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This 100%. It just seems a cop-out on the part of the coaching staff who seem so rigid in what they are doing. When all our midfielders were fit they randomly dropped Hewett to the reserves and played Kennedy full forward, back pocket and in the ruck. Those two are probably the most...

I genuinely don't think this is correct. Cripps - have a look at these highlights and you can see plenty of run and burst. Probably gets 'off' from centre bounces as much as anyone in the league. But then also look at the highlights and notice that every single one is him in a tight, contested...

I hate the argument that our midfield is one-dimensional. If it appears that way it is a fault of coaching/vision and (to a lesser extent) injury management as much as anything. Across our midfield we have a bunch of unique tools who have, IMO, been underdeveloped and underutilised: - Cripps...

I really hope we learn from our past mistakes and don't bring in Houston. If you look at what succesful clubs (Geelong Sydney, Hawthorn, Richmond in their prime) do, they pay heavily for superstars in key positons and midfield only (Dangerfield, Cameron, Franklin, Mitchell/O'Meara, Lynch...

I think if you watched Carlton games this year (instead of looking at out of context stats) it was pretty clear that Cripps had the perfect storm to poll votes. The storm includes the following: 1. Cripps was in perfect health and good form right across the year; meanwhile 2. His 'flashier'...

Clearly a superior method of awarding the medal would be to get Bigfooty posters to decide the votes, based purely on stats (not rewatching the game), 4-5 months after the fact. Or if they can't be bothered looking at the stats, we could just let the same set of Bigfooty posters decide who the...

Was he though? In the 9 game winning streak that took us to finals, he was listed by the club as being in the best players 3x. The club typically named between 6-9 players in wins. In that streak he was fairly clearly behind Cripps, Walsh, Curnow, McKay, Weitering, Cerra, Silvagni, Newman...

The most important ability a player can have is availability. Martin has missed 7, 11, 10, 13, and 21 games since joining Carlton - he has managed to play in 54 out of a possible 115 matches for us. He's also turning 30 before the start of next season. It's unlikely to get a lot better at this...

I have a different perspective to those who think we should just be layering in speed or whatever bit pieces we can shake out elsewhere. I don't think you should copy the latest trend - instead, I think you lock down your stars and build around them, and in so doing create the NEXT trend across...

"And with that, a mighty roar went up from the Magpie army. They had successfully avoided finals, because the finals were haunted. And then they all celebrated Carlton's loss with a nice cool glass of turnip juice..."

The big question for me is why can't this team lose normally? In the end, to have the injury luck we did and still sneak into finals is a good thing, and probably it ends a fair result. But look at those losses: - r5 vs Adelaide. Unbeaten, playing at home against a bottom 4 team we kick 14.4 to...

Why on earth can't we just lose nornally? I don't think anyone expected a win. But with a heavily underdone and disorganised team surely the thing to do was pick the best 22 possible, got out fighting hard, look a ltttle outclassed for 3/4 but hang in there, then run out of steam at the end...

His treatment of Matt Kennedy today was an utter joke. Voss plays favourites and has since he joined. It's clear that doesn't include Kennedy, who gets shafted all over the ground (including being forced to ruck) and never actually gets to play in position in the midfield. Meanwhile Cerra...

I should have added for neutral supporters who may not be aware - Kennedy's wife gave birth to their first child yesterday. He left her in hospital to fly to Brisbane for this... It's an all-time howler in terms of player management

Because Voss is having an absolute lend tonight. Poor Kennedy. You could equally say any of: Why is Kennedy starting at full forward? Why is Kennedy the backup ruck? Why is Kennedy not getting any midfield minutes, at all, not even pinch hitting? Might as well complete the humiliation by...

Why would you bother to plan fpr the All Australian half back flank? Our system will stop him. We have all of Motlop, Fantasia AND Durdin there to apply forward pressure! Woest coaching move of the night has to be a toss up between that and playing your second ruck as a sub, using a 190cm...

This is the worst coached game of football i have ever seen There is no game plan at all other than 'Docherty is back... do it for him'. The number of bleedingly obvious mis steps... We didn"t tag Zorko with Cincotta, and instead played Durdin/Motlop. Zorko has 200m gained in the first...

I think it is honestly.just about who they think can play the desired structure best. Fantasia is better pushing up into the midfield as a half forward/wing. Cincotta can play a stopping role up forward but doesn't link up on the outside well. They are competing for different spots imo - if...

In all seriousness, this has been a year where we were highly competitive, but had some disastrous injury luck - from Docherty in round 0 through TDK suffering horrible injuries just as he was breaking out, to the Hawthorn debacle right as we approached finals. In the grand scheme of things, to...

I liked the part where he wrote that Curnow amd McKay were off the table, so... Jack Silvagni? How are Melbourne fans feeling about a 26yo fringe undersized ruck coming off a knee injury? If Carlton are in play (and lots of signs point to this) I suspect Adam Cerra might be involved. Is he a...

It has to be Essendon, right? Both Carlton and Collingwood struggle to commit to this, i think. Both would have to give up core pieces and are already too thin, and may just not feel the time is right to go all in. Can Carlton give up McKay AND picks on the gamble that it makes them good enough...

I think there are bigger questions around expansion. The extra Queensland team helps nationalise the competition, ensuring there is (on average) a game in Queensland every week - as there will be in every state except Tassie. As others have said, the Gold Coast is designed to be a...

When played as a deep forward in 2021, McKay won the Coleman medal. When Curnow returned in 2022, McKay got pushed up the ground and into a different role (initially because Curnow was still proppy on his knee and couldn't cover the ground). Big H ended up playing a lot further from goal...

I hate the idea of a 10 team finals series for two reasons: - It rewards mediocrity. Do we really NEED the teams finishing 9th and 10th in finals? It's been awesome the last few years having had genuine competition to get in... even if stressful for Carlton supporters. Imagine that was removed...

Now that the dust has settled a little, I want to give another shout-out to George Hewett. He had a career high in disposals last week against West Coast. Three weeks ago against Collingwood he had a career-high 20 contested possessions. Today - 32 touches, 6 tackles and a goal. He was dropped 3...

Sore losing? We're on top of the world right now... or at least in the hemisphere who gets to keep playing footy in September... Might have lost the battle, but we won the war. But seriously, thanks for giving us a good tune-up before finals.

Feels nuts to even be trying to predict our team for this game... from what I can see on the injury list the following are maybes: Boyd (2-5 weeks), Cerra (???), Charlie (test), TDK (2-3), C Durdin (played today, but shouldn't have), S Durdin (1-2), Fantasia (played today but shouldn't have)...

Carlton have 14 players currently listed as between 1-2 weeks on the injury list. Good luck game-planning for that? Who knows what you'll be facing... seems a lot for a 97 year old senior coach to have to process to be honest...

Big thanks to St Kilda for giving us a good matchup in what turned out to be a dead rubber. We were able to rest 10-12 of our blokes who just needed week or two more to tune the body for finals. Thankfully St Kilda showed up (unlike a few other cellar dwellars this weekend) and we were able to...

It's really no fun having banter threads with opposition teams who can't even make finals. Here Carlton are, extending our September streak once again. Haven't lost a final in Melbourne since 2001 (8,381 days, for those who count these things) and it doesn't look like that record will be broken...