Analysis Mental Weakness

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Coona Blues said:
Mental weakness huh? There are mental frailties among all groups and individuals.

When it applies to a footy team, in particular our footy team, the greatest influence on it is just that, the sense of team. The sense of belonging, feeling a part of something and ultimately contributing to that something. Collective ownership.

The most obvious example to epitomise this is one Tom De Koning. The amount of questions posed about him over the last couple of years regarding ruck craft and even more obviously forward craft. In his development years playing in the twos as well as his underage career, Tom kicked some amazing goals from all angles and rarely missed a straight forward shot.

Prior to assuming the mantle of no. 1 ruck in the middle of the season, he was as flaky as hell in front of the big sticks. He missed more shots than he kicked, and missed some he should absolutely have kicked. TDK was always going to mature and improve. I don’t think many of us expected the monumental improvement in his ruck work. On the back of the rucking he started hitting the scoreboard, from long range, snaps and set shots. His belief took him from “almost” to a star of the game, virtually overnight. A huge part of that was escaping from the debate of who our number one ruck was. He was/is the man, it is no longer “can I” or “if”, he just gets it done. It is up to Voss and company to reinforce that belief in our upcoming pre season.

Last week and this week put a few youngsters on display. Youngsters the coaching group have been reticent to play. The kids stood up, some in unfamiliar roles even. As an aside, I was dumbfounded why Jack Carroll did not get more midfield time and indeed why he was subbed off. We had others suffering physically as well as four small forwards playing underwhelming footy while the talls struggled for real opportunity.

Ashton Moir needed to be given the opportunity to impact earlier. His two cameos have been impressive. I can’t help thinking Vossy is going to slip back to stay with his staples, in the same bloody roles week after week. Our young group is much better than most give them credit for. They need a career path. Some may not be ready to displace the incumbent players, but they need opportunity. They do not need to see wounded warriors sent out week after week while they stagnate in an ordinary seconds side.

Most mental frailties in sport are through questioning their own worth, their readiness. So much contributes to their positive and negative mentality, their confidence. Plenty comes from within, but in a team sport the lion’s share comes from team ethos. Faith, belonging, embracing responsibility, thriving on the opportunity to contribute.

Creating a TEAM, is more important than bombarding the group with instructions, which can adversely effect clarity of thought and confidence. I am more concerned with the mental frailty of a player who can’t kick past forty metres taking potshots at goal from fifty metres with two oppo players in the square, when a game is on the line, than I am with skill errors under pressure at the death.
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What a great post mate.
 
We made a prelim last year and have won a lot of tough games.

We need to get better, today wasn't about mental frailty or anything, I mean if you want to judge us on 12 players out and ignore every close win we have had over the past 3 years, sure.

Get rid of the perma injured players, better fitness program and see how we go next year. We have had the 2nd worst run in the comp with injuries to Richmond but we have still made the 8.

Swans had a bad run with injury last year and only just made the 8, now this year with a better run have finished on top. Small margins and all that.

I would love us to win every game all the time, but its never going to be that way.

I have been very proud of our efforts the last 2 weeks.
 

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CCurnow3votes said:
This thread is mentally weak.

Our team today was a bunch of kids and a sprinkling of leaders.

They played their guts out & could easily have let it go when we were 20 pts down several times.

It’s gut-wrenching but the last thing our team deserves is to be called mentally weak.

Poor form.
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And even better, no one was giving us a chance during the week with the injury list and forced to play a bunch of kids in a pressure cooker scenario....but when we get beaten in the first half by cheats in green shirts, and then a goal in the dying seconds, somehow we're mentally weak.

IMO, the only ones mentally weak are those who agree we are....
 
Patrick Cripps is probably the most mentally tough player in the competition. The way he's willed himself on and has lead the team in the past 2 weeks is nothing short of extraordinary, and the team have followed. The weight of the Carlton fans expectations (which is huge...), the opposition fans derision, the media criticism of how we could possibly have fallen off (conveniently ignoring injuries) and the easy excuse of "Jeez look at our bloody injury list.." would all have been reason enough for half of the side to pack it in and set up for next year.

Instead we travelled to Perth and smashed the favourites, came back home and played a team in rich vein of form and were ahead with about 14 seconds to go, after being behind by 20+ points, with a makeshift forward line, backline and a skipper who was clearly cooked but willed himself on and the side came with him.

Nothing about these last 2 games comes close to mental weakness, even if Freo did win and we missed finals, the boys gave it everything. Mental fragility would not have been the reason.
 
I think we probably do have an issue with mental weakness.
Not yesterday.

But the games against Adelaide, the Giants and the Dogs were really poor.
Really looked like the players got ahead of themselves.

We have bottled this year.
Injuries have certainly not helped, but they're not the reason that we're not top 4 at the moment.
 
It’s such a harsh criticism from those sitting outside the fence. It’s a classic put down when things don’t work out. The world is a complicated place. So are the things that happen inside the fence when the boys are striving to win. Sometimes it’s the bounce of the ball. Sometimes you have to concede your opponent has got the better of you. You don’t survive in this game if your character is not up to the rigours of professional sport. You get found out quickly so I’m rejecting this observation.
 
Coops93 said:
Patrick Cripps is probably the most mentally tough player in the competition. The way he's willed himself on and has lead the team in the past 2 weeks is nothing short of extraordinary, and the team have followed. The weight of the Carlton fans expectations (which is huge...), the opposition fans derision, the media criticism of how we could possibly have fallen off (conveniently ignoring injuries) and the easy excuse of "Jeez look at our bloody injury list.." would all have been reason enough for half of the side to pack it in and set up for next year.

Instead we travelled to Perth and smashed the favourites, came back home and played a team in rich vein of form and were ahead with about 14 seconds to go, after being behind by 20+ points, with a makeshift forward line, backline and a skipper who was clearly cooked but willed himself on and the side came with him.

Nothing about these last 2 games comes close to mental weakness, even if Freo did win and we missed finals, the boys gave it everything. Mental fragility would not have been the reason.
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Agree with all this.

The only time I think bringing up mental fragility at all is in regards to our set shot goal kicking. I feel we have a lot of guys that will nail 9/10 shots in training but spray them too often during the real thing.

However this isn't a new thing, even in the wider competition and generally is fixable I think with the right sports psychologists and experience. I think we're oh so close in all the other important areas.
 
Coona Blues said:
Mental weakness huh? There are mental frailties among all groups and individuals.

When it applies to a footy team, in particular our footy team, the greatest influence on it is just that, the sense of team. The sense of belonging, feeling a part of something and ultimately contributing to that something. Collective ownership.

The most obvious example to epitomise this is one Tom De Koning. The amount of questions posed about him over the last couple of years regarding ruck craft and even more obviously forward craft. In his development years playing in the twos as well as his underage career, Tom kicked some amazing goals from all angles and rarely missed a straight forward shot.

Prior to assuming the mantle of no. 1 ruck in the middle of the season, he was as flaky as hell in front of the big sticks. He missed more shots than he kicked, and missed some he should absolutely have kicked. TDK was always going to mature and improve. I don’t think many of us expected the monumental improvement in his ruck work. On the back of the rucking he started hitting the scoreboard, from long range, snaps and set shots. His belief took him from “almost” to a star of the game, virtually overnight. A huge part of that was escaping from the debate of who our number one ruck was. He was/is the man, it is no longer “can I” or “if”, he just gets it done. It is up to Voss and company to reinforce that belief in our upcoming pre season.

Last week and this week put a few youngsters on display. Youngsters the coaching group have been reticent to play. The kids stood up, some in unfamiliar roles even. As an aside, I was dumbfounded why Jack Carroll did not get more midfield time and indeed why he was subbed off. We had others suffering physically as well as four small forwards playing underwhelming footy while the talls struggled for real opportunity.

Ashton Moir needed to be given the opportunity to impact earlier. His two cameos have been impressive. I can’t help thinking Vossy is going to slip back to stay with his staples, in the same bloody roles week after week. Our young group is much better than most give them credit for. They need a career path. Some may not be ready to displace the incumbent players, but they need opportunity. They do not need to see wounded warriors sent out week after week while they stagnate in an ordinary seconds side.

Most mental frailties in sport are through questioning their own worth, their readiness. So much contributes to their positive and negative mentality, their confidence. Plenty comes from within, but in a team sport the lion’s share comes from team ethos. Faith, belonging, embracing responsibility, thriving on the opportunity to contribute.

Creating a TEAM, is more important than bombarding the group with instructions, which can adversely effect clarity of thought and confidence. I am more concerned with the mental frailty of a player who can’t kick past forty metres taking potshots at goal from fifty metres with two oppo players in the square, when a game is on the line, than I am with skill errors under pressure at the death.
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I have believed we have been mentally questionable for 20 years.

Since Voss has taken over I believe it's an area he has corrected. I believe issues with game style, use of players and injuries have been our problem this year

A mentally weak club would have collapsed two weeks ago. IMO the last 2 games were close to the best efforts we have put up all year
 
Stamos said:
I think we probably do have an issue with mental weakness.
Not yesterday.

But the games against Adelaide, the Giants and the Dogs were really poor.
Really looked like the players got ahead of themselves.

We have bottled this year.
Injuries have certainly not helped, but they're not the reason that we're not top 4 at the moment.
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You could probably say that about most sides. Swans got smashed by over 100 points a few weeks back, and were beaten by the wooden spooners earlier this year, yet finished top of the table. These days, if you're off you game even a few %, you're vulnerable against most sides.

For mine, the reasons we're not top 4 is that we haven't had a settled line up all year and have had to plug gaps week after week - and we still rely on our A-graders to get us over the line. Which is why we need to improve our depth of role players, rather than target another A-grader.
 
I'll put my hand up and say I have been critical in the past of our mental toughness. What the team has shown in recent weeks under clear duress has been amazing. We have thrown some kids to the wolves at the pointy end of season and found some blokes who would "die" trying for the club. I have to say I am proud of our club. Take out the equivalent quality players from 1st placed Sydney's side as what we have lost and watch them fold like a deck of cards. In one week alone we lost 6 players, you couldn't make that shit up!
 
I'm not questioning the effort yesteday and nobody should. Reality is if we had at least 2 of the players we had missing the game wouldn't have been close.
However, this post does have a point. We have not learnt how to handle these close finishes. The club can point to the close wins we had last year and early this year, but a lot of those were due to dumb luck. For example the Melbourne game we simply allowed repeated inside 50 entries in the last 5 minutes and tried to hang on. Christian Salem who is normally a good long kick of the footy had an open shot from just inside 50 which fell short. Then Petracca had his shot which was luckily touched by Marchy.
Gold Coast game a few weeks later. We simply tried to hang on and allowed repeat inside 50s. Noah Anderson was left goal side at a stoppage inside 50, had an open shot at goal which he missed. Pure luck. Richmond game in round 1 this year. Again allowed the ball to live in their 50 in the dying minutes. We simply have no idea how to ice a game. Its all well and good to ride your luck for as long as possible, but that luck eventually runs out and it certainly did for us.
What happened yesterday was not a personnel issue, it was a systems issue. It was Saad who let Higgins get away from him. Not a 2nd or 3rd gamer but an experienced player. In the Collingwood game earlier this year, it was Walsh who let Daicos get away inside 50. Again an experienced player. In these tight finishes we rely solely on dumb luck. There is no system or a single clue what to do or how to handle these situations. Until that changes, we can't expect much.
 
Adam Saad continues to have mental lapses late in games at D50 stoppages…

Multiple times this year his man has kicked a goal or the sealer, because Saad doesn’t go with him…

Saad does a lot of things right, except for stoppages… Hopefully coaches put some time into him in the offseason…
 

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Chism said:
Shitty thread. Our kids were great but like has been mentioned earlier why has Voss taken so long to play em and not blooded them in throughout the whole season?

I am hurting but so proud at the same time which is a weird feeling. 😏
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Who were the kids though?

Moir is clearly not fit enough to play any more than a quarter.. He needs a lot of work on his endurance, or else he will end up Menzel 2.0

Binns I like and think he deserved more games earlier in the year, but we aren't exactly starved of wingers.

O.Hollands has played every game this year

Cowan played 16/23 games

Lord was an MSD pick who needed time to find his feet. I think he should play against Brisbane.

Motlop has been awful and was awful against St K, Durdin has also struggled to develop.

Carroll had plenty of chances earlier in the season, yet looked average.

Truth be told our drafting over the past 3 years has been pretty rough.. Lucky we've struck gold on trades like Acres, Saad, and E Hollands.
 
Soapy V said:
Last two weeks have shown me a real mental toughness from our group

Missing so many players WE have stood up. Effort has been awesome

Take 10 or more of best players out of any side and they will struggle.

My question is why younger players weren’t played sooner
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Something I have seen from our coaching group is lack of trust in the players. Been very precious with who gets played and who gets to play on the ball etc.

It's been our weakness.

IMO Voss coaches with a lot of fear.
 
Been involved in pro sports

Mentality and 'being switched on' etc comes from 2 things really.

Confidence and clarity. Both are set by the club atmosphere and the coach. If you dont have to think on the field and can just do and thrive as part of the system you're 99% of.the way to success.

This club has neither. Manifests on field.as a lack of effort. I don't believe that's true. It's the extra half second thinking 'am I supposed to be there' or 'wait was that me or him supposed to do that'. And by the time you're questioning you're done.

That and there's absolutely 0 chance there aren't players in this team thinking 'kennedy is.getting ****ed over' - 'why the **** is x always picked over y? Wtf'
 
I had to join up just to comment on this post.

IMO our sports psychologists are not doing their job at all, this group of players has some serious mental demons that need to be ironed out. How often do you see Carlton players fluff that last chance before goal? Just in the first quarter last night, you had Acres spraying passes into the 50, Pitto dropping an easy chest mark in gettable range, Harry and kemp both spraying gettable shots… Or how many games do Carlton finish the first quarter with more behinds than goals, including some easy missed chances?

I believe the players don’t have adequate tools to deal with the mental pressure on them. It’s like saying ‘don’t think of a pink elephant’, our players are too often thinking ‘whatever I do, I mustn’t f this up’ and then of course they do. Our team clearly don’t like being favourites, they play much better when there’s no weight of expectation on them. Hence why we’re so much better at coming from behind, whether in games or even the latter half of last season. As soon as the mental pressure comes on, too often we fluff the opportunity.

For me the single biggest issue to fix next year. Give the players a reason to believe in our system, help them with mental tools to cope with pressure and turn it into positivity, and I believe next year will deliver a better result regardless of other changes
 

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Analysis Mental Weakness

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