Autopsy 2023 Round 1 DRAW. Ugly Blues still can't close out games

[I bleed Blue]

Thoughts after a good night's sleep.

Lucky to walk away with 2 points.

Didn't deserve to win. But from the position we were in we should have won.

Most disappointing thing that just sticking with me, was our ball movement. Stagnant. Predictable. Easy to defend against.

Not sure if our forward line made their own job hard. Or if the midfield made it hard for the forward line.... but just bombing it in hoping either Charlie or Harry would mark it, is not effective.

I feel like last year was all about ingraining our fundamentals of contested ball. Was hoping to better transition this year.

The backline held up really well considering how many inside 50s we conceded. If it wasn't for the backline we would have lost by 5 goals.

Desperately missed Walsh and his run and link play.

Although a draw is not a disaster by any means. The manner in which we played was a little concerning. Certainly not a finals brand of footy.

We have stars all over the park. We can't just expect they will carry us to finals on talent alone.

Really need to get more cohesive as a team and fix our transition and ball movement asap.

 

[JyeDye]

I haven't kept up much with preseason but why wasn't little Durdin playing? Surely would be better then Owies. We definitely need to work on our small forwards pressure, Richmond just waltzed out every time. Also the kick ins strategy needs massive improvements. Although Richmond had a s**t tonne of I50's I reckon half of them came on the back of kick ins. At worst we simply needed to gain some territory and kill the ball over the boundary, but I can't even remember that happening once.

 

[smit_is]

Don’t think anyone is denying that he nailed the kick … it’s not the issue. The issue is that he didn’t need to nail a a pass to split 3 Tigers’ players. Just needed a simple long kick to a loose Harry a few seconds earlier.

Yeah easy to throw shade in hindsight.

If he kicks earlier and misses the target, there were 3 Richmond players ready to hurt us on the rebound, with more time on the clock. Imagine the outcry then… the tantrums on here would be endless.

Of course I wish the result was different and evidently, the play didn’t come off, but I don’t think it was necessarily wrong, and certainly don’t feel O’Brien deserves the flack he’s copping on here based on it.

 

[jj1978]

it's a nice feeling to be top of the ladder but let's hope complacency does not set in....now we are the hunted

Well at least unlike last year if we bow out of finals in the last minute of the final round we won’t hear how we were in the 8 all season.

 

[Revenant1965]

I haven't kept up much with preseason but why wasn't little Durdin playing? Surely would be better then Owies. We definitely need to work on our small forwards pressure, Richmond just waltzed out every time. Also the kick ins strategy needs massive improvements. Although Richmond had a s**t tonne of I50's I reckon half of them came on the back of kick ins. At worst we simply needed to gain some territory and kill the ball over the boundary, but I can't even remember that happening once.

Injury report: Corey Durdin Hamstring Expected to be available next week

 

[Michael Jezz]

Before the start of the season, I had the Tigers entrenched in the 8, that didn't change after last night

I reckon Carlton and Richmond are 7th or 8th best side. One of the 2 could miss. Both sides are half as good as the press headlines. Richmond were fully fit, Taranto nearly best on and 7 x 30 year olds with no niggles. Their coach is their best asset. I went through the carlton fixture when it came out, had this a game a loss but winning 13. So borderline top 8. A win yesterday woud have been massive. I still think we will sneak in. The 2 season defining games are Adelaide in Adelaide and Gold Coast in Metricon. We must win those 2 or it starts to get hard. Carlton have more upside than Richmond, Pitto, Walsh etc. The lack of tackle pressure in the fwd line, per the HUN today is a concern. The loss of Pitto was glaring last night. Look how jack goes out of the game when he rucks and TDK gets pushed around

 

[jj1978]

What irks me is the Tigers yet again had players that miraculously recovered and had impact. And yet we get told to expect some of our injured players to be ready by round X and we never see them again.

 

[teddy-hopkins]

Yes.
Lots of contributors all game.
Could just as easily blame McGovern dropping the Christmas pud in the first 30 seconds.

Or Saad for trying to kick the ball out of the air instead of putting his body behind it.

 

[Rosscoe 17]

In their defence, we put up the infamous "Power off" sign from the boundary so hanging back was probably the gameplan.

We shouldn't have charged forward like we did, we should have chip marked. I don't think the 15/16 players that didn't run forward are at fault there.

Yeah I thought the lead up to the JSOS goal at the start, that we had really made strides to that chip mark game. It is the best way to chew up time.

 

[charred_fate]

While the defence withstood a lot, they’ve gotta take some of the blame for the heat they were under.

 

[katmanblue]

To those that are defending LOB on that last play, yes - his kick was good and a Harry fell over but you needed to be at the game to see how it really unfolded. The TV coverage simply didn’t show it well at all because you don’t see Harry until the kick comes in.

When LOB received the ball, Harry was 40-50m clear, pretty much the only player in our fwd half. If LOB kicked it to him earlier he could have fallen over, re-tied his shoe laces, blown kisses to his mum, had a cup of tea and then strolled into an open goal. Each bounce he took significantly reduced Harry’s advantage.

Was an example of dumb football.

None of this is accurate.

On SM-F926B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Revenant1965]

This is just my personal observation, but all through the game (despite what I saw as ugly play by us at times), I thought we would win. And then in those last moments when ball was heading towards Lynch I thought 'Oh no, here we go again.' I don't blame any 1 player for final result (as we could look at any error throughout game), although I think a couple with low possession players may be under pressure. Last year I lived with the hope we could win. Now I'm moving to faith that we will win. No opposition should be taken for granted (and we have a great test next week), but I see every game as winnable by us.

 

[Monty1978]

Just watched the last 2 minutes again and was at the game … at the game I thought Lob could have kicked it earlier but after watching the replay it doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t .. the kick was lace out to mckay and he slipped.
Who says mckay holds his feet if he does kick it one bounce earlier. Also acres dropped mark at the death.
Not sure how you train the last 2 minutes as every situation is different but hopefully the boys get over the hump and get one to build some confidence

 

[Robertio]

The game will do us a lot of good, we're definitely up there with the big boys this season, we'll beat Geelong next week.

 

[Sam The Doc]

Just watched the last 2 minutes again and was at the game … at the game I thought Lob could have kicked it earlier but after watching the replay it doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t .. the kick was lace out to mckay and he slipped.
Who says mckay holds his feet if he does kick it one bounce earlier. Also acres dropped mark at the death.
Not sure how you train the last 2 minutes as every situation is different but hopefully the boys get over the hump and get one to build some confidence

Had a look at the Acres thing again. If he marked it, probably kicks it from the edge of the square. Tough ask to get a score (obviously frustrating to drop it)

 

[navybluesince75]

I was at the ground.
He could have hit the kick early, and then H is on his own, nobody to kick to and a long way out with Tigers streaming back.
Instead, O'Brien took more time off the clock got the ball a lot deeper, and if not for H falling over, we've got an uncontested mark less than 25 out.
It was not a bad decision. H doesn't slip over, nobody is questioning it.

I actually thought the problem started with Motlop's forward handball to O'brien, if he holds for a few seconds then kicks short to O'brien who marks, holds waits for the forwards to flood forward and goes long down the line, contest out of bounds and reset for a stoppage the game is pretty much over

I Thought O'brien played the situation fairly well after he was put in the play on circumstance

all a matter of what if's and hindsight i guess

 

[NavySteel]

Thoughts after a good night's sleep.

Lucky to walk away with 2 points.

Didn't deserve to win. But from the position we were in we should have won.

Most disappointing thing that just sticking with me, was our ball movement. Stagnant. Predictable. Easy to defend against.

Not sure if our forward line made their own job hard. Or if the midfield made it hard for the forward line.... but just bombing it in hoping either Charlie or Harry would mark it, is not effective.

I feel like last year was all about ingraining our fundamentals of contested ball. Was hoping to better transition this year.

The backline held up really well considering how many inside 50s we conceded. If it wasn't for the backline we would have lost by 5 goals.

Desperately missed Walsh and his run and link play.

Although a draw is not a disaster by any means. The manner in which we played was a little concerning. Certainly not a finals brand of footy.

We have stars all over the park. We can't just expect they will carry us to finals on talent alone.

Really need to get more cohesive as a team and fix our transition and ball movement asap.

We weren't good enough at the contest, which is where was are strong.

After processing the game, I think we actually did really well to absorb the pressure - defence worked really hard (even Vossy in the presser said if this was last year and we were against that sort of pressure we'd lose by 6 goals - I agree with that).

Agree transition out of the backline was a real problem for us. Goal square - bomb to LHBF - lose contest - Richmond back in their 50 - rinse and repeat... When Saad got caught HTB in the last, I wasn't even mad - he was at least trying to break the lines.

I think we just need (and Iit's been an issue at Carlton for years and years) to have 3 or 4 set play types out of the goal square. If the long kick isn't working to our talls, go short and build the momentum, run from the goal square, spread, do something!

 

[kingkingston]

Our backline was awesome last night. Held Richmond to 8 goals from 66 inside '50s. Defence was pretty good all night. Young, McGovern and Weitering are a good trio that brings different styles that we need. I Thought Saad was in second gear all night, which was disappointing. why does he just stop at times on the spot with the ball. It gets him and the team in trouble.

 

[jj1978]

Our backline was awesome last night. Held Richmond to 8 goals from 66 inside '50s. Defence was pretty good all night. Young, McGovern and Weitering are a good trio that brings different styles that we need. I Thought Saad was in second gear all night, which was disappointing. why does he just stop at times on the spot with the ball. It gets him and the team in trouble.

Lucky Young awoke from his pre-season and first quarter slumber. Would be ace if we could also have had Liam back too, those 3 would've been great together.

 

[Sam The Doc]

Or Saad for trying to kick the ball out of the air instead of putting his body behind it.

Yeah... That was ugly...

 

[JoeyPBLUES]

What's this about?
Anyone see or heard more?
View attachment 1631458

Doubt it - he was on in the dying minutes & played out the game looked OK

 

[Benaly28]

One of the things we really lacked was forward pressure.Basically non existent.Our smalls we’re down.


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[The Sultan]

To those that are defending LOB on that last play, yes - his kick was good and a Harry fell over but you needed to be at the game to see how it really unfolded. The TV coverage simply didn’t show it well at all because you don’t see Harry until the kick comes in.

When LOB received the ball, Harry was 40-50m clear, pretty much the only player in our fwd half. If LOB kicked it to him earlier he could have fallen over, re-tied his shoe laces, blown kisses to his mum, had a cup of tea and then strolled into an open goal. Each bounce he took significantly reduced Harry’s advantage.

Was an example of dumb football.

IF he had of taken the first option we would have been hitting up Harry at CHF with an open centre square, if there is a mis-kick/spoil/dropped mark and turn over then Richmond had the open corridoor.

Playing to the pocket was the better option, slip/drop mark could have easily been mark, out of bounds, ball up enabling blues to lock theball in for 30 seconds and milk clock.

 

[ItsAllAboutMe]

Acres takes that mark on the edge of the square we likely win, reckon he makes rhe distance from there . What was that?

Footsteps.. I agree he has a decent leg on him and would have made the distance

 

[charred_fate]

What's this about?
Anyone see or heard more?
View attachment 1631458

He came off limping and clutching at his calf. Spent a few mins on the bench, they strapped it and he came back on. Didn’t look good when he first came off. Who knows with Gov?