot continue to carry passengers.

-I'd be looking to bring back Houlihan for Yarren (great to see him make his debut, but he hasn't done enough to warrant a selection)/

-I expect more from Russell in terms of Basic disposal (cause lets face it, he wont get dropped).

-We desperatly need to work on our kick-outs (they are not AFL standards. Bloody hell, we'd be in trouble playing that crap in the VFL).

-Play that "Along the wing" crap at AAMI Stadium next week and prepare to loose.


We play Adelaide, then West Coast, then Brisbane, then StKilda to take us up to the halfway mark of the season. Playing the way we did yesterday, you would think we'd win maybe one of those games, Which would put us at just 5 wins and 7 losses. Hardly where we SHOULD be!

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

Second Thoughts.............

Actually, just wanted to add to my post above.
We SHOULD have done better, this i'm still in great belief off.

However............................

We had No Walker, No Carrazzo, No Houlihan and No Grigg................ 4 players that would be in our best 22.
Plus we clearly have an under-done and un-fit Fevola and Jamison.


Just food for thought.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

Con: Drove to the ground with a Colonwood friend and both of our families. Couldn't get a parking spot in any of my usual spots. It was getting desperate. My mate said, park at the hilton, its $25 but we'll split it". Drove to the Hilton and it was $29 but the game was due to start so it seemed our best option. Missed the opening 2 goals.

Pro- The ticket machine wouldnt read the parking ticket after the game. Went to the Lobby of the Hilton t tell them we couldnt pay. The supervisor apologised for the inconvenience and gave us complimentary parking.

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