Carlton gameday thread

[ShockOfHair]

Abject. In winnable positions against Pies,Crows and now Blues. Nine goals to nil in a quarter. Ouch.

[stellation]

White obviously excellent, but how good was Nick Smith's defensive work? I was dissapointed for him that Betts got a cheap goal late in garbage time.

[Gary]

Surely Roos can see Mattners very real weaknesses in the area of disposal & decision making...then again it never stopped him from picking Bevan either.
If Leo Barry is smart he will retire now & leave us with 2005 to remember him for ever rather than joining this joke of a backline.

[Bloody Hell]

Missed the game unfortunantely - but god this thread is a funny read!

Starts off all smiles and rainbows, then after halftime things turn sour, then they're OK - then the sky falls in (which it did.)

To be fair when you play youth they're going to have problems with fitness and stamina, they'll be better for it next week.

Disappointed Roos wasn't true to his word and brought in Bevan and Ablett at the last moment. Hopefully he proved whatever he needed to prove.

At least we played the kids...

[liz]

A lot of wrist slashing going on in here, but it often happens that when a team has a game won, they run away with a margin not representative of the game as a whole. Even in that final quarter some of our prime movers (Goodes, ROK, Macca) were working very hard but we were turning it over at our half-forward line and the Blues were rushing it down the ground for an easy goal.

Trade Barlow due to two blues?? Come on. One was a smothered disposal - yes it was a mistake but he wasn't the only one to have a disposal smothered. And while the free against him was there, I've seen Bazza held in far stronger bear hugs and not get even a sniff from the umpires. All in all I thought Barlow had an excellent game. He was tackling, chasing, found a lot of the ball and most of his delivery was almost perfect. I thought he was easily in our best half-dozen.

Smith's game was highly impressive. White's game was highly impressive. Jack made a couple of mistakes but did some very good stuff too. Vez struggled to find the ball but his set up of the final White goal showed both his reasonable pace on the burst and his footy brain - not to mention that he was thinking "team" from a player sometimes prone to be selfish around goal. Grundy was one of our better defenders - not his fault Kruezer is 3 inches taller. Hannebury didn't look the least bit overawed. (If he's not too sore and he's done his homework, I'd give him another game next week.)

We just need to get more miles into the legs of several players, and start to eliminate some of the energy-sapping stupid turnovers.

[2005]

Carlton 19.10 124
Sydney 9.9 63

An absolutely disgraceful performance.

Watching something else ??

Sometimes its better not to comment if you didnt see the game.
If you did you really havent watched the game properly.
We were pretty good for a half, actually impressive in some parts.
Outplayed in the last quarter no doubt and outscored as well though it wasnt a disgraceful performance at all.
Jesse White, Nick Smith very good games and Daniel Hannebery as got a future as well. Luke Ablett and Paul Bevan were very ordinary though.

Scoreboard really didnt reflect how we played I thought.

[rojo]

I have just been listening to Bryce Gibbs being interviewed on ABC radio and it was interesting to hear from him how Ratten changed the Blues game plan after half time because of the way they were being held by the Swans and in Bryce's opinion that is what made the difference.

I don't like to coach-bash but for some reason the Swans seem to get out coached, or our game plan is just not effective any more. We don't ever seem to make effective counter moves. Is it always the fault of the players who are trying to stick to an ineffective game plan? In the 3rd quarter when the Swans couldn't seem to get the ball past the half-forward line, and then past the centre line, was it because there were only a couple of Swans left in the forward line, or that those in the forward line were not leading up towards the ball?

[Bear]

Put simply, our bottom six are well below most other teams.

[stellation]

Trade Barlow due to two blues?? Come on. One was a smothered disposal - yes it was a mistake but he wasn't the only one to have a disposal smothered. And while the free against him was there, I've seen Bazza held in far stronger bear hugs and not get even a sniff from the umpires. All in all I thought Barlow had an excellent game. He was tackling, chasing, found a lot of the ball and most of his delivery was almost perfect. I thought he was easily in our best half-dozen.

I agree with that, I thought Barlow was solid today. I thought it was a smart coaching move to pop him on the otherside of the centre line, well done Roos.

[swans song]

Put simply, our bottom six are well below most other teams.

and slower

[Bloody Hell]

Put simply, our bottom six are well below most other teams.

Name and shame!

[stellation]

A lot to like about Nick Smith- good football brain, good disposal, good speed, good defensive work. Looked tall against the small forwards but didn't give up any pace. Wonderful. Handsome, too!

[MarshallG]

Looks like the era has well and truly come to an end.

It's been a helluva ride and kinda made up for those years in the 70's and 80's.

Don't see the point in slagging off the players or the coach. Pointless slagging off the media for "enjoying themselves".

My 7 year old son was actually crying half way into the last quarter saying "Dad I wanna go home".

We have great administration and a fine culture. We'll be back sooner than most teams, no need to bottom out. It would be great to get some higher picks.

White was impressive.

It's gonna be a sombre night at Crown.

I hope we beat Melbourne next week. Never forgave the cheer squad leadership for jumping onto Melbourne when we moved to Sydney. One of my important matches of the year.

[BSA5]

Honestly, not a bad game. We fielded a very young and inexperienced team, the youngest we have for a long time, and when the pressure was on, they just couldn't quite deal with it. Fair enough, that ability comes with age and experience. What's important, what we can take from the game, is that early on, when both sides were fresh and firing, they showed what they will be capable of.

Barlow: Great game. Took them on, used the ball fantastically well. Was tried down back against Fisher, that didn't work, but when played on the wing and half forward, showed what he can do. People are criticising him for what was simply a good smother by the opposition, and being asked to do something he has never done before. He was trying to move it forward, it didn't come off because of some individual brilliance, and we discovered that he's not much of a defender.

Smith: Great game. Took Betts and Yarran throughout the game and did fantastically well.

Bird: 16 touches, 4 tackles, 3 clearances. Pretty typical game from Birdy this year, had some good touches, probably didn't have enough TOG to make a big impact, but always showing what he's capable of.

Jack: I thought he did pretty well on Murphy in the end. Murphy got away a bit late, and that 50 he gave up was frustrating, but he showed his ability, and contributed.

White: Got a scoring shot out of most of the opportunities offered to him. His supply really dried up in the second half, but his presence was fantastic. Real shining light for us.

Hannebery: Quiet, didn't impose himself, but had some nice touches. Showed he has the skills and mentality, now he's just got to work on his strength.

Ablett showed enough to maintain some trade value. Bevan wasn't too bad, but he should be up forward for the entire game, as Nick Smith is showing as much defensively and more offensively off half back. O'Keefe: 3 votes. If Judd steals them off him then that's almost as bad as Goodes getting 2 against Geelong last year.

In a game I was hoping but not quite expecting to win, I saw enough from players with very little experience to be happy with where our future is going. Against a team that is far more settled, has a larger and more experienced group of 20-25 year olds, is riddled with high draft picks, and will be looking for a Premiership next year, we got in front for a while, were within 9 points at 3/4 time, and in the end only got blown away in the last quarter when the Blues' greater experience and fitness showed. We did fine.

[ugg]

Summary of Roos's press conference

• (On what went wrong) Combination of talent that Carlton have been able to assemble and the drop off from 1 team and another team that is building their list and has talent to hurt you. If you take the pressure off and the intensity drops, as it did for us, that's obviously the end result.
• (Reactions) One of the most disappointing games of the last 7 years. Generally we fight hard and can swing the momentum back, we were able to do it in the 3rd but in the last dropped off significantly. You have to give them credit, those young guys have 3-4 pres-seasons. We played them last year here and got over the line and our fitness was probably better. Now that group they've assembled are really fit and their fitness levels are matching their talent levels which are enabling them to run out games better what they have in the previous couple of years.
• (What did you say to them) DIdn't speak to them for long. As a group, they're disappointed, and the proof will be in how they play next week. As a coach, there's not much you can do after the game you lose the game, you tell em what you think of the performance and you got to wait a week to see what the response is.
• (On Jesse White being the solution up forward) Well, it's up to Jesse and we saw that today. He has enough talent to play AFL footy, he's still young and still learning and has a lot of work to do to become a consistent AFL player. But it was a big step for him today, I think he kicked 4 goals in the end, he's certainly at the start of his career and has a long, long way to go to become a consistent AFL player.
• (On the timing of the Hall of Fame dinner) It is disappointing to have to front up to the HOF after a performance like that. But I'm sure the majority of the guys there will be talking about the 2005 premiership than today's game but certainly you'd like to go into the function on a high as a footy club. So it is disappointing from that point of view
• (On Ted Richards) Broken rib and punctured his lung, off to hospital. I don't know what the ramifications of that are, obviously it's a serious injury, but I spoke to him and he said he's okay
• (On Carlton playing finals) I think the expectation at the beginning of the year was that Carlton were going to play in the finals. The nature of the draft is that you've been down there for so long, the amount of talent that they've been able to assemble, so I think everyone will be expecting, eincluding themselves, and I didn't see anything today that changed my mind. I certainly had them in the 8 at the start of the year. It's always hard to compare other teams, but they are a genuine Top 8 team because of their assembled talent. They are on course to do what they set out to do at the start of the year.