Review Round 18 - Carlton v North Melbourne

[Alpha1]

Very disappointing by Carlton, same old story for us. We struggled again, no intensity, we didn't come to play again. Yes we got the four points, but lets not fool ourselves, we have a long way to go to be a finals team. Questions need to be asked, it's the MC's job to lift the team, to teach them the basic skills. We got the four points, but if North were a better team our season would be over now. We have so many things we need to improve, we should never let teams like North, Richmond etc get so close to us. North had more tackles and destroyed us around the ground, a lot of people will say four points is four points, but Carlton as a team really need to look at themselves. I keep saying this but we Carlton will not get anywhere when are skills are still so shocking, I wonder what are coaches are doing about this?

Paul Bower- Showed a lot of guts, played injured and hope he is ok for next week.
Bret Thornton- Took a very heavy knock to the shoulders and hopefully will be ok, played a courageous game.
Nick Stevens- Good performance, kept us in the game, hope he continues his form now.
Ryan Houlihan- Got smashed in the backline, a passenger and I don't see him at Carlton.
Mitch Robinson- Had a pretty solid game, gave us some toughness around the ground.
Andrew Walker- Showed the dash that he is known for, and will be much better for the run, faded a bit.
Richard Hadley- I think we need someone like him in the side, did pretty well in the third quarter, lifted.
Eddie Betts- Another pretty soild game, is creative in the FP.
Bryce Gibbs- Nice game by Gibbs, kicked a very nice goal from the boundary to keep us in touch, kid is going to be a great.
Kade Simpson- A quite game again, plays one good game and 4 crap ones.
Aaron Joseph- Found the going tough on Brent Harvey, but the kid is allowed one or two off games.
Setanta O’hAilpin- Had a quite game, seems to have been shifted allover the ground.
Chris Judd- Very quite game, no doubt he was carrying the injury from last week, should have been rested.
Marc Murphy - A great game by smurf, lifted us considering Judd was down. Put his stamp on the game when we needed him.
Brendan Fevola- Good Fev and bad Fev again tonight, he is brilliant when he wants to be.
Jordan Russell- Had a quite games, did one or two nice things.
Heath Scotland- Another quite game by Scotland, we really need him to find form and give us that dash/creativity from HB.
Matthew Kreuzer- A solid game, I would say he won in the run and maybe around the ground.
Dennis Armfield- Has shocking disposal skills, we really need to work on our skills as a team.
Shaun Hampson- Very impressive game by Hammo, won most of the hitouts he went up for.

March Murphy BOG

 

[blue gunslinger]

bit early - game in balance

 

[Alpha1]

We've won guns.

 

[blue gunslinger]

put yourself on defrost

 

[Alpha1]

Not very happy mate.

 

[blue gunslinger]

well we beat the Roos and we have struggled to do that

 

[Alpha1]

Shocking, they kicked 9 points in the last quarter we should have lost, pretty embarrassing by Carlton.

 

[Cruiser23]

Bradbury-esque performance...

Stevens, Gibbs and Murphy were the only really positives.

 

[Blue_Ninja]

Good to get a win, even if it wasn't pretty. 10 wins for the season, looking as though we will make the finals... our pass mark for the season.
All in all I'm not stoked, but we're doing as expected, which is fine.

 

[Blue Bawls]

Thornton was almost Waite like in his performance. Wonder if we'll see more of that next month. Russell was fantastic - disposal in the first quarter brilliant (kick to Fev as good as anyone), kept his head and was hard at the ball.

 

[chaser1]

Guys we won, lucky to win any other decent side we would have lost. Lacked intensity again. I wonder what the coaches are teaching them at times.But NIck did play well. So well done NIck, but boy we have a long long way to go.

Adam Simpson on one leg, Lee Harding off early. Seriously making the finals will be good. But we will be embarassed with these type of efforts and football.

 

[Blue_Ninja]

Why don't we worry about how bad we are going to be in the finals when we get there. At the moment we have just won against a team that has had the wood over us, on Friday night (a time slot we have struggled with) and without a massive contribution from Judd, or a massive contribution from (on the scoreboard at least) from Fev.
I reckon there is a bit to be positive about.

EDIT: And we got one of my personal favourites back. Walker!*






*For The Ghost Who Walks

 

[BlueSnake]

I actually thought O'hailpin was pretty good.

He got himself a goal and IMO was pretty damn handy in defense, had some very nice spoils and kept tight on his opponent. Especially considering he's been out for a few weeks.

We're a better team with someone like Irish in. It's a great luxury. We would have been in even more trouble if we didn't have Setanta to switch around where we wanted tonight.

I'm really glad Walker got a game and he's unscathed. Disposal somewhat rusty but you'd expect that. His hands and movement with just one touch of the footy looks classy as ever and almost Judd-like, it's great to hopefully now pump games into him and get him firing properly. Mark my words, this boy will be special (so long as his body is kind to him )

Win itself was scrappy, but I'll take it. A lot to work on no doubt.

Same goes for the umps...WTF happened there tonight. Swear they wanted to kill us.

 

[Cruiser23]

I actually thought O'hailpin was pretty good.

He got himself a goal and IMO was pretty damn handy in defense, had some very nice spoils and kept tight on his opponent. Especially considering he's been out for a few weeks.

We're a better team with someone like Irish in. It's a great luxury. We would have been in even more trouble if we didn't have Setanta to switch around where we wanted tonight.

I'm really glad Walker got a game and he's unscathed. Disposal somewhat rusty but you'd expect that. His hands and movement with just one touch of the footy looks classy as ever and almost Judd-like, it's great to hopefully now pump games into him and get him firing properly. Mark my words, this boy will be special (so long as his body is kind to him )

Win itself was scrappy, but I'll take it. A lot to work on no doubt.

Same goes for the umps...WTF happened there tonight. Swear they wanted to kill us.

*Cringe*...

Seriously? Pretty good?

 

[jonoman89]

We played shit. Luckily the other team was shitter.

We are going to get r*ped by the Cats next week with the way we've been playing lately.

 

[BlueSnake]

*Cringe*...

Seriously? Pretty good?

Yes

Besides perhaps going to ground a bit easy at times (which he recovered fast from), he didn't do much wrong.

Not "pretty good" as in Judd-pretty-good, but you know... certainly solid.

 

[jrussell4brownlow]

Kade Simpson- A quite game again, plays one good game and 4 crap ones.
Setanta O’hAilpin- Had a quite game, seems to have been shifted allover the ground.
Chris Judd- Very quite game, no doubt he was carrying the injury from last week, should have been rested.
Jordan Russell- Had a quite games, did one or two nice things.
Heath Scotland- Another quite game by Scotland, we really need him to find form and give us that dash/creativity from HB.

It's 'quiet'
Not 'quite'
Quite means, 'Yes, almost' or there and thereabouts.
Sorry to be pedantic, but I've seen it on the board alot lately and its been making me a bit sad.

 

[Cruiser23]

Yes

Besides perhaps going to ground a bit easy at times (which he recovered fast from), he didn't do much wrong.

Not "pretty good" as in Judd-pretty-good, but you know...

Hardly had a touch in the first half with very minimal impact. Was moved down back and did a reasonable job on Petrie but Drew still got plenty of touches and had chances to snatch the game away from us (errant kicking his issue).

Poor game even by his standards. Mind you he can be excused due to his first game back, still he wasn't 'pretty good'.

 

[mediumsizered]

I will take a win everyday of the week, no matter how it happens. 4 wins from our last 5 games is a lot better than 4 losses from the last 5 games. In the process we have beaten Freo at Subi for the first time since 2001; beaten Sydney for the first time since 2000; beat North for the first time since 2004 & won 3 games in a row for the first time since 2004.

We are still a work in progress & these types of wins are part & parcel of a developing list. Let's never forget, this time two years ago we were sitting in 14th position on the ladder with only Melbourne & Richmond below us. Now we sit in 7th position, while both Melbourne & Richmond sit in the bottom half of the ladder, once again vying for draft picks, not finals.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I must say I am relieved rather than happy about the win. Our skills were reminiscent of a few years ago. Fortunately we have a switch were we just run on nitro and rattle off quick goals when we need to, but we keep going back into our shells again. I also couldn't believe the amount of fumbling we were doing. We deserved to lose that game as North wanted it more.

 

[Dramoth]

I will take a win everyday of the week, no matter how it happens. 4 wins from our last 5 games is a lot better than 4 losses from the last 5 games. In the process we have beaten Freo at Subi for the first time since 2001; beaten Sydney for the first time since 2000; beat North for the first time since 2004 & won 3 games in a row for the first time since 2004.

We are still a work in progress & these types of wins are part & parcel of a developing list. Let's never forget, this time two years ago we were sitting in 14th position on the ladder with only Melbourne & Richmond below us. Now we sit in 7th position, while both Melbourne & Richmond sit in the bottom half of the ladder, once again vying for draft picks, not finals.

The way we have been playing lately against very average sides has been shocking, but it is teaching us how to grind out wins from nothing. That is more important than handing out 10 goal drubbings to crap sides like Richmond and Melbourne.

I will take the win over a loss any day.

 

[Chodders]

People may be disappointed with that effort but I don't think they should be. Sure we didn't play our best but we still managed to get over the line.

North play a game style where they try to strangle the life out of a team's run. They try to drag the ball and players to ground and create stoppages. Teams that break free of this expose North for their lack of pace. Add that to North trying to get over the line for Simpson and getting a dream run from the umps, I am very happy to get over the line.

People should remember that we haven't beaten Norf since 2004. Was great to stick it up them and ruin it for Simpson. (A lot of respect for the guy, but was great to ruin the party.)

 

[parrot]

This was an absolutely outstanding effort, because we fought out a tough win despite being hopelessly out of form. Well done Blues. Oh, and ignore the footy media junk journo's pointless anti-Carlton opinions. This team has serious talent, and we only need to regain form for the finals series, and then we can start inflicting some pain.

 

[kreuze_missile]

Embarassing effort really, not too many positives to come out of this game other than the 4 points.

Joseph should make way next week after his last 2 games. Will only survive if Ratts thinks he can do the job on Ablett.

Hopefully Jamison comes in, back 6 has been a complete rabble since he got injured.

 

[blues_gibbzy]

Gibbs BOG for mine. Like the channel seven said we should try and tag ruckman