Is our defence really that weak ?

[Jezza U Beauty]

I have to say I'm getting a bit sick of reading constant references to our "weak backline".

It's been widely acknowledged that we were leaking 100+ point scores because our defensive pressure in the forward line and midfield was lacking. Waite and Jammo were in everyone's "team of the week" last weekend, and have so far this year claimed the scalps of Riewoldt, Rocca and Medhurst and broken even with Lloyd and Richo

Then you add Thornton (flogged Koschitzke), Scotland, Bower (destroyed Cloke) and maybe Carrazzo back there with them you've got a group that will win most of the one-on-one contests they're involved in.

Thoughts ?

 

[Pamam]

is not that our backline is weak

as mentioned its our defence in general from all over the ground

if the midfield dont put pressure then its harder for any defender to stop a good kick into the forward line

but our back 6 is doing a good job

but we have been on a decent increase in improvement since round 1 and would expect us to continue to improve!!

 

[BLue_Bloys]

As said above it's about the other 2/3 helping out.

We still have an inconsistent backline, last week showed that when on song we can limit their pure forwards to <5 goals.

The nature of having Jamison, Bower will mean they will have some off days or be outplayed by their more experienced defenders on occasion. Let's just hope that when this happens it's only one of the guys and they can all work together to fill the void.

 

[The_Groscz]

I wouldn't get too excited yet about our defenders, since we don't really have a 'gun' defender in the league of say Scarlett or Maguire or Glass.

Thornton is a very handy player, but for every good game, will put in a shocker, esp. when the pressure is on...

I think the defenders will improve when the gameplan starts to take shape. At least it's good to see guys like Grigg, Jamison, Bower really rising to their roles, and it will be good to see Waite improve his disposal. It's alot more promising than the stop-gap measures Pagan was using, and throwing guys like Setanta down there, when he was really out of his league.

I was impressed with the one-on-one man-up contests they forced the Pies into. If we can play like that more often we will defintely win alot more games.

 

[sosos]

No.

 

[Jezza U Beauty]

I wouldn't get too excited yet about our defenders, since we don't really have a 'gun' defender in the league of say Scarlett or Maguire or Glass.

Thornton is a very handy player, but for every good game, will put in a shocker, esp. when the pressure is on...

I think the defenders will improve when the gameplan starts to take shape. At least it's good to see guys like Grigg, Jamison, Bower really rising to their roles, and it will be good to see Waite improve his disposal. It's alot more promising than the stop-gap measures Pagan was using, and throwing guys like Setanta down there, when he was really out of his league.

I was impressed with the one-on-one man-up contests they forced the Pies into. If we can play like that more often we will defintely win alot more games.

I have to disagree mate - IMO Waite has got to be some chance to be AA CHB this year. He absolutely dominates back there. Jammo is every chance to become an elite player as well.

And i know Thornton has his critics on this board (although i don't know why), but he is much better than 1-week-good 1-week-bad that you suggest.

I agree with you on one thing though - our backline still has heaps of improvement in it, which is a good thing IMO.

 

[Blueboys7]

Nick stevens in the midfield has very poor denfensive skills and its a part of his game that has and still is letting him down. I think this went around the midfield before judd came so the back 6 was put under alot of pressure. In saying that our back 6 have come along away this year.

 

[gbatman]

Our defence is getting there, we have good tall defenders (Jamison, Thornton, Bower, Waite), Bannister is proving himself as a good medium sized defender. We may be a little weak in the small/hard running defender department although Carrazzo plays well in a defencive role on half-forward and in the midfield. The defence is improving but there is still room for one or two medium sized defenders with good pace and the ability to both find the footy and also blanket quality opponents.

Things are gelling and coming together nicely. A confidence boost will do the world of good.

Key midfielders are getting fitter and able to pressure the opposition more, I thought Carlton's pressure V Collingwood was good and we forced them to go to a contest much more than we did in previous games. We also kept more players back and pushed extra numbers into defence when we were able to hold collingwood up in the middle a bit than what we did V the Bombers.

It's just a matter of getting the balance rigth between players running forward and players running back.

Was also good that Houlihan wasn't in the team, having him out strengthened us up defencively, Grigg did a great job on one of the leagues best players, playing in houlihan's role. He really looks like he could be a good player, at times his lack of AFL expierence showed but he'll be a good footballer.

 

[Dramoth]

No, I would rate our defence as good but inexperienced.

Every week that they play together as a unit means that they get to know how the other guys will react to something.

Our midfield in the first 2 matches was under-done in match fitness and that contributed to our defence looking weak. Against collingwood, I would have to rate Judd and Stevo still at around 90-95% match fitness but this weekend, we should see them come out at 100% against the Dee's

Also the other thing that was good to see was Ratts implementing a plan that had all the other forwards running away from Fev which left him 1 out against his inexperienced opponent. And 1 on 1, I would back Fev against any fullback in the game at the moment (personally, I wouldnt give him a hope in hell against SoS... but hey he was on our side ).

Jammo is going to be awesome in defence for us and will, I think, eventually move into a permanent FB role.

I think that playing Carlos in the forward line will be a good move because the guy will be able to play CHF or CHB for us and can you imagine rotating Waite and Carlos through those positions through the game

The future is looking good for us these days and while it is going to be a slow process this year, I dont think that we have anything else to worry about. The kids now have a taste of winning and they will want more.

We are Carlton, ____ the rest...

 

[Beloved]

Out defence looked good against the Pies, our rotations worked well, we were able to strip the ball from opponents, ect.

More of that and we could certainly win 10!

 

[SaintsSeptember]

When you guys played the Saints the other week, I was expecting a thrash, due to your so called "weak" backline, and St Kilda's highly rated forward line.
I was surprised to be on the edge of the seat for much of the game and it sure wasn't your backs that let you down. It was more St Kilda's backs being able to contain Fev.

 

[FieryNayta]

Our backline is weak, but it is also very young.

Look at all the great backlines in the league. They all have a seasoned mature players with level heads.

Our backline now actually has a great foundation and make-up, but they need a couple of seasons together to be able to read eachother completely.

With wins under the belt however, confidence will grow, and hopefully speed up this development.

 

[TGR]

I prefer the term developing over weak. They're kids and are going to be a bit up and down and probably scored heavily against on occasions, however it will bode well for them in the future. They need to keep this back 6 together.

 

[The Real Deal]

No it's not that weak. Jamison is a great talent- wouldn't it be great to say in a year or two that we're not looking to recruit a Rutten type player because Jammo is holding down FB. Could very well happen!

Waite and Thornton have looked good since the pre-season matches and have carried that form through to now. Bower could be a good player.

The good thing about last week's game is the four mentioned above all played on guys you wouldn't have expected. And not one of them were beaten.

Of course the midfield still needs to drop back and help out, but the backs did work as a team well and that makes a big difference. Let's see if they can do the same this week. Hope so!

 

[as0l0]

Is our defence really that weak ?

it was at the beginning of the Collingwood game...so "they" said. "They" were saying something different at the end.

 

[AlecDuncan]

it was at the beginning of the Collingwood game...so "they" said. "They" were saying something different at the end.

They're the kind of statements that marked Tim Watson as the master coach that he was. What a brilliant student of the game he is.

 

[Dramoth]

Has anyone seen SoS down at the ground lately?

Just wondering if him and Deano have been coming in giving a few pointers to the boys

 

[Blue Bawls]

Gibbs was outstanding defensively on Sunday with 8 tackles - more than anyone else on the ground - I think a lot of players in the midfield saw that and stood up. We had 12 more tackles than the Pies overall.

Judd is very good in defence (7 tackles v Pies) and even Stevens has a crack (3 tackles). Kruezer is also excellent and Hadley had 4 tackles too. So in the centre we're not doing too bad.

I'd hope for more from Simpson (1 tackle) - and we can only hope that one day Houlihan steps up.

The back line I reckon did a great job, but have always been under pressure from rebound attacks out of our forward line. Fevola was at his very best on Sunday and Betts effective, although Fisher didn't lay a tackle, yet still we managed to slow the ball coming out of the forward 50. I think we showed great improvement.

 

[Jezza U Beauty]

Has anyone seen SoS down at the ground lately?

Just wondering if him and Deano have been coming in giving a few pointers to the boys

Peter Dean is an Assistant at another club - i forget who, so i doubt he'd be able to do much to help our boys.

And I believe SOS has had some sort of falling out with the club after the salary cap cheating incident, and i think he's still as assistant coach at the Saints.

 

[magpies10]

it was at the beginning of the Collingwood game...so "they" said. "They" were saying something different at the end.

saying this we had a poor game and still scored 88

 

[The_Groscz]

Was also good that Houlihan wasn't in the team, having him out strengthened us up defencively, Grigg did a great job on one of the leagues best players, playing in houlihan's role. He really looks like he could be a good player, at times his lack of AFL expierence showed but he'll be a good footballer.

It's interesting you say this, as he is one of our major possession getters, yet is so soft at the ball..Maybe Ratts is testing HOula out finally as Pagan never had the guts to do it..

We'll have to wait and see how guys like Bower and Grigg and Jamison shape up and if they can hold their own.

I still don't think tomorrow will be an easy game, and the Dees will roll us if we take things too easy.

 

[Murph_The_Smurf]

saying this we had a poor game and still scored 88

Sure did score 88 , but we scored 111 ! does it hurt to loose to carlton mate? hope it still hurts !!! and does for weeks to come , what u scumbags deserve

 

[as0l0]

saying this we had a poor game and still scored 88

didn't you guys get more inside 50's though?

anyway, some Melbourne poster will be taking your place soon.

 

[The Real Deal]

It was basically 75 points until you guys got a couple of goals in junk time. Your supposed match winners- Medhurst, Thomas, Leon, were well held all day. Full marks to our back-line.

 

[Dramoth]

saying this we had a poor game and still scored 88

saying that, you are probably so stupid that you dont realise that even when we won last year, the teams we beat still kicked over 100pts...

Keeping you useless dumb twats to less than 100 was the first match in a sequence of 24 matches where we managed to stop our opposition from scoring over 100...

So, not only did your crap team fail to inflict on us the loss that would have seen this team become officially the worst Carlton team in the history of the club, but you would have also put us into a position where we had equalled the Aints record of 25 matches where the opposition had kicked 100+ points

So you dumb ____s failed to condem us to a couple of records that we didnt want!


So honestly, how crap are the filth in the end...