Please, I do not wish for people to bag any individual.



We are Carlton right?

Well, it's time to start being objective and to asses where we are at and what needs to be done to get our next premiership.

I want a bit of guts and mongrel injected into us before we get too big for our boots, I want every player regardless of how he made it to our club, be him a pick 1 or a mature age rookie from Ballarat to put his hand up and do what needs to be done week in week out to build a successful club.

I don't want favouritism..I don't care if you are Fev or Browne I want each player who heads out on that field to show 100% commitment to the task.

Yes, we are stable now off the field. Is that good enough for them? Are they happy to strut around knowing they play for Caaaarlton...knowing they have a bloody good facility coming?. No boys, it's way bloody more than that!

We aren't Collingwood. We are Carlton and we need the ultimate.

Considering our membership slogan we have been meek and dissapointing for most of the year and on many occasions can't consistently produce the intensity required. Is this because of age? Lack of Gameplan? Lack of determination? Whatever it is we need to address it.

We, as Carlton supporters should never ever accept mediocrity.

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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

righto. i'll get working on that.

Very true ... we are Carlton .... I think I am right in saying we can handle losses ... God knows there have been a few the last 8 years ... but if I see another loss with an insiped performance and without pride for the jumper again it will shatter my already broken heart. Probably beyond repair!

A loss with heart I can handle, a loss where the players are not earning thier paycheck, going for nights on the piss and just not having pride in themselves or the proud history that is\was our great, great club is just weak.

I would prefer to have the bullants side in if they were to show real commitment and lose by 100 points than what I saw this weekend.

Ratts needs to go apedroppings, does anyone else think he took the press conference yesterday with a grain of salt? If it were me I would have blasted the list and named a few of the passengers. I know it sounds negative but more of the same is just not getting through, some players need thier feathers ruffled and then see if it does something ... if not then they do not deserve to wear the navy blue.

We would then need to treat this season as another rebuilding year and have a clearout this year and hopefully pick up a few more decent youngins (difficult this year I know but not impossible) before the draft is really compromised in the coming years.

This losing culture needs to be addressed before it become cemented in the culture like at other once great clubs ... the day Carlton gets talked about in the same breath as Richmond will be the day I start wathing soccer!

I do not care about the 8 anymore, I care about seeing progress and since the second quarter of round 2 have seen far too many backward steps to say we have progressed this year.

All I really want is pride and commitment on the field and accountability for those who fail to achieve it. Young and inexperienced is one thing ... not giving a toss is something completely different.

whilst yesterday was crap, another day has dawned the world continues to move forward and go on...i just think, everybody, and i mean everybody, myself included, just seem to forget that we are still a very young side, and historically, young sides dont travel well.

our best, is as good as anyones, our worst, can be shocking. i just think we all need to step back abit, not get caught up in the hype and just take stock.

we are a side that is still building, i just think, we as fans, and the media as a whole has got ahead of themselves and expecting the world. hell, listen to the commentators last night - carlton was going into the game "with good form" we have been crap, and where 1 and 5 out of our last 6 games. if that is good form, i hate to see what bad form but its the perception of carlton, we are expected to be top 4 by many. why?

until we get game time into our developing ruck stocks, we simply are behing the eight ball, and will remain while the develop.
our defence is developing. players like austin, browne, bower, jamison etc.. need to be given serious game time. correct me if im wrong, but between the four of them i would doubt that they have played more than 100 games.
out midfield, as highly rated as they are still developing, murphy is 22? gibbs 21? kreuzer 20? with the exception of judd, again, our "starting" midfield wouldnt have a player with more than 100 games experience.
our forward line, is in desperate need of an alternative to fev, but having said that i think we have started to remove our reliance on fev to kick bag fulls, but with betts taking the next step, payers like robinson, garlett, yarren etc.. taking the next step, but mre so, with waite playing forward (which we can do with austin down back) its starting to loook very promising

but all through that, there is a constant theme - a very young side. why we are rated so highly i dont know, we are building a side yes, but that is exactly what we are, a side that is building for their next premiershop, and on the path, as is a constant theme with young building sides, we will have stinkers like we did last night, but also have games of brillance like we have had against the bulldogs/hawks.

i thionk everyone, just need to take a step back and realise where we are. we arent top 4, hell it could be argued we arent top 8, but thqat should be a goal, and if we can make top 8 with the side of youngsters we have in already, its only going to build the solid team we have building.

look at every side in the comp, with the expection of hawthorn, how are a young side in relative terms,. but still had a huge core of ploayers that had the 80-100 games epxerience, very few grand finals are one with sides as young as ours.

you need harden and mature bodies, and we just dont have it yet. and it isnt going to happen quickly either, it will build up over time.

so everyone just relax, take a breath, and realise where we are. i think after all the years of the shit, we ar eexpecting too much to soon.


everyone talks of ratten being crap, but i also reall everyone thinking lyon from the saints was rubbish last year. this year, not so

i dont know if ratts is the answer, only time will tell, but overall we have improved, IMO, out of sight this year, outside of against adelaiade, depsite playingpoorly in several games, have always been in positions to win it. we have improved, of that there is no doubt, and all that with a very young list, and we will only continue to improve., but perhaps we all need just to step back and realise that we are still a young and developing side and arent as good as everyone thinks we are just yet.

fans, media and opposition included.

and ffs, forget Essendon*, they do this every year, great to watch for the first part of the season, but by years end, are rubbish. talk of game plans, but i tell you this there game plan is not maintainble for an entier year, let alone, hard shut down finals football.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

oh yes - positive = sugar-coating

negative = clear-eyed foresight

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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's not what I said and that's definitely not what I meant db.....

Fact is we were sold a slogan. A slogan which inferred we were improving and on the up and for the league to watch out.

We had players, coaches everyone talking finals.

Now.... here we are beating the same old teams we were expected to beat last year and losing against the same bloody teams we always have and our 4 points aren't changing. I believe some of this is through a lack of desire and commitment which is my main concern at this point.

I'm not in the inner sanctum, I do not coach but what I know is we have been sooo dissapointing this year considering the hype we were sold.......Either the MC, Ratts and co were stringing us on all the time or they themselves are finding it a tougher task than first thought...I hopes it's the former.

I have alot of hope and positivity for the future....we have awesome talent but right now I'm as flat as a tack.



I enjoyed your entire post Scott and it has worked to help get me thinking happy thoughts again.

I highlighted this paragraph because I have too thought that young teams have struggled but Hawthorn broke the mould a bit last year so my expectations coupled with our slogan had me pretty bloody excited.

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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

i like the slogan, its bold, and its provocative.

love it or hate it, people are talking about it, and the blues, so its a success IMO

but i just think many people have got a little carried away with us this year.

as it is, for me personally, i think we have improved immensly, and i could even highlight yesterday as an example of how we have improved. we where crap for the first half, probably the worse we have played for years, but in years gone past we would have got smashed by 100+ but not only didnt we allow that to happen, we fought back, and almost gave ourselves a chance to get back into it. but, you are never going to win a game of footy with conceeding 9 goals to zip. we just had to many players down on the day, hell i saw a stat that said we have 10 players with less than 5 possessions at half time .... you are simply not going to win football with little possession like that.

the thing with us, that every side running around has a young side, new players etc.. and perhaps its becuase they dont want to admit it, or are oblivious to it, carlton still has probably the youngest starting 22 in the comp and with that, will come ups and downs, yet it is never mentioned by anyone in the medai, perhaps that is a by product of our slogan, everyone is expecting us to do good things, becuase lets be honest, our best is up there with the best in the comp, but like any young side, you cant do that week in week out.

i dont think its any surprise to think that two of our worst performances this year, have happened on the road ... that is very much a consistent theme for young developing sides.

i thought at the start of th year, what would be a good year for us and i still think we are on track

my goals for the side was

1. continue improvement and game time for the younger boys
2. blood further youth into the side - check
3. start to win more games
4. not to lose games by ten goals +
5. develop the defence
6. develop the forward line
7. develop the mdifield
8. develop the depth


not, i say that in no particlar order of importance, and to date, for me, i think we are still achieving all of those things.

however, yesterday did suck, no excuses it was a very poor performance, but that is to be expected from a young developing side. thats not to make excuses, its just the reality,.

there is a reason geelong play like they do every weel. the are a highly skilled well drilled and VERY MATURE SIDE. the coach has been there for 5 years plus, the players have been there for 5 years plus ...

see what im getting out, we are in about a 2nd year of a 5-6year program.

all i along i have been saying

2009 - top 8
2010 - top 4
2011 - 2014 - is our window

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Anything but a top 8 finish this year has to be regarded as a failure...

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“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman

Ratts even said so himself. It's for this reason that I think anyone satisfied with not making finals is kidding themselves.

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

And the media and supporters told us we should watch out for Richmond because they can fill the G on their own...

15 of the 16 Captains expected Carlton to play finals, so it isn't just Carlton supporters who expected the Blues to play finals.

I never bought into the slogan and expected to play finals with our inexperienced list which has a lot of holes that needs to be addressed at the draft.

The supporters who took it as a finals are guaranteed slogan and didn't analyse our list shouldn't blame the marketing department for what we lack on field.

The opposition tell their players to go harder against us and mention it at match committee because we came up with a positive slogan.

I doubt that Ratten even mentions it.

Lets be meek and bring back Something Blue so we don't trod on anyone's toes.

Yesterday was the worst performance in rattens time at the blues - no doubt about it and unacceptable that for whatever reason the players just didnt turn up before half time.

Imho, the loss was expected (crows are another mature bodied team) - the manner in which we lost though, wasnt and I'd expect some changes this week.

As for the thread title...

[edit]

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WE ARE CARLTON @#$%&! THE REST

agreed, but i dont think we are going to play perfect football all the way either.

_________________
Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod