How many games should Carlton won this year?

[Robbie]

R18: 3/4 Time: Carlton 76-Collingwood 70 - F/T: Carlton 96-Collingwood 120

R19: 3/4 Time: Carlton 80-Port Adelaide 77 - F/T: Carlton 93-Port Adelaide 116

R20: 3/4 Time: Carlton 77-Essendon 78 - F/T: Carlton 108 - Essendon 118

R22: Melbourne 23 fit players to pick from (5 of the 22 have since been delisted or retired). Carlton 30. Whitnall misses three easy shots in the 1st before Melbourne have even woken up.

They couldn't have won at least one of these?? Yeah right.

 

[gwono]

Right at the start of the year the majority penciled us in a bottom four spot, in particular the spoon - and a lot of them placed us under 5 wins, or maybe a little bit more. There was little talk of tanking, if any at all... so it is fair enough to say that those predictions were based on us being shit. We met those expectations, and we suddenly tanked it all year. Bah.

Link me to 10 posters who projected your win total let alone placing them under 5 wins.

Right, no one does it.

People expected bottom 4. But the manner in which it was done was horrendous.

 

[Baroclinic instability]

R18: 3/4 Time: Carlton 76-Collingwood 70 - F/T: Carlton 96-Collingwood 120

R19: 3/4 Time: Carlton 80-Port Adelaide 77 - F/T: Carlton 93-Port Adelaide 116

R20: 3/4 Time: Carlton 77-Essendon 78 - F/T: Carlton 108 - Essendon 118

R22: Melbourne 23 fit players to pick from (5 of the 22 have since been delisted or retired). Carlton 30. Whitnall misses three easy shots in the 1st before Melbourne have even woken up.

They couldn't have won at least one of these?? Yeah right.

Two losses against a preliminary finalist and a grand finalist, what a suprise how can you honestly suggest we should have beaten those two teams.

And in regards to Essendon whats the big deal there? Bombers were still a slight chance of making the 8

You're highlighting your poor football knowledge when you point out Whitnall missing set shots. I'm sure someone struggling to keep his contract for the next year would deliberately miss shots on goal HAHAH how can anyone with any intelligence possibly come up with such utter rot.

 

[yeah-nah]

At least one of the last 11. Probably a few more. I know when we played Carltank the 2nd time we were awful that day and Carltank were the much better side going into the last Q. Then, we kicked 7 goals with what was suddenly zero resistance!!! Seriously it was hilarious and sitting with my mates we were actually laughing at the farce that was unfolding. The game just turned upside down in 30 minutes and we were still playing crap. Carltank went to the pub.

 

[btdg]

Having watched Carlton this year, I thought there were only 3 games that we lost that we could have won - rounds 18, 19 and 20.

Round 18 vs Collingwood; we led at 3/4 time. Watching the game, Rocca had a massive size mismatch against Jamison, which hadn't been entirely utilised, but looked like becoming much more relevant in the final term. He kicked the first goal of the quarter, and we put Setanta onto him - which shut him down the next play down. Setanta was immediately moved off Rocca into the ruck, and Rocca kicked 2 more goals for the quarter as Collingwood won. Tanking? Possibly, but as well as being our best defender, he was our best ruckman with Ackland hopelessly out of form. In addition, Collingwood were a preliminary final team, whereas we were a bottom 3 team. Realistically, I think Collingwood were just too good. This was also the game where Fevola was benched in the last quarter. However, if you were at the game, you saw Fevola dive for a mark, get up proppy, then shank a kick from 50. He was clearly injured, even if it was cramp.

Round 19 vs Port Adelaide
Came back from 10 goals down to lead at 3/4 time, then lost to eventual grand finallist. Problem in this one was that we left the same center-square combinatino in the middle for the entire third quarter. The 3 midfielders in there were simply dominating, winning the football and driving the comeback. However, without rotation they ran out of gas, and when others came into the middle midway through the 4th quarter, Port got back on top. Tanking? No. Possibly a rookie coaching error leaving the group in too long without rotation, but it was the only thing that was working on the day. There's definitely no shame in losing to a grand finallist in adelaide in that manner - plenty of better teams have been over-run in the final term at Aami stadium

Round 20 vs Essendon.
This is the game I think is suspicious. We played strict zone defence all game, getting players back behind the ball to protect our defenders at all opportunities. And why not, considering we had 4th gamer Michael Jamison playing on Matthew Lloyd. It was working, and we built a small lead, but were hanging on by a thread, and momentum was shifting the bombers way. Then, midway through the third quarter, we went strict man-on-man, effectively isolating Lloyd against Jamison inside defensive 50. Lloyd was the difference in the last quarter, being an important part of 4 goals. I was devastated after the game, as I felt we had blatantly tanked. In hindsight, I'm not sure - Essendon had the momentum, and it may have been a move to try and win the game. Or, it may have been a move on Essendon's part that finally managed to clear some space, I dunno. Either way, I think the probability we would have won without tanking would be about 50% - Essendon had the momentum, had more to play for, and had a better team on the day.

Overall, I think its fair to say Carlton blew winning positions in 3 games, but in only 1 of those would you have given us a better than even chance of winning. So, I'd say we SHOULD have won 5 games this year. We COULD have won 7.

But, and this is the important point, if we were the sort of team that held fourth quarter leads against top-4 teams, then we wouldn't be having this debate now. Good teams build leads and hold them. Poor teams struggle to build leads, then blow them in the clutch. Carlton were a young, inexperienced team who were clearly bottom-4 this year; as a result, we blew a lot of winnable games and finished with 4 wins.

 

[JBMKII]

bottom 4