Who cares if he's ex Carlton!
Have you seen the Saints defensive unit this season?
Dawson is in their best 22 FFS!
The fact that he's left the club to further his career can only be benificial.
Who's our current defensive coach...Montgomery? give me a break. The young players would REALLY look up to him, such a defensive icon!

Can someone explain to me why Grigg started on Heath Shaw? and why they persist trying to use him as a run with player?

You're not assisting your agenda in the slightest by fabricating nonsense .

Now go through our losses Prelim.

Lost to Essendon* lucky we didnt kick straight things would have been interesting
Lost to Hawks - Ruffy got them over the line
Saints- Lucky rewolt had a good start or things could have got ugly. Lyon threw the game plan out the window and the fullback kicked the winner
Swans - Lucky we didnt kick straight early or things would have been interesting.
..etc

You struggle to deal with a loss Prelim99. Things really are not that bad......relax and enjoy the ups and downs of a developing side.

What I don't struggle with is reality. We are potentially a better side being poorly coached/developed

An interesting observation
When the nay sayers on this forum talk about Ratts (and I will reveal my hand and say that he is a poor coach), they use a combination of observation, perception, discussion, trends, what they read, what they hear, what they're gut feeling is etc etc
Just as night follows day, all the positive posters refute all this because they have no hard data, no facts, they're not part of the inner circle, they have hidden agendas, the stats rebut the argument etc
In other words, the nay sayers were just too emotional, too simplistic.
BUT
When Carlton wins and they played shithouse, and really just won because Fev kicked 8 or Judd carried everyone or the opposition was deplorable or the opposition had a quarter of their best players out etc, facts, stats and more complex arguments are thrown out the window by the positive posters, ripping into the naysayers with, "Just enjoy the win, we've won more than last year, can't believe we won and you're still not happy....etc...etc". you can't have it both ways

We beat Bris with half their defence missing-Fev got us over the line
We beat Coll with a VFL side
We beat Syd because Ratten threw his gameplan????? out and said, "see ball, run with ball make space" and then did the sign of the cross and prayed that it would work out
We beat Freo........just....Adelaide restricted them to 1 goal the following week
We beat Richmond. Thank god Riewolt didn't kick straight. would've been interesting
Carlton are becoming a joke. I don't really give a flying toss that some people don't value the opinion of Walls, Buckley, Sheahan, Cometti, Shaw and co. they have infinitely more credibility that the sum total of this site, certainly in terms of experience. i just hope that those people who play the credibility card when people like Synbad, Melvey or whoever articulate their opinions don't then just as simply dismiss the opinions of people who've played the game successfully at the highest level
Carlton are on the verge of going backwards. thank god Hawthorn had their year from hell.....everyone beat them...except us.
Ratten IS NOT THE ANSWER. He is not value-adding to that squad one iota.

what has Ratts shown in 2 seasons that gives you the confidence that he is in fact the man??? This can cover a broad spectrum of attributes...i.e. pre season preparation, fast track player development, match day tactics, changes in our structures this year as opposed to last year...etc....

at the end of the day.

if carlton makes the eight - then Ratten and the Team have achieved his/their goals. making the eight is what its about this year. not winning a grand final, not playing like super stars every week. our best is as good as anyones in the comp, our worst still makes us look rubbish.

if carlton doesnt make the eight, then Ratten and the Team havent achieved their goals and then we have to look at it.

until then .... close this thread, its now become a joke. we win three games in a row and it probably got 15 replies, we lost one game and it gets 15 pages.

before round 1, if we where told at the start of the year, we would be 9w8L after 17 rounds with a percentage of 108

there isnt a single person who supports this club who wouldnt be happy with it.

ffs, we havent played finals for 7 !@#$%& years, its almost like some of yo blokes think we are going to go from 15 to 10 to top 4 in the space of two seasons. give me a spell!! and we are still so incredibly young is amazing we are as good as we are already!!

all along, in any debate i have had with anyone about carlton this yeah, its always been

2009 - top 8
2010 - top 4
2011 - our window opens

i have seen nothing to suggest that has changed.

at the end of the day.

if carlton makes the eight - then Ratten and the Team have achieved his/their goals. making the eight is what its about this year. not winning a grand final, not playing like super stars every week. our best is as good as anyones in the comp, our worst still makes us look rubbish.

if carlton doesnt make the eight, then Ratten and the Team havent achieved their goals and then we have to look at it.

until then .... close this thread, its now become a joke. we win three games in a row and it probably got 15 replies, we lost one game and it gets 15 pages.

before round 1, if we where told at the start of the year, we would be 9w8L after 17 rounds with a percentage of 108

there isnt a single person who supports this club who wouldnt be happy with it.

ffs, we havent played finals for 7 !@#$%& years, its almost like some of yo blokes think we are going to go from 15 to 10 to top 4 in the space of two seasons. give me a spell!! and we are still so incredibly young is amazing we are as good as we are already!!

all along, in any debate i have had with anyone about carlton this yeah, its always been

2009 - top 8
2010 - top 4
2011 - our window opens

i have seen nothing to suggest that has changed.

There's a difference between defending Ratts and trying to balance out some of the absurdity in this thread. If you can point me towards a post that provides some asute and balanced criticism of the coaching staff I'll be happy to debate the point. The onus is on those who want him sacked to provide something of substance to back up their point of view.

a succesful season should be one where you have sorted a pattern a style of play into the future that suits what you have.

as well as finding the key to unlocking consistant performances from key veteran players.

to be capable of kicking the ball out and moving it forward .

to have found options and effectiveness in inside 50 entries.

conviently left out the fact that we took the game to the siaints, and very nearly could have won it. are we still teh only side to score more than 100 points against them.

also conviently forgot all about the doggies game?

whilst i dont think we are impressive as many think we are, i also dont think we, or ratts is as bad as what many make him out to be on here.

but i also find your post somewhat amusing. a simple question ... do you rate collingwood? becase many of those "champions" of the game you refer to. but who has collingwood beaten? no one. they fell over the line against the dogs, beat brisbane, duriong that period that they had half of their side out, us and the bombers. the rest is all against bottom 8 sides.

but they are flying?

give me a spell.

4 teams tanking ... so if u win 6 games of those u only need to win 5 games to make the eight....

i predicted a weak season prior to the season beginning....

a succesful season should be one where you have sorted a pattern a style of play into the future that suits what you have.
as well as finding the key to unlocking consistant performances from key veteran players.
to be capable of kicking the ball out and moving it forward .
to have found options and effectiveness in inside 50 entries.
etc etc etc

we have done none of that... and yet its going to be a succesful season???

well you can bet there are other teams looking at coming up and improving next year also....and were falling behind a few we would have thought we were ahead of prior to the season beginning.

Potentially a better side? Based on what exactly.

I think you underestimate your struggles with reality.

you can add Hawthorn's shocker of a season to help us out. But against that, the Bombers have had a surprising season.....oops, can't use that line of argument because we couldn't beat them.....twice.
Too simplistic to say what you would or would not have taken at the beginning of the year. I agree with you Synbad. It' s not about personnel or experience (Hawthorn put paid to that last year). The coaching staff are not adding any value to the expected improvement that comes from having the best player in the AFL come our way, the best ff and 3 #1 draft picks.

This continues to baffle me week in week out. Ratts seems to have this deep down belief that we need to tag half the team we are playing. FFS why did we need to tag anyone other than Didak last night...I cannot believe the filth have anyone of real class who is damaging other than this guy. So you tag Didak with a designated tagger i.e. Joseph and tell all of your creative players to run and create NOT negate CREATE....FFS CREATE...Ratts is to reactive and defensive in his tactics...it just seems he is trying to complicate as much as possible what is in reality much simpler...