That's actually a really good post.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Which doesn't excuse your poetry...

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Round 17 2009 Collingwood 10 goals against a team we thought we could beat...

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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.

Actually it was 9 goals...

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Oh yeah your right and the Essendon* game was uhmmm 11 and a half???...

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Yeah but they're shit...

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

and so that leaves us where exactly???....

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

And the St Kilda game was nine points.

A shame the Dogs couldn't get that close.

They can't even perfect the art of interchanging players.

Do we round that one up to two goals or down to a kick?...

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

The difference being though Synbad is that we were in it up to our eye balls with a minute to go in the third after some of the worst butchering of the footy i think i've ever seen. We dominated the most of the second term and all of the third except for that last goal close to the siren. I walked out for my 3/4 time ciggy and wasn't going to go back in because i knew we were done. Mentally they would have been shot at 3/4 time.

None of those games in that period were we in, if you look at them closely you'd probably find alot of them had plenty of junk time goals making the scoreline a bit prettier than they should have been.

Quite clearly only the earlier University teams, Fitzroy of 95 and any one of the 26 wooden spoon teams St.Kilda have had have been worse than teams Carlton put out in those years.

There are a lot of people on this board, and others, that have question marks in regards to Ratts but you're expecting miracles. Sometimes they happen, most of the time they don't. Dannyboy's spelt out the improvements for the year, on the face of it they ARE quantifiable improvements. Visually, yes we still have a lot of work to do but this competition isn't easy to win games let alone play perfect football every week. The teams inconsistent, would be easier to understand if it was week to week but its not even quarter to quarter. That's what happens with a very young side, its hardly ever been different throughout the history of the AFL\VFL.

I think you need to concentrate on the positive parts of our game when we've shown what this team is capable of instead of the negative all of the time. Otherwise you'll be locked down in a mental institution right at the time we're next playing off for the flag.

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

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

@#$%&! that list is frightening

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"I had to eat"

We had no money then.
We didnt have a list then.
We were fighting to keep our heads above water due to salary cap breaches and the subsequent repercussions.

The club has moved on....

But youre still comparing it to the biggest basketcase in AFL history for a positive.

Why not compare it to a real standard???

You cannot compare us to the darkest of the dark to find postives today.

If thats how you view things... God help us!!!

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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.

and yet we must pretend that list has not effect the team - we're just a clean slate. Reading that list I am leaning a bit more towards being happy with the efforts this year and last.

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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!

That was always going to happen.....

Judd Fev 3 number 1 picks.. a swag of earlier picks and some cash...

But yeah.... were no longer the new Fitzroy.. rejoice!!!


Why not look at the improvement of the individuals on our list?
Why not look at the improvement in gameplan and pattern of play?

Why compare us to nothing??

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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.

Oh and GW nothing excuses poetry - and yes, scary isn't it. So lets go back to p[pretending I make no sense - life's far easier that way

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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!

Just for the record... when I said earlier about wins not being a true measure, it was TO AN EXTENT. Of course every coach would be judged by the W/L column, my point was that different coaches would be judged on that measure to diffeent degrees.

On the scale of Thompson to Bailey, Ratts would be somewhere in between in terms of where other factors, such as development, cohesion, not beating ourselves etc come into play.

Just so you know, danny, I'm not saying ladder position is irrelevant, but it's only one of a few things (I think) Ratts and the coaching staff should be judged on.

If we make the 8 then on the surface it will have been a successful season but it is more to do with what has happened this year tells us about the future.

Comparing us to 2003 is ridiculous. Even comparing us to 2007 is silly. We had a team that hated the coach and the next most senior coach at Carlton (Mitch) hated the coach. We were utterly disfunctional, and just starting to get things together off the field let alone on the field. Let's face it recruiting Judd makes 5 goals difference a game, add in 3 #1 picks several years into their careers, natural improvement you would expect from young players and a very talented but wayward full forward, and we would expect improvement. Under drafting no-one stays down forever. Sides naturally go up and down as the talent changes. The extent of the talent and the talent of the coach might create a premiership team. The coach is there to make the team better than the sum of its parts. Is Ratts doing that? Too often we are uninspired and seem to have stagefright. The coach needs to get us up not down. Our ball movement is excrutiating. Clarkson says ball movement is getting quicker and you move it quickly or fail, yet our plan appears to be to move it really slowly. Too ofetn our wins revolve around individual performances from Judd and Fev.

The process doesn't mean Ratts can't coach but it does mean Carlton as a club is still behind in our thinking. Is Lappin the best forward caoch in the business or a guy who the club wanted to retire and offered a sweetener. Maybe its the former and after an exacting search of all possible candidates around Australia we were lucky that the best assistant was at our club.

Ratts just sounds a bit out of his depth, he speaks in cliches. Some coaches do becasue they have contempt for the press, Ratts seems to do it because he has nothing deeper to say. He runs out stats and excuses. Maybe just tell us why he has prepared a side that wasn't up to play against the Woods and the Dons. Should have been given a contract till end of 2010 to give him a fair crack - if we were sure that he was the best available when we appointed him (and not just an ex Carlton guy in the right place at the right time) - and then assessed honestly. If we have got it wrong with our coach again, the first decade of the new millenium will indeed be a lost one. You need to have everything right to win a flag and if you don't the window shuts and may not open for ten years. Big responsibility, let's hope everyone has it right.

I love how this thread has expanded 30 odd pages since Friday night.

Like everyone else, I was annoyed at Friday night, but not terribly shocked. We still have a fair few missing pieces to our side, which no coach is going to magically fix in the space of 2 years. Out of the sides above us who do we currently have more talent than? Collingwood bat deeper than us at the moment, Dogs are more seasoned and bat deeper, same applies to Adelaide and Brisbane, so really where should we be?

So Synbad, which specific players are showing a lack of improvement, or playing well below their potential? I can't actually think of many, we either have players that are just not very good (Bentley, Bannister, Hartlett), or players who are getting better,and from the stars (Judd and Fev) about what you would expect.

I think some posters are starting to sound like a broken record goin over and over again

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CFC TAC Squad everyone over 25 must be traded sounds like Loguns Run

8 more pages and we can lock this sucker !

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.