PRO

Best game I have been too for a while
and the happiest I have been after a loss

CONs None

Pros:
-Bower got touched up by Riewoldt in the first half but then lifted his intensity and more often than not got a spoil in - it was brilliant the way he looked like he was out of the contest and Riewoldt would take an easy mark but then he would gain a bit just before the contest and get the spoil in. Besides the defensive efforts he then provides run up the ground and delivers up forward
-Joseph...you don't see many 12 gamers having a major impact in terms of tagging but once again he did the job. The little @#$%&! got extremely frustrated with him (as those in aisle 33-34 level 1 would have seen. Finally the @#$%&! didn't have a picnic against us
-Grigg adds versatility and hardness. A hard body in the midfield which a lot have wanted.
-Gibbs - the last two weeks he has definitely played a more inside role. He was second for contested possessions and wasn't getting as many of those easy kicks as he did earlier in the year. Gets it in close and then sets up others.
-Kreuzer's follow up efforts after the contest - only concern is his kicking...sometimes just bangs it on the boot but often he's under pressure.
-Setanta leading up the ground and he needs to do it week in week out. He speared the pass to Fev and looked like a brilliant kick but then he coughs the ball up in other passages of play where there isn't a lot of pressure. One time Kreuzer was running forward and he [REDACTED] the kick it...Kreuz would've marked 30m out.
-Jamison did a very good job on the big log Kosi...
-...our defence is improving rapidly...players are getting better at leaving their man and being 2nd up in a marking contest.
-Some are bagging Houlihan but his job was to tag Sam Fisher and Fisher had no impact on the game so you'd have to say Houlihan did his job very well tonight.
-Second qtr we won lots of 50/50 contests which showed we have the intensity/attack on the ball to improve even more. We had a dominant period in the midfield.

Cons:
-Still have trouble moving the ball out of defence. Players just stand still and we bomb it up the line.
-Setanta lead up the ground but not often enough and if he won the ball just made the wrong decision on occassions. Love his attack on the contest but he needs to do more.
-Lack of options besides Fev - we took 6 marks inside 50...the Saints always drop numbers back. Gilbert peeled off Garlett and dropped in front, so too did Dawson and Goddard...just seem to have no system when there isn't space for Fev and I'm not sure how it can change without a developing CHF on the list.
-Opposing that, we kicked the highest score of any team against the Saints so far this season...lots of goals from general play/free kicks and winning the 50/50 contests but there needs to be more options so that there are sustainable avenues to goal. We're high up for points for but it would bring even more variety to the team if we had a quality lead up option.
-Downhill skiing on occassions - we'd win the 50/50, then cough it up and they would have it inside their 50 in an instant.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

I hate it that we lost........i hate the saints. but mighty proud of the effort we put in!

Why do teams always kick straight against us??? Riewoldt is suspect at best, yet he was nailing them from everywhere. ridiculous





Juddy, what a champion. an amazing player to lead this group forward. Our younglings are a bunch of ripping talent.

Lets regather and smash the bummers!!! FFS

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

Pros:
We showed heart and intensity
Simpson (I think one of his best games ever)
AJ (perfect balance between doing a job and leaving your man to enable a D50 clearance)
Our own Captain Blood
Bower (could have easily gone into his shell after being beaten in early contests with Riewoldt)
Browne (some ripper tackles)
Bannister was not out of place
The Mighty Irishman (though letting Murphy's kick run over the goal line made me leap to my feet and hold my hands to my head - thank god it went through). Though he needs to be told that if there's no handball receive on offer when marking as a CHF to get back off the mark ASAP instead to give himself options.
Fev - best sub-10 possession game he's played (ask yourself whenever he's had such low possessions has he held his head up and kept competing like that). This shouldn't actually be a positive but i've accepted he's an immature manchild and have decided he's not going to change... I either let it bother me or just go along for the ride...
Considering Riewoldt, Kosi and Milne I think our 'unheralded' back 6 held their own.
Seemed to be St Kilda's 'night' ie. if a ball was smothered or bobbled around in a pack invariably a St Kilda player would pop out goalside with the ball... and we still only lost by 9 points

WE ARE COMING...


Cons:
Screw 'we still maintain a good percentage'... maybe in a few days... at the moment I'm occupied being pissed off that we lost
Bruce... I think he let fly with a "special" after a Montagna goal... plasma almost got a glass through it!
Lapses cost us (especially our start)
Milne (even though well held by AJ, still don't want to see his face)
I don't want weak free kicks (either for or against us)... just give us consistency for flowers sake (ie. Bakers holding the ball in the 3rd (?) was bull but so was Fev's in the back and no head high free in the first 5 minutes)

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Newest Baby Blue Member
Tom Cameron - Born 20/03/10

They'll be Jedi's soon enough though

_________________

Yeah, seems to read Kruz particularly well.

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Pros:
Forgot to add Army... might be the bourbon talking but feeling a little bit of man-love,,, stubbed toe kick and everything... will really grow to be important in the next couple of years

Did I mention Judd as well... love the thrill of the CAPTAIN ripping the ball out of a contest and sprinting out into space. Pity Austin did such a good job on his nose.

_________________
Newest Baby Blue Member
Tom Cameron - Born 20/03/10

and cons:

Fevs kicking under pressure is 50/50!! he misses the most simple shots!! FEV U PLAY FOR CARLTON NOT RICHMOND



Kick ins: I dont understand how we can have no plan when taking kick ins? When we're defending kick ins teams can cartwheel out of defence its that easy

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

Our plan is to get it to Bower....he makes it happen.

Loving this group though.......I reckon the Adelaide game was a turning point.

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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

PROS

Simpson - kept us in it when our gun mids were MIA
Betts - exceptional. Stood out like dogs balls when in the middle. Class above
Browne - just gets better and better after a few iffy kicks A. F. L. no flowering doubt. Tough and poised.
Bower - Gave Roo too much latitude early and tightened up but also kept his head and created with run
Setanta - Best forward's game he's played
Banno - Kicked 2 goals - who was his man or his role? Anyone?
Joseph - what is his ceiling? gun player
Austin - just a class footballer - need to get games into him and find him a spot when Bret returns
Jamo - maybe best game since injury.

None of the above are seen as top 6 players. I think our "bottom 6" problem is being fixed

I don't know how we managed to break even by half time- we just scrapped our way into the game

CONS

Kreuz has lost his zip in recent weeks. Send him to Tahiti for a week for some R & R. Maybe the sun will help his complexion
Hammer had a shocker
Grigg was busy which is great, but his disposal under pressure not so much. Maybe harsh, but he and others need to sharpen up
Garlett unsighted 2nd half after some great stuff early
We REALLY struggled when Chris Blood was off

PROS
- Has Kreuzer EVER played a bad game?
- Banno coming in and immediately having an effect
- Bower: yes he got taught a few things by riewoldt in the first half, but improved and showed a LOT of dash in the second
- AJ shows he is only human and can't limit everyone to one touch no goals, but still had a great game on the Flowerwit Milne
- I love Eddie and Garlett running around like piranhas, they are so quick!
- Grigg is still not at his best, but is getting back to it
- Setanta is the same crazy wobbly Irishman, but he is starting to have some PUNCH up forward
- Gibbs is working himself back into form
- we zoned well as a team on their kick ins when it mattered - real pressure!

CONS
- Fev, Fev, Fev, Fev. Just didn't look like he was 'ON' from the start of the game. His inconsistency is so frustrating - really seems to have peaked and it doesn't seem like we are ready for life after him yet. However the style of umpiring really didn't suit him, and he must have been very frustrated. Two of his missed goals REALLY REALLY hurt. Should have kicked them, and we win by 3
- Stevo: Had a bad game, not the end of the world, but he looked slow and fumbly and not ideal form for a quick team like Essendon*. Might possibly be in danger in 2 weeks. His missed goal really cost us.
- Houla didn't have a great night. too fumbly, not slick, seemed lost (swine flu?), and although you can't blame him, that miss was a real let down.
- Kick ins: absolutely flowering embarassingly awful for a team that is supposed to be 4th. Surely there is some money Richard Pratt left that we can use for a kick-in coach? I would gladly pay him $3 million a season. Ratten has absolutely NOT THE SLIGHTEST IDEA how to organize kick-ins it seems, and perhaps he never will. It's starting to become a real worry. Is Chris Johnson really the answer for all this?
- Armfield: loved his dash in the first half, BUT when he hangs off the man with the ball and runs backwards I honestly want to throw my beer cup at him. Running backwards into Zacky Dawson and getting knocked over is incredibly embarrassing. He is developing some JR bad habits which are a real worry. Hope someone straightens him out asap
- The umpiring (although not consistent or logical) didn't seem to disadvantage us particularly, however it encouraged very rough play and overall I think it was negative. I know we knocked their boys around a fair bit, but I really would prefer to protect the players so Judd is not off the ground bleeding all the time. Felt it was farcical at times


Great game in general. Was SO PLEASED that we were able to pull back the deficits.
Just have to re-focus and smash the cheating monga diving Essenscum

oops how could I forget Simmo
Should have been man of the match on a winning team

he more than anyone will be gutted with the loss, he should get an army award nomination


BRAVO KADE

Heard Betts had 17 posessions 15 contested if thats true what a gun! Give him more time in the middle me thinks.

Pros
- Great all round effort with no passengers. Loved how the kids stood up in the heat of battle. We will only get better whilst the Saints don't have many quality kids.
- It wasn't a final
- Hopefully a loss will ensure we are 100% committed to beating Essendon*. If we won I could imagine the media pumping us up and maybe we would get ahead of ourselves.

Cons
- 9 pts

_________________
There is no footy god

Pros
They've all been pretty much covered, great contribution across the team. You'd have to be proud of the boys for their effort.
Also its good to see our inclusions starting to contribute when they come in. Bannister this week, Fish a few weeks ago. Not sure if it's simply more depth or more pressure, but I like it.


Cons
If Vozzo didn't have his life savings on the Saints in that game I'll go hee. A bloody disgrace with his biased crap umpiring. I can handle crap umpiring if its even but every time Reiwoldt got touched he got a free, even my St Kilda mate was laughing at some of the crap he got after Fev got mauled at the other end just moment earlier. Utter rubbish. Not to mention that in the back against Fev in the first few moments, fer crying out loud. Muppet.

Pros:

- We matched it for the most part with a brilliant team at almost full strength which played really well. Don't under-estimate that...they were almost full strength, and played well. Imagine if we had Waite, Walker, Thornton and Warnock (unproven, I know)...

- Our backline. Without Waite, it stood up reasonably well (after the first 10 minutes) against a class forward line. In fact, we will have a dilemma as to what to do with too many talls when Thornton returns. Nice.

- AJ. Has midfielder written all over him

- Austin. Has CHB written all over him.

- Grigg, Bower, Jamison, Browne

Cons:

- CHF. As gallant as Setanta is, we need someone to take 8-10 marks a game across half forward

- Players still try and take on tackles. Geelong (and St Kilda often last night) under pressure handball it off immediately rather than try and break tackles. Scotland is number 1 culprit

- Scotland (and Thornton when playing) and kicking out from behinds, too often kick to 50:50 when there is an open option

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

More Pros
Ratten and Co didn't panic after the shoddy start. If the truth be known the Saints were simply too good in the 1st 20 minutes. They used it better and had better system running the ball out of defence. Stevo was the biggest disappointment in the 1st and his inability to stop Gram was a major reason the Saints got off to a flier.

At 1/4 time Ratts showed some intent when he benched Stevo and Murph. Both were poor and everyone knew it. He put Scotto on Gram and as soon as Gram ran forward and kicked the goal early in the 2nd Scotto was dragged. He put Banno on Gram and Gram was rarely sighted thereafter.

He stuck phat with Bower on Roo and Jamo on Kos. Good use of Austin as a spare to help out. Houls on Fisher was a big win. In the end we couldn't put a fire blanket over a very talented and experienced group in Montagne, Goddard, DelSanto and Hayes. With Juddy breathing blood for half the game a major breakaway player was lost to the blues.

The use of Eddie and Grigg in the middle provided a real spark. He persevered with Setanta across HFF and it almost paid off.

With Austin gaining in confidence I agree with several here that T-Bird would be worth a shot across HF. Once Walker gets back he might just be the spark we need up forward to take the pressure off Fev. I would love to see him standing side by side with Fev whereby both bolt out on the lead in different directions, thereby spreading the defence.

Melvey is angry about not accepting mediocrity but I think he has missed the 'Trees in the Forest'. We are not accepting it but we are showing appreciation for the efforts of the so called 'Bottom 6' players and the way they refused to succumbed.

How can you be angry about the efforts of 20 out our 22 players. They had a crack for 85% of the game and a talented team beat us in the end because their talent enabled them to score easily in the other 15%. That's just sport when the good play the not so good. The Saints are 2 or 3 years in advance of us. These sorts of efforts will hold us in good stead for the future. All these close games we lose hurt now but IMHO they will turn into wins in the coming seasons.

As for the Umpires. I will take an under umpired game over an over umpired game any day of the week regardless of the result.

Regards Cazzesman

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Ricky Gervais - “Everyone has the right to hold whatever beliefs they want. And everyone else has the right to find those beliefs f***ing ridiculous.”

PROs:

* the obvious
* AJ;s an obvious but ahve to mention him ... he's a professional hitman ... cool, concentrated killer. Milney ... you've just been AJayed!
* Grigg is just coming back to the pace of the game, was very good and there's better to come
* Banno should be played. Got a bit of mongrel in him and he's a big body. Liked to see him getting stuck into the opposition. The team needs that and it's missing. Like Grigg, off the pace early but big change in pace from VFL to Seniors ... he'll get better the more he's played. Need him firing if we're going to play Finals.
* Browne's best game for mine. Confidence, maturity, tough tough TONKA TOUGH ... if he was any tougher he'd rust
* Inspirational Simmo ... a leader, not leaving it all to Judd
* Betts - 15 of his 17 possessions were contested

CONs:
* Houla ... not up to his standards. Can't play an outside game style up forward and not be clean and hurt the opposition on the scoreboard either directly or by assists. Doesn't need to deliver quantity but must deliver quality.
* Stevo ... ditto. Though showed some physicality late in the game
* IMO we missed the likes of Robbo up forward. If we're playing Betts and Garlett ... need the tough, in and under forward to get the ball out to them and create opportunities. Against the Saints would have been good to see Robbo in for Houla.

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"It was like calling your ex girlfriend after a night on the booze, just a really bad decision".

Pros
You know who you are.
Me high fiving Vince Colosimo during the second qtr - grrrrrrrrrrrr

Con
Walking down to the car-park and seeing Tex in his suit, also walking to the car-park but looking sad. What might have been.

It was a great game and and very pleased with the effort of the players. They played with heart and endeavour and some of the lesser lights stood up exceptionally well.

Really pleased for Banno with his two goals.

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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.

Pro's:

Judd - courage (playing with broken nose)
Simpson - hardness at contests and breakaway run's
Browne
Grigg
Setanta - kept on providing a contest in a marking situation.
Bower - Had Riewolt not had some cheap free kicks, Bower probably would of held Riewolt to 2 or 3 goals.
Eddie - Most of his possession's were contested.
Austin - Look's like a natural defender with some beautiful spoils in a one on one contest. Not afraid to mark in front of on-coming traffic.
Joseph - Week in week out, continue's to get the job done on quality oppossition.


Con's:

Umpire's - Continue to give our oppossition cheap free's in their forward 50, resulting in goals. Yet Carlton (Fevola in particular) get held, pushed and jumped on, and the umpires continue to ignor it.
Fevola - continue's to miss easy important goals, at critical times in a game. (The early miss in the 4th quarter. Same spot as the Hawthorn game, only on the opposite pocket. In fact, it was on the right pocket for a right footer.) Also missed an easy shot earlier in the game.
Houlihan - Hardly sighted. Not damaging. Seem's to play the game in one gear. Does not seem to lift his intensity, as the game does.
Steven's - Shirked a contest at one point in a game, and even thumbled the ball in St.Kilda's forward line, resulting in St.Kilda goals. Not hard enough. But to his credit, lifted his intensity in the 4th quarter. But we need 4 consistent quarters from him, as he is meant to be a leader.
Scotland - Thumbled a few times early in the game, resulting in St.kilda kicking a goal.
Armfield - Get's fans excited, when he get's the ball and starts running through the centre, whilst carrying the ball. But to his downfall, he keeps on turning over the ball, which usually results in the oppossition scoring. Last night and even against Fremantle, he has kicked his foot into the turf, whilst running through the centre and having one of our forwards in a good postion, to mark inside our forward 50. This results in a turnover and goal to the oppossition.
Garlett - started the game well, but wasn't sighted in the 2nd half.