-Embarrassing after half time
-Didn't give a yelp physically
-Identified at break that 'touch' wasn't as good
-Before this week were second for 'touch'...cleaness of taking the ball
-36 less kicks than bombers...but 8 more kick clangers
-Less handballs than them but more handball clangers
-Beat us in all aspects - running, skills, winning ball
-Didn't run too much as a team, defensively
-Offensively didn't spread
-Armfield ran 19.6km...30% more than the midfielders
-Rollercoaster with Fev, opponent had 21 possessions
-Got to tighten the reins...defensive efforts not as great as should be
-No one's spot is safe in the team
-When asked if tough enough on 'big names'...said we'll go to match committee and see.
-6 inside 50's in third qtr, Fev couldn't have impact.
-Otherwise Fev was beaten
-When asked about forward targets...
-Thought Fisher's role on Fletcher was fairly good, kept Fletcher honest
-Thought O'hAilpin looked super dangerous early on
-David King said Judd doesn't get frees because he just gets on with the game
-Ratten said he doesn't complain...umpires call
-Elliott comments had no impact
-Physical break during the week off, a lot more switched on
-Is this self promotion? What is his angle? (regarding Elliott)
-Taken the list to watch Fremantle...ask the players questions throughout the game.
-Did it before but haven't done it so much as a group
-Took defenders to Etihad where the club have a box
-King says Thornton has had a good year, Ratten said could have played Thornton if Sunday game.
-Find out Monday about Bower
-Almost #1 marking opposition kicks inside 50.
-Walker only need tops 2 games at VFL level
-Shoulder been best its ever been...gone to extra games to help his knowledge, absolutely outstanding
-Round 14/15
-Warnock round 15/16 in the reserves, play a couple of games...14.5 beep test
-Conundrum how much weight he puts on
-Says Betts or Fisher were our best player last night
-Joseph was good on Lovett to HT (6 poss)
-Carrots kept Stanton 3 poss to HT
-Grigg/Gibbs rotated on Watson in first half
-Some teams not quick but move the ball quickly...eg 1995
-Essendon had more possessions so chasing them all night.
-16 inside 50 tackles, 10 inside 50 tackles at HT
-Fundamental mistakes
-4 goals in time on in second qtr
-Unlucky 50m penalty against Jamo may have started it
-Structural loss to Adelaide (due to coaches box)
-Last night was attack on the ball, ability to win one on ones

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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

Seems pretty good at identifying why we are crap afetr the event, why isn't he ensuring we run more, are more physical, that Fev contests more and pays attention to his man etc etc. Of all games why was our coach incapable of getting maximum effort from the team?

Cheers Effes.

It will be interesting to see what the MC do with Stevo this week.
Saying that I wouldn't be surprised if he bounces back and plays well against the Dockers this weekend.

Houlihan should be replaced by either Garlett or Yarran.
It's a pity Robbo has been suspended for a couple of weeks as I'd like to see him brought back in the side.

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There is no footy god

I hope not cause you can guarantee he'll put in 5 shockers after that!!

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You want the flame? Give us the marbles!!

Thanks Effes. I tuned in for the last half of it.
That was a great summary. I was going to write down some points but who covered at fully as Ratts. Cheers.

He spoke well as disected the game and issues quite well. Of course, I wish these insights happened the night before, but i'm glad to hear them now at least. It's going to be a very interesting/depressing week.

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I would like to thank Collingwood for helping me keep faith in my old man. He always told me that 'People are thick'.

Please explain to me why the coach praises the chf....Fisher ifor keeping Fletcher to a minimum...(so as a defensive forward?)
He was named as the best player besides Betts.
Sitting up on level 2 behing goals..it looked like Fletcher had it all over Fisher,and that fisher was in fact having a poor game as he could mark,but not kick goals.
Why does Ratten take such a defensive point of view about games?Isn't
Hoops asked to play a defending forward role as well?
How do we win when we don't have any attacking chf's?
I need to understand...don't be toooooooo technical if possible.

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That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

outstanding work Effes

sounds like Ratts was pretty forthcoming and quite honest which is good.
Too much emphasis on stats and defensive matchups for mine

yeah thats great
still doesn't change the fact that he is a shocking footballer.

3 players that have to go either by trade or delisting - Houlihan, Bannister and FEVOLA! he has no place in the team anymore. he is finished as a carlton player. you do not play inconsistent footy, head down sooky sooky lala crap when your a senior leader of the club.

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Alexander the Great was born in Greece!

Callum Chambers-esque

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There is no footy god

+1

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You want the flame? Give us the marbles!!

If Fevola plays next week it is a kick in the face to all the midfielders in our side who bust their guts week in week out to feed his ego.

Last night Murph had the ball on the wing and i watched fev he didnt lead he was just demanding murph kick it in his area (lazy) when the ball came in he was beaten outright by Pears and turned around at had a go at Murphy. Disgraceful. He is suppose to be a leader of the club????

I would rather Kreuze play at Full Forward and even though we might lose a few in the short term really need to develop him as a key forward. Has a great overhead mark, great below his knees for a big man and works his ass off every week. At 20 is already more mature than Fevola and we dont have to go into every week worried about the "tone" fevola will set for the game.

I still haven't forgiven for his game in the Gold Coast against Freo last night was the final straw.

Forward Line moving forward should be set up around Kreuzer, Yarran, Setanta, Eddie, Walker and when he returns Jarrad Waite. Gold Caost have plenty of first rounders at their disposal grab one for fev pick up Butcher in the draft if we can.

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WE ARE CARLTON @#$%&! THE REST

pretty reactive interview

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

That REALLY grinds my gears

I'd get rid of Stevens before Fev, and maybe even before Banno. He's turning into Camporeale for a new generation. That's about the length and breadth of it for mine.

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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.

I would never expect a coach to tell the media what they really think. I am very conflicted at the moment. I look at other young coaches and see how most of Saints supporters wanted Lyon sacked, how Hawks wants the little prick sacked, Geelong etc.

But something is wrong atm. Is it too easy to just blame Ratts? I think yes. Seems to me that some dynamics are not right. Why is Fev more up and down then a newly weds nighty? (Thanks DP) Why has Bryce not developed as much as we all expected? Are there dynamics in the team we don't know about? Are some assistant coaches not up to it (e.g. Lappin)?

I think that on gameday a coaches influence is mostly restricted to positional changes (which was not the problem yesterday). They can be very important but changing mind set and gameplan changes are difficult during the game (IMHO). I can not see any of the fit players in the 2's would have made much of a difference last night.

I would love to hear from somebody with good contacts inside the club what is REALLY going on. I think we focus too much on the coach - something is rotten in State of Navy Blue.

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TC suffers from the social media illness - the death of respect and constructive discourse by keyboard.

Hahahahaha. Once again, straight to Fev and we've had a bad one, who's won for us way more games than he's lost. Has his moments but been tremendous. If you want him gone maybe you can come with with the remaining 1.4 million on his contract then you can volunteer to play then and kick 99 goals. At the same time maybe you can suggest to the match committee and we structure our forward line without him.

I prefer to talk with my brain, not my frustrations.

Unlike some others, I wasn’t convinced about the Blues going into last night’s game, and in turn I wasn’t entirely surprised we got beat. As good as we were against the Saints, the truth of the matter is we haven’t strung 3 or 4 games on the trot all year, whereas decent teams like Collingwood and Adelaide have. I think we have been grossly overrated all year, by the media, fans, and bookies. Yes we were statistically the 3rd best team heading into the Saints game, but that was only half way into the year, and we hadn’t at that point played the top 2 sides. I dare say statistically now we are not rated the 3rd best side. And in any event, the only stat that matters is the win/loss column, and right now we are falling behind the second pack and if we lose interstate next week (against Freo, who have beaten us twice this year already), we can just about kiss Finals goodbye.

I think we still have a number of problems. And it starts at the top, with the coach.

He has already accepted responsibility for the Adelaide debacle, and I wonder if he will put his hand up to take partial blame for what happened last night. While the players obviously have to take a lot of the heat, I think it’s fair to say Ratten has had 10 weeks to plan to stop Essendon*’s run, and he failed. This game mirrored the R3 game, except this time we got smashed in the second half. The other issue I have with Ratten’s coaching, is I have a feeling we are often too defensively minded in midfield. Seems Ratten is paranoid. (And there’s a link here with the way we set up against Adelaide). Basically, we seem to get smashed in clearances most weeks, and I half wonder if it is because too few midfielders are actually helping the great man Judd win the hard ball. Against the Saints Carrazzo and Grigg were the difference - they both came into the team and both won lots of hard ball and I thought their inclusions in the team made us a lot more capable of winning hard ball. But last night they both played largely defensive roles. As a result, it just seems to me that way too often this year Judd looks like the only one who has the opportunity to win clearances. We’re relying too much on him. Similarly, we are relying on Fevola too much up forward. Essendon* were successful last night at regularly getting the extra man to come across Fevola. It begs the question - why play Fisher if he isn’t going to be a threat? It also goes without saying I could not understand for the life of me why Bannister kept his spot in the team and was floating around HFF for a while (I saw his as a horses for courses inclusion for the Saints game, who should never have played against the quick paced Dons). Some of the selections this year have truly baffled me. But I digress. Back to the coach.

I had a moment of clarity watching the Saints game. I thought the main reason we got back into the game was Bower just decided to take it upon himself to generate run at every opportunity. And after the game we heard Ratten concede he told the players to just ‘take the game on’ after quarter time. Is that good coaching? Hardly if you ask me. Any fool could have instructed the players to do that. In contrast, we know run-and-carry-at-all-costs is Knight’s distinct game plan, and we cannot escape the fact that the Dons are now a game clear of us (with no no.1 draft picks and no Judd), and have now won 5 of the last encounters against us. It’s a damning statistic. Again, I stress the issue for me at least is Knight’s appears to have a distinct game plan that his players adhere to, and the team seem to be getting better and better as the season unfolds. Watching us kick, mark, stop, then kick, versus the Dons who would move the ball from full back to wing in a flash, it was clear very early on that the Dons were a huge chance to win.

Similarly there was a bit last night where the tv camera was fixed on Ratten, and looked unmistakably like a man who had run out of ideas and had totally lost control of the game and had no idea how to cope with the thrashing that was happening in front of his eyes. I know this happens to the best of coaches, but my issue with Ratten is - does he actually have an unique game plan? A plan that has at its centre a competitive edge? I don’t think he does. And I recall an interview with Heath Scotland a little while back when Heath said “The coach tinkers with the game play every week”. Sounds a lot like he tinkers because he hasn’t got a game plan, if you ask me. The club seemed to have picked Ratts to take over as coach pretty quickly, they didn’t appear to do much homework, they just went with the old Carlton boy, probably because he sold in to them the fact he would bring back the ‘arrogant, uncompromising attitude’ to the club. I’m now starting to wonder if there is any actual substance behind the coach’s rhetoric.

In terms of personnel, it is great the likes of Armfield and Browne etc battled so heroically against the Saints, but the cold hard reality is both are a long way off having the required class/skills, and that’s not the only issues we have with personnel. Houlihan is just too slow these days, Scotland and Stevens are both having terrible years by their standards (why??), with Stevens handball turnovers in defence all year being a massive liability - seriously, Ratten must toss that Stevens-down-back idea in the bin now. The game seems to be going past the likes of Stevens and Scotland. it’s a real worry.

I know we are the youngest side (apparently) in terms of experience, but surely that’s no excuse when you see an equally young team like Essendon* dismantle us with such ease last night (and remember they belted us for periods in R3 too). How many top draft picks does it take? Either the remaining balance of our team are not up to it, or the coach is not up to it. And I reckon it’s a bit of both.

I actually believe this team, for some strange reason only get up for the ‘big tests’. We beat the Dogs, almost beat the Hawks, who in my view were ‘on’ that day, and we almost beat the Saints. And yet we have been insipid against the Dons (twice), and Freo, and Adelaide etc. Why are the lads getting up for big challenges, but not for games they ought to win (some would say anyhow)? Is it the pre-season slogan? Is it the coach? This team appears to think they are better than they are, and that they only need to bust their guts when they play the top sides. I think Ratten’s has a challenge to really rattle some cages among the playing group. Can he possibly get that side of things (psychology/motivation) right?

We are going to have to battle very, very hard to make the Eight now. Forget about Top 4, that is very unlikely. While we have a good run home, the irony is these games against teams we should beat are the sorts of games we have blown all year. At what point does the MC decide to drop a slow Houlihan for good, and blood a Robinson instead?

In my view it is time to play the quick and talented, and not the battlers and those the game has passed by.

Bring in Anderson, Yarran, and Robbo, and dump Banniste, Houlihan for starters.

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

I agree with your comments on Armfield but Browne definitely has the required class/skills IMO. Sure he had a poor match last night but the previous 4-5 weeks he has been very good. My only concern with Browne is his legspeed but otherwise he is a great pickup for selection #36 in the 2007 draft.

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There is no footy god

Chooks with heads chopped off cover a fair bit of territory too. He's VFL, but boy can he run.