Autopsy Rd 3 - Lacklustre Blues go down by 24

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I reckon we keep playing Dow, once he relises he has more time with the pill in hand his disposal will get better .Just needs to relax a little .He's only 3 games in we have to remember.

He did have a 7 disposal last quarter. Not surprisingly it happens when the other players start to lift their intensity. Can't rely on first year players to lead the way.

 

[james Dean]

What's the point anymore.. same old shit for the last 15 years

 

[95blues]

Young and with a bad ankle. But lets not let facts get in the way

Hes as slow as it gets even when 100%. Finds the footy, strong body and Brock was young once too.

Theres 3 facts.

 

[RudyBlue]

Stoppage bounce...
Loose footy
<Opposition pressure>
Carlton fumble under pressure
<Opposition pressure>
Carlton rushed handball to nobody
<Opposition pressure>
Carlton fumble
<Opposition pressure>
Carlton blind tap forward to nobody
<Opposition pressure>
Carlton fumble
Opposition quick, clean gather and effective handball
Opposition second effective handball
And they're away.

Recurring nightmare...
We need some players who are capable of clean hands and not panicking under pressure.

C O N F I D E N C E

 

[Benaly28]

We just can’t take a trick with injuries.Every week we lose at least one player.We can’t play 4 quarters of footy.We MUST drop the following players:
Lamb,Polson,Mullet.Cunners played probably he’s best game.We MUST play jsos,McKay every week.The big question outside the playing group is the coach.If we can’t improve on last year the pressure will increase rapidly.Yes it Hes third year but we need steady improvement.

 

[M_I_G]

Teams work you out when you become a threat. Jones has been worked out by the opposition. The challenge for him know is to find a way back.

this

 

[The Flying Doormat]

Still not as bad as Turnbull's 0-30 in Newspoll next week.

 

[My name geoff]

it's funny listening to a lot of the negative stuff right now because I actually don't think we are that far off.

Coming into the season we knew we were a big side. That's not a problem in and of it self if you can generate enough run from your smalls. This is what is currently killing us. Lack of runners. So much easy, un-pressured ball coming into our defence that it doesn't matter who is defending. No easy ball coming into our forwards and easy rebounds from the opp.

Take into account the personnel and this is not suprising..

On our list, this is who I consider AFL standard runners:

Simpson
Murphy
Docherty
Cuningham
Pickett
Lang
Byrne(usually takes around 12 months to get up to speed after big injury)
Williamson
Fisher

We are light on in that area to begin with, but over half of our runners are unavailable!

We have as many injuries as a side like Collingwood, but all our unavailable players just about are concentrated in an area which is critical for us.

 

[reubsblues]

Bolton seems to have an unwritten pass just because he was under Clarkson, well he really needs to prove he can coach because at the moment he is rubbish.

Agreed

 

[prisoner777]

Im goin to say it! bolton will not be the coach that brings us on field success

Pagan (super coach), Ratts, Malthouse (super coach), Barker (caretaker), Bolton (untested Clarko prodigy).......who is next?

 

[MileHigh]

Nobody in our team bar Cripps and Simpson willing to put their heads over the footy and take a hit to win the free. We would rather toe poke it forward in the hope that something happens than WIN THE FOOTY.

Dig in boys. Weak as jelly.

 

[PP34]

I think this thread is going to be awful, but to be honest, that was a solid result. We're a long way off right now, heading for a wooden spoon, and attacking the whipping boys isn't going to help.

To be honest, our issue is simply we don't have enough good players in their prime.

Our midfield is Cripps, Murphy, Curnow and then... Kennedy, Dow, Fisher, Petrevski-Seton, Cuningham. 5 out of 8 have played less than 20 games, and at this stage, their all 15 possession games (in fact they all had 13-18 today), not 25+. You need more than 3 midfielders to compete at this level, and they are just a year or two off.

So then we have another bad balance issue. We have a choice between players in their prime who have severe limitations, and players who are too young and don't contribute all-round. We get very little from Garlett (3 games) and Polson (3 games), which is ok - you can roll a few guys who aren't quite ready yet. But the older players we have in the team who are there to contribute are also giving us very little. Lamb, Wright, Mullett, Jones, Casboult - we all know they aren't superstars, but they are there as placeholders until the young kids are ready. But it seems each week only 1 of them actually plays that role. Wright was great vs Richmond, totally missing today. Casboult was good today, but not previously. Mullett was solid last week, MIA today.

The only fringe players who just 'do their job' each week for us seem to be Simpson (due to age) and Thomas. That's our problem right now, and we can't win uless we fix this.

But what choices do we have? It's either the inconsistent fringe players, or kids who aren't playing well at VFL level...
Casboult or McKay? Casboult is in his prime, kicked 4 goals, contributes in the ruck... and has his weaknesses.
Lamb, Wright or Silvagni? SOS probably better than Lamb at least for experience.
Mullet or O'Brien/Schumacher? Will happen within weeks.
The only real change that makes sense for next week (injuries aside) is Kerridge in for Polson. I just think we need that extra mid who can go all game, tackle, and get 20+ possessions (even if he does butcher a few of them).

Some big positives from tonight though:
- I thought Murphy was great. Highest rated player on the ground, led the team in possessions, contested possessions and tackles. He's not a bruising mid, should be playing out his gravy years as a wing like Boomer Harvey did, but that's the best we can hope from him
- Weitering was much better, and grew in confidence as the game went on. He got to the right spots all game, and by the end was taking intercept marks. He'll cop flack from idiots who don't know what they are watching, but that's how it goes.
- We started with fantastic intensity, and kept bringing it back after half time. Finished with a huge effort in the last quarter. I think those last 2 goals mean a lot. We ended up with more inside 50s, more scoring shots, and a 4-goal loss, which was probably par.

The negatives:
- Injuries to Marchbank and Kennedy. Two guys who we just can't afford to lose
- Our tackling was sub-par. To have 14 players with 1 tackle or less (and 10 with 0) at 3/4 time was putrid
- We seemed to have no way of stopping that 10 goal run. Maybe Bolts wanted to let them run it out, but I'd like to see more. Cut that to a 6 goal run and the game would have been a lot more interesting at the end...

We got outplayed by one of the most mediocre sides going around.

 

[Mr_Plow]

Honestly almost done with this joke of a club. For 21 years I’ve known nothing but pathetic football like this.

I don’t care that we have a handful of really promising players. Our midfield is deplorable. You all kept crapping on about trading Gibbs for years. Well here’s what ******* happens when you trade blokes like that and don’t replace them with anybody. I said it last off season and it looks pretty spot on so far. We are going backwards.

We are going backwards. You cannot expect to challenge for a flag with a midfield as deplorable and woefully inexperienced as ours is.

We just got pantsed by the likes of Josh Thomas for ****s sakes. I almost felt like I was back watching Mick’s coaching record game tonight.

I was sympathetic until I read that.

Wtf bro, that's not the current objective.

Otherwise, agree.

 

[95blues]

Nobody in our team bar Cripps and Simpson willing to put their heads over the footy and take a hit to win the free. We would rather tow poke it forward in the hope that something happens than WIN THE FOOTY.

Dig in boys. Weak as jelly.

Its a shame Simmo was never Captain.

 

[Wickzki]

I was sympathetic until I read that.

Wtf bro, that's not the current objective.

Otherwise, agree.

Eh?

 

[reubsblues]

Its only round 3 and we already look like where tanking! Sos you are a genius Sam walsh welcome to cfc

 

[PP34]

Can’t wait to watch the morons on the match committee drop a heap of kids and play the likes of Kerridge.

Only a matter of time before someone at Carlton gets inpatient and we sack Bolton too.

 

[Big_Luch]

I hear this year's draft is good

 

[Dadda Dave]

Mate the guy is a limited footballer, playing in a poor side with a poor defence and midfield, he kicks 4.2 and plays back up ruck.

How he is copping flack is beyond me, he always tries and would be better if we were better.

Good post ! We'd be a ****ing lot worse without him tonight .

 

[Murphkreuzmitch]

Well....
A night where it’s hard to find positives I thought this

Weitering seemed to get into some touch in the second half
Cunningham needs to be looked for by team mates as a designated runner and kicker. He creates time and makes pretty good decisions
Charlie keeps progressing, he took a lot of attention tonight and still impacted the game
Fisher keeps on working into games

We are really lacking with forward half pressure, and speed in the forwardline. Without this our structures fall apart. I have serious concerns about Bolton’s ability as a match day coach. I am not sure he is capable of making adjustments to the game plan when teams get on top of us. Hopefully I am wrong.

 

[prisoner777]

We just can’t take a trick with injuries.Every week we lose at least one player.We can’t play 4 quarters of footy.We MUST drop the following players:
Lamb,Polson,Mullet.Cunners played probably he’s best game.We MUST play jsos,McKay every week.The big question outside the playing group is the coach.If we can’t improve on last year the pressure will increase rapidly.Yes it Hes third year but we need steady improvement.

Collingwood's injury list puts ours in the shade. Still 19 games to go and you are right Bolts needs to produce steady improvement (otherwise next year he'll be Bucks mark 2).

 

[Mr_Plow]

Eh?

Are we contending for a premiership in 2018?

 

[Chookaradley]

We 100% reverted to last years game style. The slick moving offensive style of game did not exist. Is the coach capable of giving a spray?. It seems he's happy with the whole "Things are never as bad as it seems", mentality

 

[MileHigh]

No point talking injuries. Every club has them. Nothing special about our injuries compared to any other list.

 

[Arr0w]

Bolton seems to have an unwritten pass just because he was under Clarkson, well he really needs to prove he can coach because at the moment he is rubbish.

He will be fine, don't judge what he is doing at the moment as a sign of what he is capable of