Do I really believe?

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I believe we are playing a more attractive and effective brand of football the last month

Do i believe we can still make finals?Smash West Coast this week. Then beat the pies the week after and I will start believing.

Not getting my hopes up just yet.. been let down too many times by this team to get my hopes up again yet.
 

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When we stand up in a close game & take the W against someone really coming at us & playing well, I’ll start to believe.
Kinda like early Matrix - sense there’s something going on, but need to see it to believe it
Nah, I'm getting used to dishing out 50+ point floggings every week. If we can do that every week until the last game of the year, I'll be ecstatic😉
 
If we do make it to the finals, then i think we can cause some damage. So yeah i believe we're on the right path again finally.

We're starting to lay down some solid foundations, that will put us into a very strong position in 2024 imo.
 
I have believed in the ability and capability of this team for a couple or more years now.

What has been missing is a collective set of real values, a common cause with REAL buy in. We have had a group of good guys with their own value perspectives generally working to accomplish an idea, without having the focus to achieve it.

Our six game nightmare brought a number of issues to a head. Players pretty much all committed but with differing opinions as to how to attain the ultimate prize. A number of alpha types pulling factions on a number of tangents. I don’t pretend to know the precise divides, but they were there. Then we have the coaches trying do do their jobs under perhaps the greatest weight of expectation and similarly divided factions with expectation models historic, current and future. Pressure brought to bear had the coaches doubling down on historic attitudinal and tactical beliefs. Micromanaging led to a paralysis, our talented list and indeed capable coaches were spiralling and in need of a circuit breaker.

The player gathering at Ed’s place certainly became the catalyst to produce a phenomenal turn around to have the group performing to potential. Some improved player availability and a couple of “concessions” by coaches, some simplification produced a turn around literally none of us would have expected. It was not grafting slow improvement, it was a new dawn. Now players and coaches have a realisation of what can be done and more importantly how it can be done.

We may not rise above our injury challenges on an almost sudden death run home, but I am confident everyone knows the recipe and have thoroughly enjoyed the taste of real team success. We haven’t relied on one or two, even a handful of individuals, we have had complete buy in. Some players drove it, and some grew quickly when they discovered the simple yet illusive process necessary to become a genuine club.

I don’t know if there was a coaching prompt for the meeting, if it was purely players or perhaps our cagey old CEO set some wheels in motion. All I know is this is different. I am seeing some very pessimistic posters suggesting new levels of belief to confirm my own. A great many players, coaches, officials supporters (and even “haters”) have learned over the last month what Carlton can do when it finally learns to work as one.

Refer to my “sig” below, it has been there for a while, but I am quietly confident the first rays are shining through.
 
Back on the ladder predictor again today and our finals run looks as friendly as possible.

Dogs first up in the elimination final. Best possible outcome IMO.

Dees in the semi-final. Don't have to travel. Best possible outcome IMO.

Port in the prelim.

Then the biggest grand final in recent history vs Collingwood on the way to #17.
 

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Another 4 quarters

This... our run to finals is surprisingly tough, but if we beat St Kilda i think a lot of the pressure comes off, as we almost completely cut them off from going past us

Had Geelong beaten Freo yesterday our season record would have been an absurd:
4-3 against the top 6 on the ladder
0-1-5 against the next 6 teams
6-0 against the bottom 5

There has been a strong resolve in the group though and i just hope we can sustain a few more weeks
 
Ask yourselves this: if the ladder stopped right now, who would scare you coming into the finals?

Unfortunately, the finals aren’t now, and there is still work to do. But if you said to yourself you weren’t much worried about anyone in the 8, then you’re a believer in what we are doing.
I was still worried facing West Coast. Saints have had it over us for two decades so I am not out of the woods yet.

But I sure feel differently.
 
Ill believe when I can look at who were are playing and say "we'll win this". Much like sosos said, I was worried v WC, StK concern me, GC just knocked off Bris, GWS here is suddenly to walk in the park and whilst our injury list to key players mounts...again. All these doubts in my mind, the GWS game is now shaping as the elimination final for a spot in the 8.
 
Do I believe??
Well if you had have told me 2 weeks ago( before port game), that our run home was against 5 of the top 6 teams, plus the two coasters, and we had to win 6/8 to make finals. I probably would have said no.

But now if we can finish this season off playing like we have in the last two months we potentially will be the absolute form team of the comp and only just getting to full strength.

Yea I believe. #17
 
ive done the ladder predictor all which way, but in the end we have to keep winning games, I dont want it to come to the finals game where we are playing an in form GWS and a Toby Green who could tear us apart, like he has in the past. Another final round exit could do irreparable damage to the players psyche.

If we make the finals, its a pass
if we win a final its a win
If we go any further than that its a bonus, and the lid if off...
 
I've thus far managed to avoid this thread but here's my 2c. ferrisb this is all your fault.

Do I post this? Nah. People will laugh at me. They'll think I'm crazy. What, they already do? Right.

Anyway here goes...

Yes. The answer to the question posed by the OP is yes; or at least it now ought to be. Naturally as Carlton fans I think we're largely pessimistic beings - how could you not be after the wild ride that has been the past 20 odd years - but I think you have to believe now.

The reality is we're playing irresistible footy at the moment. And the best thing about this is I think it's a sustainable brand of footy. I certainly believe it can stand up to the pressure of finals footy, it has everything you look for in a game plan and style that does.

Right now, I genuinely believe we're currently the 3rd of 4th best team in it.
That's a wild thing to write. And it's incredible given the absolute shit we were serving up earlier in the season.

We have 4 rounds to go and we're not yet guaranteed to make finals. We may well have left our run too late, but I am confident that if we maintain the way we've been playing for the past 6 weeks, we will get there.

Side note - even if we don't, the platform we have now set for ourselves to launch into 2024 is an unbelievable one.

A lot of us laugh at Champion Data. But something Daniel Hoyne said a little while back on SEN has had my mind ticking over...
Melbourne missed the finals in 2020. They started poorly but really started motoring around the middle of the year before just missing out.
They used the back end of that season to tinker, adjust, experiment, and find a formula that works before launching into the 2021 season...and the rest, as they say, is history.

I think we're in a similar boat. What we were doing wasn't working. So we tinkered, we adjusted, we moved the magnets...and now we have something that is working. And we now build on that, during the season and over the offseason, regardless of what the next 4 weeks (or possibly more) have in store for us.

I said last week before the Collingwood game that I care much more about the performance than I do about the result. It was a free hit against the Pies, and we took it.

My mindset is exactly the same this week.

We should win. Obviously I want us to win. But I don't expect to win.

Once again, I care much more about the performance than I do about the result. Because regardless of the outcome our job is not yet done.

Win? Brilliant. We're one step closer.

Lose and play as we have been? OK. We are not unbeatable. 2 wins will see us play finals before this game, and 2 wins will see us play finals after it. And those wins will come.

Lose and go back into our shells? Disaster.

Now, here's the big one.

In the midst of our shit-storm earlier in the year I said the following to some mates of mine:

"If we somehow turn this around and make finals...we're going all the way"

I don't know what compelled me to say it. At the time, it was inconceivable, completely laughable, actually. Oh how they laughed. And to be honest I'm not sure whether I fully believed it at the time.

But with every good passage of play, and certainly with every win since, they've looked across at me, a look of disbelief in their eyes.

Could I be right?

You're damn right I could be.

So much so that if we make the 8 I'll be backing us for the flag. And I never bet on Carlton; I don't think I ever have.

Watch this get a bazillion likes from Carlton fans now and a bazillion more from opposition fans if we don't make it, or get knocked out in September...
 

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Do I really believe?

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