Autopsy Rd 4 Blues annihilated by 86 points

[BrisbaneCFC]

Just ponder this for a moment ......

St. Kilda & Melbourne are both 2-3 years ahead of us in the rebuild stakes (ie. they started earlier) yet they are nowhere near being a genuine finals contender yet.

Jesse Hogan has already played 54-games but still hasn't become a consistently good player. Lance Franklin kicked 21 & 31 goals respectively in his first two years at Hawthorn. The moral here is that players take time to reach their zenith, especially the key position players.

Jake Lever is not the player at Melbourne most were expecting, his role is different to that he had at the Crows. The moral here is that Free Agency is not the panacea to all ills.

I actually didn't even remember he moved to Melbourne.

 

[Neese]

It seems a good weekend to have been away with a few middle aged mates from various parts of the country for a bit of a reunion. We chose randwick races in Sydney.

I didn't see the game but me & couple of other Carlton supporters were checking our phones for score updates. It looked ugly.

They had very negative comments re our rebuild. I said l wasn't worried where we were & put forward my arguments. I said we had to stay strong & stay on course & be very resilient & patient. I said that l would wait for the 66 games rebuild which will include 4 drafts & not make a critical assessment until 1 to 2 years after this 66 game rebuild. They just rolled their eyes at me. They also crashed early. They were in bed by 1 am

GWS finished 18th in year 1 & 2, 16th in year 3 & 11th in year 4 (in year 5 & 6 they were unlucky with injury to not go further) we are in year 2 & bit

In the short term, we had maybe 7 of the best 22 out with Murphy pulling out. 5 were aged 21 to 24 with Murphy 30 & Williamson 19 being the other 2

We have also changed our game plan completely & maybe a bit early given our outs. Not sure that Kreuzer & Kennedy are fully fit.

Like many on this forum, l'm comfortable where we are at. To those that are not happy stay strong & patient. It's not to say that our blood won't boil at times. It is an emotional game. I also feel for the young supporters.

Great post for perspective, something which is needed around here atm

 

[My name geoff]

We’re doing exactly that.... hurrying the process by trading out the number one pick in the first draft the club goes to after committing to a rebuild is a bit of an odd approach. Papering over cracks to remain slightly more competitive in the short term doesn’t work.

In my view this is overcommitting to one end of the recruitment spectrum.

Trading out SOME picks whilst keeping others is not hurrying the process. It's using our available resources to cover all the holes in the list.

Papering over the cracks would be to trade top picks for players like an Alex Rance who would give us an immediate boost, but will likely be gone when the draft picks are hitting their straps. It will also mean that we are highly competitive in the mean time, which is a good thing.

Trading some picks to recruit strong players aged 22-26 will mean that when our youngsters are hitting their straps we will still have a strong age profile not a full team of 22 year olds plus Cripps and Docherty.

Going too far one way or the other, to me spells danger.

 

[Soapy V]

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/postmatch-lochie-obrien

 

[BLUEALLTHRU]

FRIDGE MAGNET

They must've heard me,.... YES

 

[BLUEALLTHRU]

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/postmatch-lochie-obrien

I hope you got to have a beer with him mate. It was a solid debut. PROUD!!!!!!!

 

[ShanDog]

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/postmatch-lochie-obrien

Spud. Delist!

 

[Neese]

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/postmatch-lochie-obrien

Do you have a guernsey presentation video or photos? I'd love to see it if so.
PS I see your BiL in that video (not to be creepy)

 

[Neese]

They must've heard me,.... YES

Hope you have a fridge

 

[Madblue]

We have won 8 flags while iv'e been alive and raised my 10yo son to live and breath the Blues like I do. We live in Canberra and travel to Melbourne 5 or 6 times a year to watch them as well as Sydney when we play there and haven't seen many wins live for quite a few years. We go and watch the Giants when they play the 3 home games here each season. On Sunday my son asked me could we please go to the shops and buy a GWS jumper and asked if he could wear it to footy trainings. As a life long Blues supporter these are the harsh things that are happening after being such a basket case for nearly 20 years. Just hoping my boy can last a little longer

 

[RudyBlue]

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/video/2018-04-14/postmatch-lochie-obrien

Pull up okay? And any idea how the rest of the boys are feeling?

 

[Blubagger71]

If you think things are that bad listen to this:

That's gold. Thanks for the reality check.

 

[Soapy V]

Pull up okay? And any idea how the rest of the boys are feeling?

No sorry but I will go down to training this week to check things out. I want to see what's happening for myself instead of listening to outside noise. My feel is they will be up and about. People really undertestimate this group

 

[Neese]

I'm just going to put this here to add to the perspective:

NORTH MELBOURNE 1.2 4.6 6.8 12. 12. (84)
NORTHERN BLUES 4.2 6.4 10.9 12. 9. (81)

GOALS
Northern Blues: Lamb 3, Lebois 3, McKay 2, Polson 2, Hill, Kerr

BESTS
Northern Blues: Phillips, Shaw, Lamb, Rowe, Wilson, Blakey

 

[Cripps17]

In my view this is overcommitting to one end of the recruitment spectrum.

Trading out SOME picks whilst keeping others is not hurrying the process. It's using our available resources to cover all the holes in the list.

Papering over the cracks would be to trade top picks for players like an Alex Rance who would give us an immediate boost, but will likely be gone when the draft picks are hitting their straps. It will also mean that we are highly competitive in the mean time, which is a good thing.

Trading some picks to recruit strong players aged 22-26 will mean that when our youngsters are hitting their straps we will still have a strong age profile not a full team of 22 year olds plus Cripps and Docherty.

Going too far one way or the other, to me spells danger.

We've traded one player for five. We've turned a first round pick into Kennedy plus two second round picks. We've added Marchbank, Pickett, Lang and Garlett to cut through some development time. We've added a multitude of recycled players.

What makes you think we aren't doing what you've suggested? The trades need to be realistic. The players need to want to come to us. Hypotheticals don't cut it.

You still need to make considered judgements so you don't end up with Jaksch, Whiley and Boekhorst for a top 10 pick. Or preparing for Kennedy to kick another bag on us 3 years post Judd, while we have Casboult up forward.

 

[out of harmes' way]

Just a question.

1. Would you like to meander in medocrity for next 10 years and maintain membership at current levels of around 50 000 and sponsorship the same

OR

2. drop a little bit over next 12 -24 months but build up to a membership of 90-100 000 along with massive increases of sponsorship within the next 10 years?

Big picture

If and when we reach 90,000 members, make sure you message me. Unless of course, we are all dead.

 

[Soapy V]

If and when we reach 90,000 members, make sure you message me. Unless of course, we are all dead.

why would i message you?

 

[Gethelred]

We can’t even tackle ffs

That bit is at least relatively easy to answer.

AFL midfielders - the players you're most likely to be tackling - are strong, with the best of them being strong through the hips, keep their feet types, and some teams go to extremes in this area. North Melbourne, Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Sydney and Geelong are the sides that went in this direction three/four years ago, and to a certain extent they're reaping the benefits. If you want to beat them, you have to be able to take them to ground, or at least to be able to pressure their mids sufficiently to make them turn the ball over, which requires two things above all else; the strength to tackle and hold them when they try and get their arms free, and the repeat efforts to make the pressure mental.

Our promoted kids are either young and small, outside types, or underdeveloped talls; they require significant amounts of time in the gym to develop the strength to tackle appropriately at AFL level. These issues are compounded by the fact that our best 3 tacklers - currently - are Kreuz, Ed Curnow and Cripps, all three of which we need to hunt the ball first and tackle second. That allows an opponent to effectively ignore the tackler, to just waltz through open arms and accelerate, knowing that sure, they'll eventually get caught but by that point they'll have already had ten or so contested disposals and be five/six goals up.

If you can't bring them to ground, repeat efforts get harder and harder to do; you throw yourself at the ball carrier, and he outweighs you by five-ten kilos, and he just kind of ignores you as you seek to pin the arm. You try again; you fail again. Then, once, you succeed; the bloke with the ball drops it, only because they have momentum at this point - and the side with momentum is the equivalent of 'the house' in a casino - the bloke drops/throws the ball and play on is called, no free is given.

At this point, the game is all but over; you keep trying, but they've got you physically and mentally. It's here that the injuries to Doc, Cripps, Murph, Kreuz, Kennedy, Marshbank, Rowe have the biggest effect; these are the players our youngsters look to when the going gets tough, whether you think some of them deserve to have that kind of role or not or are effective leaders or not. With the loss of these leaders, either due to their injury affecting their capacity to play or completely leaving them off the pitch. Who are the kids looking to in their absence? Mullett?

I suppose the response to this is, why not recruit an Ollie Wines, Sam Powell-Pepper, Clayton Oliver type; the ready to go big bodied midfielder? The unfortunate reality is, most of the time, you've seen the ceiling for these guys already. The media can faff around telling us how 'unprecidented' Oliver is, but realistically he's a much poorer man's Tom Mitchell, something that you can develop through developing midfielders through the second/third round of the draft. The ugly, unfortunate truth is, if you want to take the best talent for variety and for match winning potential, you're better off getting it first, when your picks are better, than you are trying to do it later when your side has risen off the back of meat and potatoes types, as St Kilda are discovering.

Our lack of tackling pressure can be drawn from the fact that we're effectively trying to develop a starting midfield with fresh draft picks and the greatest hits of the last ten years, some of which are the wrong side of 28 and realistically should be looking at winding down. We were always this many injuries away from this kind of pain, and the last few years sugarcoated just how bad we could be, as the players we needed to stay fit have mostly stayed fit. Now, we're losing the important parts, and it's hurting.

 

[out of harmes' way]

Why has Hawthorn been able to rebuild in 12 months?
Strong winning culture?
Well, run club? ( Our Board has been terrible for years)
Great coach?
On-field leadership?

Copped some absolute floggings in the first 6 games last year.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Why has Hawthorn been able to rebuild in 12 months?
Strong winning culture?
Well, run club? ( Our Board has been terrible for years)
Great coach?
On-field leadership?

Copped some absolute floggings in the first 6 games last year.

Used the Box Hill Hawks as a development squad, just like Geelong did.

The old apprenticeship system still works.

 

[LordLucifer]

Why has Hawthorn been able to rebuild in 12 months?
Strong winning culture?
Well, run club? ( Our Board has been terrible for years)
Great coach?
On-field leadership?

Copped some absolute floggings in the first 6 games last year.

When you already have a core of senior players, it is a lot easier to do.

When you are starting from Ground Zero, it takes a little longer.

 

[RudyBlue]

Why has Hawthorn been able to rebuild in 12 months?
Strong winning culture?
Well, run club? ( Our Board has been terrible for years)
Great coach?
On-field leadership?

Copped some absolute floggings in the first 6 games last year.

1. More than half their team are still premiership players.
2. The experience they lost was replaced with players that could perform immediately- early picks traded for hardened bodies in Mitchell and O'Meara. Henderson and Impey etc recruited as well.
3. The young players they promoted had spent time developing their game in the reserves. They weren't (for the most part) thrown in the seniors off one pre-season in the gym.
4. Combine 1,2,3 above and their age and games-played profile lends itself to consistent performance.
5. Recent premiership success has built a strong performance culture. Bolton has needed to build one from ground zero.

I could probably go on.

It really isn't that hard to display some independent critical thinking. There are very good explanations for why they could recover quickly and why we still have quite a bit of pain in front of us.

 

[Soapy V]

Used the Box Hill Hawks as a development squad, just like Geelong did.

The old apprenticeship system still works.

Plus they had a base developed in early 2000's. Get that and everything else mostly right and you just need to do mini rebuilds along the way.

For us this is back to the very beginining. We are effectively starting a new club on and off field. Once we are established again if we are smart we should be a top side for decades

 

[Macca43]

Used the Box Hill Hawks as a development squad, just like Geelong did.

The old apprenticeship system still works.

And they were not nearly as bad as we were last year, didn't trade away one of their best players and didn't lose their sole AA player before the season started.

 

[teagueyubeauty]

Just got home from work to find my season guide and FRIDGE MAGNET in the letterbox. Hooray nice pic of Dow and O'Brien on the cover.
Loving the women's and men's team posters.

Am looking forward to seeing how my club responds in the next month or so - onwards and upwards

The fridge magnet rocks!!