The journey ends, but hopefully another begins.

The game for me was a microcosm of our whole year. Superb talent on display for all to see, and impressive play from our young players. But all brought undone by a lack of coherent team structure, set play nous, and corridor protection. This has caused us to yet again drop a game that should have been won.

The lessons from this game, and the year, need to be corrected. It seems this coach will be given a chance to do it - I hope he succeeds.

Summer starts tomorrow for Carlton, and it must all be about three things: Structure, Structure, and Structure.

PROS

1. Heath Scotland and Andrew Carrazzo deserve plaudits for standing up in the clearances. As secondary midfielders, they were great.

2. Gibbs dominated early but faded badly

3. I honestly don’t know who the guy wearing number 2 is but lock him in for the next 8 years at HBF. Andy McKay eat your heart out. I wonder where Jordan Russell went?

4. Our ruckmen got beat today, not because the other mob were better, but just older bigger. I like both 8 and 22 and with more size they won’t get pushed out of contests. Matthew Kreuzer has been asked to do too much this year, but gee he has done it well.

5. We have talent, we have the opportunity to build something great, I just pray those in charge can get our boys playing organised, impressive footy.

CONS

1. The Corridor - we concede it too easily, and use it too infrequently. I don’t know what our coach’s plan is, but this part makes no sense. They cut us up through the middle.

2. Team defence is poor - the ball streamed in with ease. We don’t play whole team defence. To become elite, we need to learn

3. Forward structure again - Compare their goals to ours. They kicked good solid lead-mark goals - we relied on the ball scummily falling over the back of a pack. There was some stat today about us being efficient when we enter forward 50 - I can’t reconcile that stat with what I observe in our forward play.

4. Some bad clangers by the fringe players. Wiggins, armfield, Cloke, Garlett. They all did some good things, but they did some shocking things too. Are they up to it? Well, Armfield just shouldn’t kick, the others need people to grab their spots.

5. If we’re still playing this type of footy by midyear next year, I think things could get nasty. Match Committee changes are obligatory over the summer, surely.


Well done to the boys for bringing Carlton to September. I’m proud of them.

But being in September is symbolic - you have to do something in September to give it meaning. And we must start working to that tomorrow.

The Carlton Football Club fights on.

Pro: when you relax and think about it in the cold hard light of day, what did we aim for this year? I'm not sure if we can bring up the thread from earlier this season about expectations of season 09. But I'm sure most of us would have said we want to make finals and show improvement, and we definately did that!
I'm proud of our boys, super proud! We won 13games, and lost 3 or so very narrowly. We are young and get another preseason into the younger boys and we will improve again, and that's all we can ask.

CONS: I do hope the boys are hurting and feeling sick because it will make them hungrier! you can't just let teams get massive run ons like that, but in my opinion that's also to do with coaching. I love Ratts and his passion, but he doesn't have enough tricks. When teams get a run on he doesn't do anything! Drop someone or two back FFS, do something, instead Judd and Kruzer are out of the middle and we are getting bashed in the centre!

I love the Blues, that's why I couldn't sleep last night, sick in the stomach! BUT bring back Waite, Jamo and Warnock fully fit and LOOK OUT in 2010

i thought aiming at understanding how to play footy .
Bring back Waite Warnock and Jamo and lose 3 others.... Fev Judd and Murphy maybe .. touch wood...

That is the nature of football.

If you seriously believe we wont have injuries...

Brissy have them too...

We need to become better runners.
We need to understand to play the game better.
We need a non Venables style of coaching performance.

If we had lost the midfield and not a couple of tall defenders id agree.

If we had lost Fev and Judd id agree.


So what youre saying is Brisbane didnt have players out and our players played to the best of their abilities but wernt good enough ???

Keep it in perspective.

Brisbane had players out and players under an injury cloud...Brisbane is who we played!

We didnt get the most out of our players.
Our players didnt get the most out of themselves.
Our tactics were flawed.. as they have been all year.
Our players are not conditioned to run hard.

Im waiting for the spin doctoring....

I got the feeling many of our key play makres were probably too defensively minded (a reaction to the dowhill skiier tag), and it didn't even work for them. Gibbs and Murphy and Simpson just didn't get into open space enough to hurt, and Walker and Russell were quiet too (JR developing nicely though). Is it Ratten's fault the players were not attacking enough? He and the players need to find the right balance. Just thought our key playermakers didn't get enough of the ball where it really hurts.

Gibbs in particular very poor, just 18 touches, Stevens also faded with just 18 touches, and Walks just 12. Yes I know he was tagging, but the point still stands, when the Lions inevitable run on came late in the game we just didn't have enough playmakers getting the ball where it counts, in space.

In other words, where was the run? Looks at cats and Dog, they ran and ran and ran.

We refused to run when it counted the most. What on earth is Ratten teaching this mob?

Cloke missed when the pressure was on.

Betts quiet again. What's happened to him?

Nobody cutting off the kicks to Bradshaw. Ratten, did you think to do something about this? Those plays killed us all night.

Grigg should not have played. Out of form and down on confidence, just terrible.

Wasted the year in so far as we could have brought in Warnock and started blooding Kruezer as a forward. Good game by the Shag, but unlike Brisbane who had two options we were so predictable again going to Fev all the time. Why bring in Cloke if you rarely go to him? At least Setanta could have been a 3rd option down back.

Dissappointing night and I am not convinced over our coach and our MC who I think have mucked up numerous times during the year.

Its not about "mediocre senior players getting the job done"


....

No spin doctoring, but seriously you'd think we should be on top of the ladder the way you carry on sometimes.

All your comments can be attributed to any team at any time of the year. Let me know your solution to our problems and I'll direct Brett Ratten end the MC to this site .

Waite and Jamison were massive outs this year and anyone that thought we'd go deep into September without them had rocks in their head. I'm so pissed off we lost it's not funny but put the season in perspective and we're on the right track.

No spin doctoring, but seriously you'd think we should be on top of the ladder the way you carry on sometimes.

All your comments can be attributed to any team at any time of the year. Let me know your solution to our problems and I'll direct Brett Ratten end the MC to this site .

Waite and Jamison were massive outs this year and anyone that thought we'd go deep into September without them had rocks in their head. I'm so pissed off we lost it's not funny but put the season in perspective and we're on the right track.