Autopsy 2024 Rd 21 Carlton vs Collingwood 3 point loss - is our season over?

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Does this Carlton team take the "just another game", sanitized approach just a little far maybe?

They do the media and acknowledge the rivalry, but there is never any passion behind it. Pre-Voss we were actually saying the media that we will treat it the same as any other game. This doesn't wash with the supporters as these events are part of the appeal of being a supporter.

You listen to the Pies and they are clearer about how much they want to throw a spanner in our works. You have ex-players like Dane Swan talking about his hatred towards us. They just buy in.

 

[Benaly28]

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Makes it even more infuriating cause we don’t see that playing.


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[BringFevBack2021]

They do the media and acknowledge the rivalry, but there is never any passion behind it. Pre-Voss we were actually saying the media that we will treat it the same as any other game. This doesn't wash with the supporters as these events are part of the appeal of being a supporter.

You listen to the Pies and they are clearer about how much they want to throw a spanner in our works. You have ex-players like Dane Swan talking about his hatred towards us. They just buy in.

I can’t give away which club my friend worked for but it’s one of the big four, and he has connections at another big four that he’ll probably be working for next year

He reckons there is no internal discussion about the Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon rivalries

Some players take it personally but it’s largely dead

Charlie and Moore are friends
Cripps and Cameron are very, very good friends
Williams and Bobby hill are basically best mates

 

[myblueroan]

Watched the last quarter.

We have a fair few who stood up under pressure and played some fantastic footy.

Jack Martin

21

Jack Martin

Age

29

Ht

186cm

Wt

82kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.2

4star

K

10.0

4star

HB

6.3

4star

M

4.9

5star

T

3.7

5star

G

0.9

4star

D

14.9

4star

K

7.9

3star

HB

7.0

4star

M

4.3

4star

T

3.6

4star

G

1.1

5star

D

8.2

2star

K

4.6

2star

HB

3.6

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.0

4star

G

0.6

3star

is amazing.
Fog was fantastic all game
Crippa...
Lij!!
Weiters
Georgie
and Mattie Kennedy..take a bow!

It is interesting that a few 'sure things' have fallen over at the same time. Whether it was indeed training loads or long season effort exhaustion whether mental or physical. Whether the tweaking has backfired, who really knows!

To quote Shirley Bassey

"I LOVE, YOU HATE YOU, love you, hate you but I'll want you 'til the world stops turning.

For whatever you do,
I never, never, never want to be in love with any team but you."

 

[goreds]

True but I still believe our skill level is very poor especially under any pressure

Who in our side is an elite or very good ball user?

Back half, Newman but he gets dragged back to the goal square.
DC but no luck there.
Cerra, see above!
Charlie but he has 2 on him!

The system needs to vary, sometimes by hand and then by foot. We are one dimensional and it shows.

The opposition has stopped our clearances from the front of packs, time to look back to go forward with more spread on the 20 meter kicks…

 

[Beyond Blue]

The current Collingwood side value this rivalry more than our side does. They buy into the hatred big time. They get it.

Our players do not respect this rivalry like our supporters do.

Hopefully humbling losses like the 2022 final round and last night make our current playing group buy into rivalry, mind you I’m not sure how much pain this current group need to endure to get a bit of resolve into them. A lot have experienced a lot more losses than wins so you’d think they’d want to make the winning times last as long as they can. Pretty disappointing really.

 

[DangerousD]

I hope you’re right but do you base this on hope or data?

I said have numerous times our best can beat anyone. However, our form line is poor and we will likely be missing TDK & Cerra at a minimum going into finals

I also believe we have a number of key players just getting through because of injury

My concern is it’s not just one or two issues now

We have three games to go, against three teams below us on the ladder, granted we are out of form but two of these sides have nothing but pride to play for.

It is largely hope but the data to go off is that we are still a good scoring team, even in this poor run of form, we aren’t struggling to score.

I don’t see losing Cerra and Cotts as being a negative, since they have come back we have been trying to shoehorn players in to roles they aren’t suited to, hopefully Cowan comes back in to play half back and Carrol to play as the sub.

 

[Coops93]

The last three weeks represents some of the dumbest coaching I have ever witnessed. We've torched a 2 game break in second spot and now look likely to miss finals.

All season we have played a front half of the field game, based around winning the ball quickly at contests, belting it forward, keeping our players 1-v-1 and using a very high forward press to lock it in with multiple small forwards around the two bigs. We play endurance, defensive wings (Hollands/Cottrell/Acres) and rely on them to cover enormous amounts of ground without the ball. We have played a highly mobile backline with players who can interchange (Kemp/McGovern/Weitering/Newman) - and while they might give up size, it doesn't matter as long as we put on forward pressure and the ball isn't coming to their opponents advantage. The idea is to win territory, and if we do have to move the ball all our defenders are generally good kicks who can hit a target in the centre of the ground, then we handball and scramble it forward from there. We were the number one team for turnover differential, and when our midfield was pounding teams with big bodies (Cripps/Hewett/Kennedy) and had De Koning in form as almost an extra mid to help, we looked amazing. The risk with that style was if fast opponents got 'out the back', or if teams picked us apart with precision kicking and could exploit our smaller backline. Ok, but we were smashing everyone.

Some key measures here: vs Geelong (our last big win) we laid 22 tackles inside 50, and our small/medium forwards -Cincotta (playing as a defensive forward on Stewart), Fogarty, Owies, E Hollands, Williams and Fantasia laid 24 tackles.

Then the GWS game happened - TDK hurt his ankle early and got smashed around by Briggs, while not really being able to play that extra mid role. They have some of the best ball users in the league, picked our press apart, Hogan took some big marks on Kemp/McGovern, and we lost - by two goals, away, to a likely top 4 team. Big deal, right?

So the next week, Voss starts messing around. We play two rucks vs Bulldogs for the first time in eons, which means a resting ruck forward, and less forward pressure. This is compounded by playing an underdone Cottrell in a forward/wing role and an early injury to Williams (who had been great as a small forward). Oh, and we dropped Hewett - Mr Consistency and our best defensive mid - to bring in an underdone Cerra, play Kennedy as the sub so that Cincotta can play midfield... we still keep our same structure, but we're a bit all over the place, and in particular, they are able to move the ball deep to their big forwards. We lose by two goals, to a team that has subsequently smashed all comers, despite being off.

Two losses, some unusual circumstances, good opponents.

So the logical thing to do is to completely change the structure and play a loose man behind the ball, which we do the following week against North.

The problem with this is that our personnel are totally wrong for this. Doing this makes it much harder to put pressure up the ground - other teams can just simply run around our small forwards using their spare man. And with the current team, we struggle to move the ball. If you have a spare back, so does the other team, and so you can't just belt it up the middle to the big blokes - it'll get picked off. You have to spread the field, use your wings offensively, and have multiple marking and leading targets to play through. But we don't. Our wings are defensive and have shaky disposal - particularly given Acres got injured so it was Cottrell/Hollands. None of our small forwards are leading/marking targets. If Charlie/Harry come up the ground to help move the ball then there is no-one to kick to. If we blaze long Charlie/Harry have to play 1vs2 (or even 3 in the air).

So we narrowly beat North, but look unconvincing. Then we try the same thing against Port, and it also doesn't work. We hold Port to 79 points but kick our lowest score for the year. Obviously missing McKay and TDK for this makes it harder.

And then playing Collingwood we do the same again, allowing Howe and Moore (who had been horribly out of form) to play 2v1 vs our tall forwards. I can't remember us sitting back so deep and having to hold out like that all season - but this is a particularly negative game plan against the team in 11th spot. We manage 6 goals in three quarters and find ourselves 5 goals behind. When we do go forward, we're either turning it over trying to find outnumbered targets, or taking long range, low percentage shots at goal. In the last quarter, we go back to our original style, match them for numbers around the ground and stage a comeback, ultimately having a shot to win. The recipe was there all along - we just took too long to get back to what has worked for us so well.

Back to those key measures: at 3/4 time last night we had 1 tackle inside 50, and Fogarty/Cottrell/Owies/Motlop/Martin had combined for 2 tackles total. There's the game right there - complete lack of ability to put on forward pressure. In the last quarter we manage 7 tackles inside 50, and our small forwards contribute 4 of those.

The key thing for me is that there is still hope. If we go back to what we were doing - big bodied midfield, forward pressure focus - we should still rally and make finals. Voss has shown the abiltiy to respond and in particular, keep morale up and get players performing well with their backs against the wall, so hopefully this can be turned around.

Very good post.

 

[tarczonandjane]

I can’t give away which club my friend worked for but it’s one of the big four, and he has connections at another big four that he’ll probably be working for next year

He reckons there is no internal discussion about the Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon rivalries

Some players take it personally but it’s largely dead

Charlie and Moore are friends
Cripps and Cameron are very, very good friends
Williams and Bobby hill are basically best mates

A very interesting observation, Fev. And it has some similar grounding in other sports too. The word has been very strong for some time that relations between Man Utd and Liverpool are quite cordial off the field, but the collective administrations can’t own up to it because they know their fans would burn their respective stadiums to the ground.

I’d not be surprised if the big four in the AFL are somewhat tight as well.

 

[Bearded Carpenter]

Teams outside the 8 are playing really well. Before last night pies, only a couple of games behind being around a top 4 team.

Rather than thinking we couldn’t even beat a team outside the 8 shouldn’t it rather be we lost to a team that’s around the same place we are currently at.

And we only played well for 1 quarter.

We did not get pumped. Top of the ladder did.

Our best is scintillating, our worst is all to regular.

We are 2 games behind top of the ladder sitting 7th.

Such an even year.

 

[Gethelred]

Back half, Newman but he gets dragged back to the goal square.
DC but no luck there.
Cerra, see above!
Charlie but he has 2 on him!

The system needs to vary, sometimes by hand and then by foot. We are one dimensional and it shows.

The opposition has stopped our clearances from the front of packs, time to look back to go forward with more spread on the 20 meter kicks…

We need release valves.

In the past, when opposition clamped down on Saad, Newman would get off the leash with 30 odd and slice them to pieces; now they're sitting on Newman and Saad isn't quite as fast as he was preinjury, and he's struggling to do more than play strong defensive back pocket. Boyd is playing about the same as he used to, but there's increased scrutiny because the mids are getting roundly beaten; where his point of difference lies from our other BP options is the length of his accurate disposal - he doesn't read the play particularly well on disposal, but he can hit a target if given time at greater ranges than the entire back six including Newman - and intercept marking. Cerra in for Cowan loses yet more range; Cowan, in addition to intercepting and being a good deal faster than the entire back six except Saad and Boyd also gets a good 10m extra by foot whenever he kicks it. This is a significant point of difference, as it lets us set up slightly further back from a hack kick which leads to more marks as we know where the ball is going to land and our opponents don't.

Sydney in their good patch had release valves. If you clamped down on Heeney, Warner, Guilden and Fox still tore you up through the middle and Papley/Amartey served as excellent goal kickers; if Papley wasn't on, Heeney; if Warner wasn't on, Heeney or Guilden; if the smalls weren't firing, Grundy, McDonald and Amartey. If you look at the quality sides of the last 20ish years, they each had release valves when an opposition side brought pressure to bear where they felt you were weakest. It's all very well and good to target Hawthorn '13 on around the ball; they'll set up to carve you to pieces and harass the clearance into a turnover. Sit a stopper on Buddy; he suddenly becomes the most expensive dummy full forward in the game, pulling the bloke on him all the way up to the wing so Breust, Gunston and Roughead could make hay. Man Rance, he'll switch with Grimes, Houli or Astbury and one of them will take over intercept marking. Hell, when he retired they actually got harder to stop because they became less predictable.

Earlier in the year, we looked as though we were working on developing this sort of thing. Cripps/Walsh tagged, Hewitt becoming the receiver. Against Freo, we played a slow possession game like their own across the final two terms.

For whatever reason, there's no release valves in our game at the moment.

 

[DangerousD]

When you say we can't defend, I just want to add that half of that issue is that we can't defend in the midfield. Funnily enough, when they get themselves behind and have nothing to lose, they are suddenly everywhere in that midfield, shutting down space and hitting hard. So, we can defend ... we just don't.

Our game plan relies on us having run late, but you can't win a game in the last 10 minutes by trying to stay in touch for the last 100.

When I say can’t defend, I mean the team as a whole can’t limit the opposition scoring.

 

[Arr0w]

Yeah 11-6 his record is.

However ...

We are 9-1 with TDK as the only ruckman

We are 2-5 with TDK and Pittonet in the side

We are 1-3 with Pittonet the only ruckman

I know the numbers, nothing to do with my response

 

[Bundy Bear Bogan]

If I had a dollar for every time someone said they stated something and was laughed at, bullied, run out of town ...

These things usually have an element of truth, a lot of hyperbole, and missing context.

The reality is that just about every opinion posted here, has some support even if unpopular, and someone else has already expressed the opinion somewhere else.

None of us are oracles. We get as much wrong as we get right ... even if we don't admit it.

Speak for yourself although my mum might disagree

 

[Bundy Bear Bogan]

I'm known for my in-depth thoughts

 

[Bundy Bear Bogan]

I could go on and on.....

 

[BM123]

Yeah 11-6 his record is.

However ...

We are 9-1 with TDK as the only ruckman

We are 2-5 with TDK and Pittonet in the side

We are 1-3 with Pittonet the only ruckman

I miss TDK so god damn much.

Our midfield isn't the same without him.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I know the numbers, nothing to do with my response

It does a little, as you were implying that the loss of TDK hasn't changed your expectations for the season. By mentioning his losses, you are saying that he isn't as important as was being made out.

By the way, I can't challenge what you say about your own method for evaluating a season in so far as looking for a certain win/loss range and not changing for the whole season. However, it just messes with my commonsense that injuries, a patch of rich form, a patch of awful form, does not affect someone's view.

Human beings alter perspective and parameters constantly based on new information. You saying you don't do that is surprising to me.

So one more win is going to meet your benchmark and make you satisfied with our season, despite being safely in 2nd place just a few weeks back, even if we miss the finals? Anybody who expected more after our surge up the ladder, needs to manage their expectations better? It kind of feels like you can't lose by hedging things this way.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Speak for yourself although my mum might disagree

I predicted you were going to say that, but I was taunted, teased, hung, drawn and quartered for saying so. My how the turns have wormed.

 

[Arr0w]

It does a little, as you were implying that the loss of TDK hasn't changed your expectations for the season. By mentioning his losses, you are saying that he isn't as important as was being made out.

Best you go back to the start of the interaction, I didn't raise TDKs name

By the way, I can't challenge what you say about your own method for evaluating a season in so far as looking for a certain win/loss range and not changing for the whole season. However, it just messes with my commonsense that injuries, a patch of rich form, a patch of awful form, does not affect someone's view.

+/- it evens out in the wash

Human beings alter perspective and parameters constantly based on new information. You saying you don't do that is surprising to me.

People on this board flip on their own opinion on a weekly basis, that surprises me

So one more win is going to meet your benchmark and make you satisfied with our season,

Nothing to do with satisfied, just a realistic outcome

despite being safely in 2nd place just a few weeks back, even if we miss the finals?

All evens out

Anybody who expected more after our surge up the ladder, needs to manage their expectations better?

People can manage their expectations anyway the want

It kind of feels like you can't lose by hedging things this way.

I don't hedge, I laid this out before the start of the year

Nor do I flip from a high of everything thing is great, to everything is crap, then back again

 

[BM123]

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I still feel guilty for being upset at Cripps last year during our down patch.

He's a champion who desperately needs some support. Best extractor in the league and we have no quick mids for him to pass to....

 

[GenYBlue]

I still feel guilty for being upset at Cripps last year during our down patch.

He's a champion who desperately needs some support. Best extractor in the league and we have no quick mids for him to pass to....

Yep I'll put my hand up for going sour on him then too, I regret it.

We need to recruit some silk next off-season... we're wasting his prime years.

 

[Graffy4242]

The Motlop miss was beyond inexcusable.

Besides the loss of 5 points that just might have won us the game, the momentum and energy that was sapped out of both the team and the crowd was a killer. In a game where we really seemed to lack positive periods of play, we had the ability to kick that goal and go into half time with things trending in our favour and he totally ****ed up the simplest of kicks.

Reminiscent of Corey Durdin at the start of the 4th against the Cats (first time we played them).

Really believe we may have won the game if Motts executes like he should do 99 times from 100.

 

[charred_fate]

I disagree with takes which suggest we don’t learn and try to improve as a football club. Perhaps some of our efforts are more successful than others. And perhaps to an extent we have ended up having a large amount of issues to overcome because of where we were at. But some of the efforts at improving I can see are:

• identified lack of wings: brought in Blacres and Ollie Hollands
• identified lack of small forwards: brought in Fantasia to try and create competition for spots
• lack of turnover game: developed turnover game in 2024 preseason
• injury management: made mid season tweaks

I think in the AFL these days, it is hard to get changes in multiple areas at the same time. So it is about fixing a couple of areas of need. Every club is going to have holes in its list. That’s the nature of the comp. And if you’ve got holes in your list, it dictates the sort of game you can play.

Our problem is that the lack of pace and footskills dictates the type of footy we can play. We need to start addressing it in the offseason (Walshy posted a video of a guy called Xavier Lindsay who I would love to have on the list), because there is about to be a second iteration of this list when guys like Marchbank, Martin, and Cuningham are no longer on it.

Again, I’m confident the club will take steps to address it. integration of Billy Wilson and Cooper Lord into the seniors in 2025 might offer some advantages along these lines (if Lord is slightly quicker defensively, as has been claimed), but there will need to be more done. I’m sure the club will take the steps that they can.

The problem with this approach is that we’re always chasing to fill holes - we need to be ahead.. some of the issues were identifiable from a distance well before we acted on them… and some of the present issues we’ve created even though we could foresee what we were building - eg, trading in Cerra. I like Cerra and he’s played some amazing football for us but even at the time I was concerned that we were bringing in more of the same, when we needed particular types to complement what we already had/were building.

 

[Bearded Carpenter]

2 games seperate 1st and 8th.
Has there been a closer season than this with 3 games remaining?