I honestly feel like both St Kilda and GCS are worse than Brisbane. But we won't beat either this year so meh
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AFLW 2024 - Round 9 - Indigenous Round - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Coaching Staff Brendon Bolton - Senior Coach - Locked in until end of 2020 (23/5/18)
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I honestly feel like both St Kilda and GCS are worse than Brisbane. But we won't beat either this year so meh
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AceAndy
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Agree they are both worse than Brisbane but i think we can get a win against GC , probably not against St Kilda.
Changing the senior coach over the next 2 seasons will make no difference.
Bolton could have played a man on man defence, played Mckay and Silvagni onball and perhaps with a better senior assistant we win 2 or 3 more games. He needed to be proactive with the captaincy last year. Primarily, it was never a 2 to 3 season rebuild. There is major work to be done in recruitment and reasonable questions to be asked about development, skills coaching and hardness but all those elements are not going to move the dial when s talent light list, incurs over 10 injuries a week over a season
Bolton could have played a man on man defence, played Mckay and Silvagni onball and perhaps with a better senior assistant we win 2 or 3 more games. He needed to be proactive with the captaincy last year. Primarily, it was never a 2 to 3 season rebuild. There is major work to be done in recruitment and reasonable questions to be asked about development, skills coaching and hardness but all those elements are not going to move the dial when s talent light list, incurs over 10 injuries a week over a season
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No we aren't.
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Like I said a while ago, still way too early to do anything about Bolton. Certainly not rushing to say he’s our man to win us a flag, but certainly don’t want him sacked. But it has almost been three seasons with him now, we can assess how he does things by now.
He’s been dealt a tough hand this year. Lost his second best player and general down back in Docherty in the pre season. Our best midfielder from last season in Gibbs left. Wasn't replaced by anyone similar, there goes a 27 disposal a game ball winner. Gibbs was also much cleaner than a lot of our midfielders. Then we've had injuries to the likes of Kreuzer, Marchbank, Casboult etc which have affected our structure and Bolton is coaching against a fair bit of adversity. But that should not prevent him from being criticised.
All year on here people have been bashing our selections and how we've seemingly lost a number of games on Thursday night at the selection table. But the finger is never pointed in Bolton's direction. Why? Who else could possibly be to blame for the selection blunders the club has made all season?
The biggest problem I have is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent gameplan that Bolton wants us to eventually be executing with perfection. Last year we played very defensive and our wins came by wearing down these teams. This year we started out against Richmond playing with a bit of dare. We lost the game and they did get on top of us in the second half, but at least when we got the ball we scared Richmond a bit. Since then I don't think I've seen any of that dare.
In the games we've been belted in the players just run around looking like they have no clue. Nobody wants to take the game on and we play right into the hands of the defenders. Then when it's clear to Bolton that we're getting smashed he throws more players back, leaving Curnow or whoever stuck as the lone target to kick to when we win the ball.
Everyone has pointed out the issues with our defence all season and rightfully so. This is where Docherty in particular is a huge loss. I think playing the zone we do is the right thing, the execution is just the problem. All the good teams zone and they all use their intercept players as outlets to launch quick counter attacks. This is what I think Bolton wants Carlton to do eventually. But clearly there's either a leadership issue out on the field or Bolton isn't drilling into them enough that even though you may not be playing directly on the one opponent, you still need to be accountable. All year Liam Jones has given acres of space to the forward he is meant to be playing on. He seems to have it in his head that his job is simply to take intercept marks or be the third man across to spoil. Total disregard for his man a lot of the time, and when he has to play behind his man, he gets torched. Unfortunately with our injury issues you can't drop him like I would like, but why haven't things changed. Why is this still continually an issue? Is Bolton not noticing it? Same goes with Jones and a number of other defenders overrating their kicking ability and committing horrific turnovers which hurt us week after week. Obviously Bolton doesn't kick the ball for them, but coaches instruct them to play a certain way by foot. Overall the zone has been a disaster for a lot of this season. Maybe change it up to end the season, bring it back in next season when you've got better players?
The other glaring issue is obviously selection. This also comes back to Silvagni and his recruiting strategy. Almost every game this season we've had too many tall players. It happened a few times last season too, I remember Richmond running us off the park in round 1. I'm not an advocate for following trends and all that because trends change quickly in footy. But right now other clubs are not playing nearly as many slow tall footballers as we do. They have teams with genuine leg speed and versatility. Now again you can't blame Bolton solely for this because SOS is the list manager and there have been injuries, but there's been numerous games where we've played O'Shea, Weitering, Marchbank and Jones or something like that down back. They are not anywhere near versatile enough to be playing together. O'Shea has been gifted games all year, added absolutely nothing to our team and continued to get picked. Why? Then this week we play two ruckmen instead of bringing in McKay and Brisbane direct all their attention to Charlie Curnow while we bomb it to him all game. Okay yes McKay wasn't crashing packs at the AFL level and may not have been ticking all of the boxes the coaches want ticked. But how many of our young players have actually been ticking all the boxes this year. There's no way the likes of O'Brien, Petrevski-Seton etc are. They are being given games based on their potential and in the hope that they can grow over the season. But McKay seemingly isn't afforded this opportunity. He went pick 10 in his draft year. If he's any good, after a run of consecutive games he gets more confident, starts working harder and crashing packs. He shouldn't be moved in and out of the team like he's competing for a spot with Wayne Carey.
Finally, I've seen all year all the excuses posters and Bolton himself have given for poor performance. Injuries to the defence, lack of depth, in the midst of the rebuild etc. Not going to doubt that they're all factors in where we're at. But why can't we at least have the team show effort on a consistent basis. All year the Bulldogs have been dealing with injuries and have played numerous players that aren't much chop. Yet they haven't thrown up shit effort after shit effort like we have almost the entire season. Obviously they've got better experience which helps, but effort should be something any Carlton player can give. No matter how talented or experienced they are. Yet it doesn't seem to be and I think it has to come back to coaching again. Bolton and the club as a whole push this whole rebuild thing. I seriously think it has created an attitude within the playing group that it's okay to half arse things because it's a rebuild. They certainly seem to play with that sort of attitude.
He’s been dealt a tough hand this year. Lost his second best player and general down back in Docherty in the pre season. Our best midfielder from last season in Gibbs left. Wasn't replaced by anyone similar, there goes a 27 disposal a game ball winner. Gibbs was also much cleaner than a lot of our midfielders. Then we've had injuries to the likes of Kreuzer, Marchbank, Casboult etc which have affected our structure and Bolton is coaching against a fair bit of adversity. But that should not prevent him from being criticised.
All year on here people have been bashing our selections and how we've seemingly lost a number of games on Thursday night at the selection table. But the finger is never pointed in Bolton's direction. Why? Who else could possibly be to blame for the selection blunders the club has made all season?
The biggest problem I have is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent gameplan that Bolton wants us to eventually be executing with perfection. Last year we played very defensive and our wins came by wearing down these teams. This year we started out against Richmond playing with a bit of dare. We lost the game and they did get on top of us in the second half, but at least when we got the ball we scared Richmond a bit. Since then I don't think I've seen any of that dare.
In the games we've been belted in the players just run around looking like they have no clue. Nobody wants to take the game on and we play right into the hands of the defenders. Then when it's clear to Bolton that we're getting smashed he throws more players back, leaving Curnow or whoever stuck as the lone target to kick to when we win the ball.
Everyone has pointed out the issues with our defence all season and rightfully so. This is where Docherty in particular is a huge loss. I think playing the zone we do is the right thing, the execution is just the problem. All the good teams zone and they all use their intercept players as outlets to launch quick counter attacks. This is what I think Bolton wants Carlton to do eventually. But clearly there's either a leadership issue out on the field or Bolton isn't drilling into them enough that even though you may not be playing directly on the one opponent, you still need to be accountable. All year Liam Jones has given acres of space to the forward he is meant to be playing on. He seems to have it in his head that his job is simply to take intercept marks or be the third man across to spoil. Total disregard for his man a lot of the time, and when he has to play behind his man, he gets torched. Unfortunately with our injury issues you can't drop him like I would like, but why haven't things changed. Why is this still continually an issue? Is Bolton not noticing it? Same goes with Jones and a number of other defenders overrating their kicking ability and committing horrific turnovers which hurt us week after week. Obviously Bolton doesn't kick the ball for them, but coaches instruct them to play a certain way by foot. Overall the zone has been a disaster for a lot of this season. Maybe change it up to end the season, bring it back in next season when you've got better players?
The other glaring issue is obviously selection. This also comes back to Silvagni and his recruiting strategy. Almost every game this season we've had too many tall players. It happened a few times last season too, I remember Richmond running us off the park in round 1. I'm not an advocate for following trends and all that because trends change quickly in footy. But right now other clubs are not playing nearly as many slow tall footballers as we do. They have teams with genuine leg speed and versatility. Now again you can't blame Bolton solely for this because SOS is the list manager and there have been injuries, but there's been numerous games where we've played O'Shea, Weitering, Marchbank and Jones or something like that down back. They are not anywhere near versatile enough to be playing together. O'Shea has been gifted games all year, added absolutely nothing to our team and continued to get picked. Why? Then this week we play two ruckmen instead of bringing in McKay and Brisbane direct all their attention to Charlie Curnow while we bomb it to him all game. Okay yes McKay wasn't crashing packs at the AFL level and may not have been ticking all of the boxes the coaches want ticked. But how many of our young players have actually been ticking all the boxes this year. There's no way the likes of O'Brien, Petrevski-Seton etc are. They are being given games based on their potential and in the hope that they can grow over the season. But McKay seemingly isn't afforded this opportunity. He went pick 10 in his draft year. If he's any good, after a run of consecutive games he gets more confident, starts working harder and crashing packs. He shouldn't be moved in and out of the team like he's competing for a spot with Wayne Carey.
Finally, I've seen all year all the excuses posters and Bolton himself have given for poor performance. Injuries to the defence, lack of depth, in the midst of the rebuild etc. Not going to doubt that they're all factors in where we're at. But why can't we at least have the team show effort on a consistent basis. All year the Bulldogs have been dealing with injuries and have played numerous players that aren't much chop. Yet they haven't thrown up shit effort after shit effort like we have almost the entire season. Obviously they've got better experience which helps, but effort should be something any Carlton player can give. No matter how talented or experienced they are. Yet it doesn't seem to be and I think it has to come back to coaching again. Bolton and the club as a whole push this whole rebuild thing. I seriously think it has created an attitude within the playing group that it's okay to half arse things because it's a rebuild. They certainly seem to play with that sort of attitude.
certainly beginning to feel the heat
Gethelred
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I actually find that to be a whole lot measured than a significant amount of what you've said in the past, and there's not a great deal in there I disagree with.
I do differ from you here in two main areas; the fact that Bolton is not being blamed for selection - when that's precisely what happens ever single week, across the gameday and the postmatch threads when people lament us being too tall - and the notions of a lack of effort. Mid game injuries kill teams. The only game in which we suffered from a lack of effort where in game injuries haven't occurred was against Fremantle, and that sides are sluggish the match after the bye is fairly well documented.
Beyond that, there's not a great deal of trust or familiarity in each other's games out there at the moment. We've a whole bunch of kids that haven't played enough footy, and older blokes new to the club or simply not upto it. I'd be blaming SOS over Bolton anyway; as you have said, the current malaise we are experiencing is due to SOS's selection of talls over smalls for the first two years of his time at Carlton as list manager.
Beyond that, we're more or less in agreement.
if it's a Sos v Bolton blame game the ones you need to look at are MLG the ceo and Andrew mckay in that order!
that smells of disaster
it translates into one win for the season
that smells of disaster
it translates into one win for the season
LanceRomance
Brownlow Medallist
If the club knew internally that we would suck this much, Bolton is fine.
Judd was going on at the start of the season how the third year of a full rebuild is the toughest.... So on the strength of this argument I would suggest that the club knew we would suck and that Bolton is fine (for this year)
If improvement is not tangibly evident in the first third of '19, I suggest he will get the boot.
Judd was going on at the start of the season how the third year of a full rebuild is the toughest.... So on the strength of this argument I would suggest that the club knew we would suck and that Bolton is fine (for this year)
If improvement is not tangibly evident in the first third of '19, I suggest he will get the boot.
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More of a chance against these two than we ever were against Brisbane. I had us down for a 40+ loss against Lions. Tipping us against both of these though.
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Not sure on the best thread to pose these question, but I suppose it comes back to the coach, so here goes.
What are "football fundamentals"?
Why, after 3 seasons under our current coach, do we have players who need to "work on" or "focus on" these football fundamentals?
Because, and maybe this is just me, but I'd have thought by getting onto an AFL list, a player should have shown some capacity to perform the "fundamentals" of the bloody sport they're playing. How on earth are we getting to a point where players have been with our club for 3+ seasons and have forgotten what these fundamentals are or how to perform them?
I think we're in a really precarious position at the moment. We appear to have a list full of talented footballers, who can't or won't put in the basic, requisite effort. Honestly, I think the club is doing a disservice to these players by focusing so much on the long term. "Have patience", "It'll come", "We're building". Cool, so what motivation is there for the players to give everything? This season's not important, we're just learning, we're just getting games into players. To be perfectly bloody frank, that game on the weekend was a waste of our players' time and achieves nothing in terms of development.
My view - Bolton needs to get tough between now and the end of the season. Injuries make things tough, I get that, but if a player is found to be going at anything less than 100% effort on gameday, just ****ing drop them. Send the message to the playing group, loud and clear, that even though we're early in our rebuild there is no excuse for a lack of effort. If a player can't cope with that attitude from the club - trade them. Don't care if they're 20 or 29, if they can't lift when the chips are down then we need to cut them loose and reinforce to the other players that there are non-negotiables, and failing to meet them will not be tolerated.
What are "football fundamentals"?
Why, after 3 seasons under our current coach, do we have players who need to "work on" or "focus on" these football fundamentals?
Because, and maybe this is just me, but I'd have thought by getting onto an AFL list, a player should have shown some capacity to perform the "fundamentals" of the bloody sport they're playing. How on earth are we getting to a point where players have been with our club for 3+ seasons and have forgotten what these fundamentals are or how to perform them?
I think we're in a really precarious position at the moment. We appear to have a list full of talented footballers, who can't or won't put in the basic, requisite effort. Honestly, I think the club is doing a disservice to these players by focusing so much on the long term. "Have patience", "It'll come", "We're building". Cool, so what motivation is there for the players to give everything? This season's not important, we're just learning, we're just getting games into players. To be perfectly bloody frank, that game on the weekend was a waste of our players' time and achieves nothing in terms of development.
My view - Bolton needs to get tough between now and the end of the season. Injuries make things tough, I get that, but if a player is found to be going at anything less than 100% effort on gameday, just ****ing drop them. Send the message to the playing group, loud and clear, that even though we're early in our rebuild there is no excuse for a lack of effort. If a player can't cope with that attitude from the club - trade them. Don't care if they're 20 or 29, if they can't lift when the chips are down then we need to cut them loose and reinforce to the other players that there are non-negotiables, and failing to meet them will not be tolerated.
But look at the complaints about McKay not playing
- Aug 22, 2014
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Personally, I have no issue with McKay not playing if he's not working hard enough.
But how the hell do you get, what, 16+ of your gameday 22 not performing the "fundamentals" of the sport.
As far as a response from the coach goes, it's bullshit. Don't tell me the players need to work on the fundamentals, or focus on the fundamentals. These are AFL listed players, tell me why they aren't doing them, and which heads will roll if it ever happens again.
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So how many of the team would you drop from the weekends game......
In my view only 5 or so players gave a 4 quarter effort?
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That would make it 17 then.
Unprecedented, but send about as strong a message as could ever be sent. 17 changes made. Those 17 players failed to show the effort, respect and spirit that the Carlton Guernsey and club deserves. They aren't being written off, they'll be eligible for selection the following week.
Harsh. Yep.
Unrealistic. Yep.
But honestly, it pisses me off that we're making bullshit excuses for players not caring. Enough cuddling and hand-holding and educating and growing. We stand by our players as long as they stand by eachother and the club.
carlton2dabone
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Oh come on, this whole spiel about McKay not working hard enough really grates on my nerves when I watch the same players continue to be selected every week even when it’s clear to anyone with a pair of eyes that they aren’t working hard enough on field.
Seems to me that Bolton is giving certain favourite players endless chances while cracking down on others for the slightest of indescretions..
Starting to honestly think this is starting to affect the playing group as a whole and they are losing confidence that performance on field even matters anymore which explains complete lack of effort lately
Play Harry. Even Spud has worked it out...
FFS
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/07/09/who-is-to-blame-for-carlton's-demise/
FFS
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/07/09/who-is-to-blame-for-carlton's-demise/
carlton2dabone
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It amazes me the 3 years into our rebuild and 3 years after we used a first round pick on Harry, that a player like O’Shea who is clearly not part of our future has played more games this season than harry has lol
Nori
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Respected posters have pointed out that next year had better not be like this year and I totally agree with this sentiment.
However, the Annas Horribilis makes a recurrence of this year less likely, not more likely. Let's look at the positives from this year just for a moment.
So let me ask you, would you rather cop a massive performance hit now and deal with all these things together in 2018, or would you rather they undermine the team's performance to a lesser extent over the next 3-4 years? Clearly this year has been a perfect storm of adversity, but if the club keeps a calm head and manages all these challenges with a solid process then there is reason to believe Carlton will emerge stronger and sooner from the wilderness than if it had all been smooth sailing in 2018.
However, the Annas Horribilis makes a recurrence of this year less likely, not more likely. Let's look at the positives from this year just for a moment.
- Players are being played in new positions (flexibility)
- Non-fancied players are being tested (depth)
- Youngsters are getting more games (development)
- List gaps are being explored (balance)
- Game plans are being tested to breaking point (strategy)
- Injury management is under intense scrutiny (medical staff)
- Coaches are being strongly challenged (footy staff)
So let me ask you, would you rather cop a massive performance hit now and deal with all these things together in 2018, or would you rather they undermine the team's performance to a lesser extent over the next 3-4 years? Clearly this year has been a perfect storm of adversity, but if the club keeps a calm head and manages all these challenges with a solid process then there is reason to believe Carlton will emerge stronger and sooner from the wilderness than if it had all been smooth sailing in 2018.
Yeah, this year has been an absolute disaster, and I have faith that we can make a vast improvement next year. The risk is that we don't.
We have to absolutely nail every aspect of the upcoming offseason, in no particular order:
-Trade week/FA
-The Draft
-New Head of Football
-Potentially new assistants
-Audit/Review and changes to the medical and conditioning staff
-A high quality pre-season for the list.
Get these right and we can be a lot better a lot sooner than most expect. Get any of them wrong, and we might **** everything up.
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It’s just one of those shocking years things don’t go our way and our vulnerability with depth, lack of a-graders, lack of cohesion has really hurt us.
We have been really competitive against good teams, and then dropped our bundle against weaker sides, so it’s not as though we’ve been consistently terrible.
The game style we played over the pre-season and in round one is completely different to the confused, ultra conservative approach at the moment. If we’ve trained a certain way over the pre-season and then had to completely redirect what we’re doing, naturally we’re going to lack some consistency.
We will be a far better team next year as obvious as it sounds. More game time and another pre-season into our young players, plus a few handy additions via the draft and hopefully some creative work from SOS to bring across some immediate best 22 performers who will also be long-term players for us.
Yeh it’s shit, and on top of that we have to contend with Richmond and Collingwood* supporters, who haven’t got the density to realise they aren’t actually out there getting a kick and basically bank their pride on 22 young guys they’ve never met kicking a leather ball around the park, but it’ll be far more rewarding when we’re on the up.
I didn’t see this season coming, but we’ve been through it before, it’s transient, and things change very quickly - even when success seems completely out of reach, as it does now. We will be right.
*Beaten one team in the 8 who haven’t beaten any teams in the 8. Big contender for a late slide.
We have been really competitive against good teams, and then dropped our bundle against weaker sides, so it’s not as though we’ve been consistently terrible.
The game style we played over the pre-season and in round one is completely different to the confused, ultra conservative approach at the moment. If we’ve trained a certain way over the pre-season and then had to completely redirect what we’re doing, naturally we’re going to lack some consistency.
We will be a far better team next year as obvious as it sounds. More game time and another pre-season into our young players, plus a few handy additions via the draft and hopefully some creative work from SOS to bring across some immediate best 22 performers who will also be long-term players for us.
Yeh it’s shit, and on top of that we have to contend with Richmond and Collingwood* supporters, who haven’t got the density to realise they aren’t actually out there getting a kick and basically bank their pride on 22 young guys they’ve never met kicking a leather ball around the park, but it’ll be far more rewarding when we’re on the up.
I didn’t see this season coming, but we’ve been through it before, it’s transient, and things change very quickly - even when success seems completely out of reach, as it does now. We will be right.
*Beaten one team in the 8 who haven’t beaten any teams in the 8. Big contender for a late slide.
AceAndy
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Just looked to me as if he has run out of answers. Not sure he is totally invested in the job.
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