- Aug 22, 2014
- 13,866
- 50,411
- AFL Club
- Carlton
We were really good at scoring, its something we improved a lot from our 2023 season, the big problem is we went from the 5th best defence (maybe 4th) in 2023 to the 12th in 2024.
WE were the 18th ranked team from conceding goals from D50 stoppages, 10 goals worse than 17th, we were down the bottom all year.
It’s hard to rationalise how we were so bad for so long and we failed to address it mid season.
The footy shows on a few occasions showed Saad to be one of our worse culprits in this area which was a big surprise.
The positive out of this is, if we could defend as a group in 2023 and failed in 24 with the same group, we can get back to that in 25, its purely a coaching issue imo.
Attacking and defending don't exist in isolation.
The reality here is that we likely got worse at defending because we got better at attacking.
If we overtune it next year, we could go back to being better at defending but worse on attack again.
The tricky part is finding the balance between the two - how to score consistently without leaving yourself too exposed on the counter, and how to shut down opposition scores while leaving yourself avenues to rebound and score yourself.
It's partly a coaching thing, but it's just as much on the players. The coach can't play the game for them from the box, they need to be able to read the game and make the right decisions.