Preview 2023 Rd 21 Carlton vs St Kilda Sunday August 6 3:20PM @ Marvel Stadium

[Aphrodite]

Final Team is in …

2 changes


IN: Fisher
OUT: Cerra (hamstring), McGovern (hamstring)

After starting last weekend as sub, Paddy Dow

15

Paddy Dow

Age

25

Ht

184cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

7.0

3star

HB

7.1

4star

M

2.1

2star

T

2.9

4star

CL

2.6

4star

D

7.0

1star

K

4.0

1star

HB

3.0

2star

M

3.0

3star

T

2.0

3star

CL

0.0

1star

D

12.4

4star

K

5.8

3star

HB

6.6

4star

M

1.6

2star

T

2.8

5star

CL

2.6

5star

has been elevated into the starting side.

AFL team news: Two changes for Round 21

Carlton has named its Round 21 team to take on St Kilda.

www.carltonfc.com.au

Backs:	Brodie Kemp	Jacob Weitering	Nic Newman
Half-backs:	Alex Cincotta	Caleb Marchbank	Adam Saad
Centreline:	Sam Docherty	Patrick Cripps	Oliver Hollands
Half-forwards:	Jack Martin	Charlie Curnow	Zac Fisher
Forwards:	Jesse Motlop	Marc Pittonet	Matthew Owies
Followers:	Tom De Koning	George Hewett	Paddy Dow
Interchange:	Blake Acres	Matthew Cottrell	David Cuningham
	Lachie Fogarty
Emergencies:	Jaxon Binns	Ed Curnow	Sam Durdin
	Josh Honey

 

[Gethelred]

St Kilda vs Carlton

6/8/2023

3:20pm, Marvel​

Form Line

St Kilda

L-L-W-L-L-W-W

St Kilda have managed to just arrest a massive slide down the ladder by winning at the right time over the last two months, winning games against the Hawks, the Roos and the Eagles; not great wins certainly, but absolutely necessary ones. The games they’ve lost in that time have been to the Suns away, the Dees and Brisbane at Marvel, and to Richmond at the G.

While losing to Brisbane in Melbourne is something we also have done, losing to the Suns away is a draining loss and you should not really be losing to Brisbane at Marvel anyway given they play there once in a blue moon. It should also be worth noting that when they lost to Melbourne, Melbourne were in the middle of a slump in which they forgot how to score.

Carlton

L-W-W-W-W-W-W

We’ve had a good two months, but they followed a cataclysmic six game losing streak. What we need to see is how long lasting this patch of form is; can we sustain it until the end of the season and take to the finals from 4th or 5th, or do we scrape in in 7th or 8th after missing games we should rightly be winning with our best footy?

Head to Head

L-W-L-W-L-L-L

For all that we’re in a healthy vein of form at the moment, St Kilda have had our measure for a long time. This is the first year since 2018 that we’ve played them twice in a season, and as you can see their record against us is pretty strong.

Having said that, we were rather shit in 2018, and we’ve only really been patchy since. It has taken until the last six weeks that we’ve seemed to click; perhaps now we can get the record flipped.

Analysis

St Kilda are a high possession team, sitting on top of the ladder for disposals per match (391.1 per match) and for marks per match (100.1); when they have possession, they are more than happy to share it around, waiting for an opening. The consequence of this is that they only average 52.4 inside 50’s a game; moving the ball slowly leads to less speed on the ball and thus makes field position harder to achieve. The odd thing there is, where some teams who like to go slow might do so to mitigate clangers and turnovers, St Kilda are second worst for clangers and third worst for turnovers; they might maintain possession, but they don’t really give much of a **** about giving the ball back. Their plan therefore has to be to set up behind the ball, retain possession as best they can when they have it but maintaining that behind the ball setup at all times to prevent scoring the other way and to intercept themselves, something which they’re pretty good at (3rd most intercept possessions in the comp). They drive their opposition into overpossession to try and break their zone – only averaging a 9.8 possession differential, despite being the highest possession side in the comp – and expect you to struggle against them while they sit waiting for a bad mistake.

We conversely are still a high possession side but we have been lower than our opposition for 3 of our 6 win streak, with our last 3 wins being from a position of winning less disposals than our opposition. But the most significant difference in our play over the last two months has been in tackling; we’ve moved from a negative tackling differential at time of playing Port and a 59.7 tackles per game average to averaging 70 tackles per match over the last six and losing the tackle count once (against Freo, by 3 tackles whilst winning 50 more disposals for the game). That’s a huge change and it bears out how much more effective we are at scoring, both from stoppage and from turnover.

Observations

Here is how I expect the match to unfold. Rowan Marshall

19

Rowan Marshall

Age

28

Ht

201cm

Wt

105kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

15.4

4star

K

8.8

3star

HB

6.6

4star

CL

3.4

5star

HO

20.2

5star

D

12.9

3star

K

9.3

4star

HB

3.6

2star

CL

2.8

4star

HO

17.8

5star

D

10.6

3star

K

5.8

3star

HB

4.8

4star

CL

1.0

3star

HO

7.8

5star

’s presence has not lead to a positive hitout or clearance differential for the season for St Kilda, so expect that despite his superior physicality TDK might get first look at the ball in the middle. Their on ball group has dominated ours, regardless of who has been in there for the last few years; they’ve excelled at nullifying Cripps by plonking Jack Steele

9

Jack Steele

Age

28

Ht

187cm

Wt

90kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

20.9

5star

K

8.7

3star

HB

12.2

5star

M

3.7

4star

T

6.8

5star

CL

3.6

5star

D

21.3

5star

K

10.0

4star

HB

11.3

5star

M

4.0

4star

T

5.8

5star

CL

4.6

5star

D

16.8

4star

K

5.0

2star

HB

11.8

5star

M

2.6

3star

T

6.4

5star

CL

3.6

5star

on him and letting Steele work the other way once possession has won. The interesting thing right now though is that we’re not relying on Cripps to the same extent as we have in previous years; Hewitt, Dow and Acres (and Cerra, but he won’t be in against the Aints) all played their role against Collingwood as far as clearances went. We have also been utterly exceptional over the last month through the midfield in terms of contested ball and clearances, so this will be an interesting battle to watch; if our form continues despite the personnel issues, we win the midfield battle tidily, but the St Kilda on ball brigade should not be underestimated.

Up forward for us, if Martin, Owies, and Motlop’s form continues we should be able to allow Charlie to be at his effective best, but at present we are only as effective as often as we can bring the ball to ground. Last week against Collingwood, Charlie, Pitto and TDK were instrumental at bringing the ball to ground; they do this again – and there’s every reason to think they will, seeing as it appeared to be a clear coaching directive – and the smalls go to work.

Something that’s been a little lost in the wash from last week was that while Collingwood missed gettable shots late, both sides were a good deal worse at conversion than usual, with Fog, Owies and a few others missing shots they’d usually convert. Let’s hope that’s not a trend or was a result of the increased pressure last Friday night.

Down back, without King their forward line is decidedly more mobile; Cordy, Caminiti and Wood make up the taller component, but the real risk is through Butler and Higgins as well as goals through midfield. Tim Membrey

28

Tim Membrey

Age

30

Ht

188cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.2

3star

K

8.1

3star

HB

4.1

3star

M

5.8

5star

T

1.5

3star

G

1.8

5star

D

9.4

2star

K

6.5

3star

HB

2.9

2star

M

4.5

4star

T

1.3

2star

G

1.5

5star

D

9.6

3star

K

4.8

2star

HB

4.8

4star

M

3.2

4star

T

1.4

4star

G

0.6

3star

– who usually marks his games against Carlton on a calendar – is expected to miss with a knee injury, so that is one less tall to worry about. Matchups will be interesting; Cordy might miss through concussion, and Higgins has a knee concern that might impact his availability as well. This is a little ‘watch this space’, as we cannot know who plays on who without seeing who’s available.

Other Considerations

If we were to rest Weitering at any point, this’d be the week to do it; they have no major gorilla forwards for him to take, and St Kilda via Membrey usually expose him for a lack of pace in the past. Kemp and Gov (and Newman, and Saad, and Cincotta) are all fast enough to take the remaining players; Saad on Butler, Kemp on Caminiti and Gov/Newman as defensive pivots with agreeable matchups might work and work well.

Do I think this will happen? No.

Prediction

Without King and Membrey, with Higgins and Cordy potentially being missing and them being down a mid in Seb Ross, St Kilda are a side that will require speed on the ball to score, something they themselves have admitted via their play in the first term against Hawthorn in which they kicked 9 goals. We will not give them the space or the opportunity required to play in the manner they need to kick a winning score; even during our worst patch of form, we were able to confine sides to lower scores. Our defense this year has been impeccable, and I expect that to continue.

How this game goes is down rather to how well we bring the ball to ground inside 50, and whether the absence of key midfielders hurts our ability to win the ball against a midfield that historically speaking has had the wood over us for a while.

This is an excellent opportunity to see if Carlton has changed, if the players are getting ahead of themselves to the degree the fans are.

Carlton by 40 points.

 

[Zlatan]

In: Dow
Out: Cerra

We’re running out of midfielders but good to see Cuningham and Fogarty pinch hitting in there to fill the void.

 

[Arr0w]

Okay, this is when sides start to take notice

Saints/Ross will try to completely stifle the game

It will be dour for most of the contest, but no matter the scores, we will double their output

 

[JustaBattler]

I hope Voss gets his game plan right for the game.

 

[Mondyboy]

Cerra out / Dow in. Binns sub (though probably ends up being Ed).


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[El Topo]

we owe this mob

 

[Blue_Fusion]

Dow went all right against the Saints a couple years ago.

 

[SurreyBlue]

Need to make sure there is no let down. Keep the foot down and finish off the season, starting with this.

 

[Pablito]

We need 2 more wins to play finals.

These guys are limping to the end of the year, we should be able to bury them.

 

[windows1]

If anyone writes ‘danger game’ I will spew up. Ban them if so.

Our game plan is superb. Fog Cuners and Martin have totally changed the side.

 

[ctwenty1]

we owe this mob

Yep

Revenge

 

[Mondyboy]

Yep

Revenge

Absolutely. They’ll treat it as their GF. But I soooooo want to bury them.


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[SpiritOfCarlton]

Marchbank a huge plus.

Made a couple of blues, but they were all down to getting back into the AFL 'pace'.

Will be better this week.

So much upside.

 

[Manhattanite]

Danger game

Yep could be a tough one for your mob


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[Manhattanite]

If we beat the Saints and Richmond beats Melbourne on Sunday then our game against the Dees could be our move to grab 4th place from them

We would have to win all four from here and Melbourne would have to lose to Tigers, Us and finally Swans at SCG in round 24. Hopefully swans are still alive at that time or want to send Buddy off with a win.

But there is now a small and growing chance it will be a Carlton v Collingwood Qualifying Final


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[FitzroyBlueBagger]

Back to 50 point plus wins…
We’re going to completely tear this pretentious mob of a club a massive new one…

Owed big time…

 

[Jimmae]

OUT: Pittonet

Send Kemp forward, and back TDK to continue perform in the ruck. Lessens the burden on the outside midfield rotation that's been picking up the slack a lot the last two games. Dow helps keep the inside rotation fresh.

Just give Kemp a simple role to shutdown an opponent and lead up to the ball carrier.

If Cerra doesn't come up, stick with the above plans and bring in Binns or O'Brien, subject to their form in today's game. The other can sub.

If McKay comes up, I'd probably give Owies the week off to keep him fresh for the remaining games. Played well, but he seemed to lack a yard at times.

 

[thylacine60]

If anyone writes ‘danger game’ I will spew up. Ban them if so.

Our game plan is superb. Fog Cuners and Martin have totally changed the side.

1000% this. The first "we can't be complacent" or " we can't afford to take them lightly" and I will come for you in the night.

 

[gab213]

OUT: Pittonet

Send Kemp forward, and back TDK to continue perform in the ruck. Lessens the burden on the outside midfield rotation that's been picking up the slack a lot the last two games. Dow helps keep the inside rotation fresh.

Just give Kemp a simple role to shutdown an opponent and lead up to the ball carrier.

If Cerra doesn't come up, stick with the above plans and bring in Binns or O'Brien, subject to their form in today's game. The other can sub.

If McKay comes up, I'd probably give Owies the week off to keep him fresh for the remaining games. Played well, but he seemed to lack a yard at times.

McKay? From everything we are hearing he would be lucky to be playing before the end of the home and away games.

 

[Michael Jezz]

I reckon Acres looked proppy. Could be a few who will not come up.
This is the week to debut Binns.
I hope we smash this mob with a coach full of excuses.
Rossy take a leaf out of Vossy's book

 

[athensblue]

Time for us to win and membrey no goals, no touches
Sick of seeing him kick bags against us

 

[Juddrockz]

Time for us to win and membrey no goals, no touches
Sick of seeing him kick bags against us

Tip Rat says hello.
We need to bury the Sainters and show all the nay sayers that we picked the right coach.

 

[THEYSEEMEROLLIN]

Danger game

You just worry about your game against a rebuilding Hawthorn. Talk about a Danger game

 

[THEYSEEMEROLLIN]

Back to 50 point plus wins…
We’re going to completely tear this pretentious mob of a club a massive new one…

Owed big time…

I'll never forget their fans bringing wooden spoons to throw at our members in the dark days of Pagan. Stain of a club with no right to arrogance after 150yrs of failing. Time to give them the whack they deserve and remind them who has all the shiny things in the trophy cabinet.

 

[Accidental genius]

Been a while since I’ve been this confident…

This has 50+ point win written all over it.