Autopsy 2024 Rd 22 Blues finals hopes sink like a stone

[CarmenSandiego]

Hawthorn are a dynamic creative side with tons of speed. 3 things we are not.

They've got a clear identity with how they play. It's not dissimilar to Pies last year with just rebounding & spreading with pressure on the ball carrier. The nickname showtime hawks is apt because they look as confident as Hollywood movie stars when streaming forward. You flick them on the TV every week or so and you see they're playing the same way and it's ingrained in you as an observer that that is the way they move the ball.

We have no identity, we never have under Voss- actually scratch that, we've never had it with this group. Bolton was overly defensive but we never nailed it, Teague was all out attack and we couldn't nail that either. We've had stints with Voss where we are dead set bullies in the midfield and bashed teams & won from there, but at no point have we had an identity with how we play, or even want to play.

 

[Just Kreuzing]

Still only two wins from second

2 wins and a million miles from 2nd place……

 

[Soapy V]

Yeah, apparently there are factions within the team

Is there?

 

[Coops93]

We have no identity, we never have under Voss- actually scratch that, we've never had it with this group

Sorry, but that's a load of bollocks. I can easily tell you our identity, it's not hard.

Contested ball, clearance and contest has been our identity since Voss took over. He's only said it 56 times every press conference, and it's easily visible based on how we play and how we select our team.

Hard and uncompromising at the contest. Get the ball forward from contest to contest.

Whether or not it works is another question, but our identity is obvious.

 

[prisoner777]

Vossy in his presser said:

"Not ideal, but at the same time, we will find out a bit about us in the next couple of weeks. It is a bit of a blow, the way the day has panned out, but there is an opportunity sitting right in front of us and you don't wish those away. We're in a spot and we're going to see it out as best we can."

I think we've been finding out a bit about the team for the past one-two months and we've had several opportunities in the past six weeks but failed the major ones. Yes, we are plagued with injuries (bad luck or poor conditioning?) The record shows we continue to be unable to stand up when it counts/in pressure games.

 

[David Sylvian]

2 wins and a million miles from 2nd place……

 

[Sam The Doc]

Somehow found a positive - thought Cowan was great.
Looking forward to see him next season!

 

[ctwenty1]

Is there?

Nope- channeling 2023 vibes when we were having our horror run

 

[Just Kreuzing]

It's all about money and awards with this lot.
Would love them to prove me wrong.

For the last 2 months it has been Coleman’s, Brownlow’s, top 4 & premierships…..

None of the above !!

 

[ctwenty1]

That's not the impression I got. Voss pretty much wrote off the second half based on the injuries, and the first half he just said we got caught playing Hawthorns way.

That's very soft. That display today isn't an acceptable performance for a team who's "supposed" to be a Top 4 team.

You can be firm in how unacceptable the performance is without slamming the players. Unfortunately he reminds me of a politician, all nice empty words that go round and round in circles but never actually address anything.

I'm not a big fan of Mitchell but at least he expresses himself well when his team isnt performing. Which says something considering his team is exceeding expectations this year.

It’s all there in his use of the word “disappointment”

 

[Chemical]

Vossy in his presser said:

"Not ideal, but at the same time, we will find out a bit about us in the next couple of weeks. It is a bit of a blow, the way the day has panned out, but there is an opportunity sitting right in front of us and you don't wish those away. We're in a spot and we're going to see it out as best we can."

I think we've been finding out a bit about the team for the past one-two months and we've had several opportunities in the past six weeks but failed the major ones. Yes, we are plagued with injuries (bad luck or poor conditioning?) The record shows we continue to be unable to stand up when it counts/in pressure games.

Yeah spot on. We fail to deliver. The MC and list management need to keep this in mind going forward

 

[Prem17]

Heard similar last week I love Crippa like everyone else but please spare me the stronger together catch cry was good last year but sniffed out now.


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Green shoots...
We'll learn from that....
They know what we're cooking....
They know we're coming.....
We'll look at our kpi's....
We'll look at our indexes......
We'll change things up.....
Stronger together......

All in all it's just a-nother
load of crap for us all....

 

[Prem17]

For the last 2 months it has been Coleman’s, Brownlow’s, top 4 & premierships…..

None of the above !!

Ummm premierships? In the last 2 months we've lost 6 out of 7 games with the 1 win over a young North side.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Is there?

Having a 160 Year Carlton Anniversary piss up before midday on a Sunday with all the old boys, would get the lips blubbering.

There ain’t enough band-aids.

Just sayin’

 

[prisoner777]

Only 19 tackles in the first half suggests a lack of intensity.

 

[Monty1978]

That’s as bad as it gets .. if you went like me heck it was bad .. if you were at home atleast you could grab a beer for less than 11.50 , I went to the bar and punted on horses it was that bad waiting for my Hawks
Mates to scream the wiz every 5 minutes … can’t believe we are this bad with the players we have … reliant on the top 6 .. of curnow plays bad or cripps doesn’t bust a gut we are cooked .. special mention to Cowan , head held high he played a fukin good game for a young fella … there were a few others but we are individuals

 

[Soapy V]

Only 19 tackles in the first half suggests a lack of intensity.

Exactly. Same every week and highlights my concerns

 

[I bleed Blue]

Vossy in his presser said:

"Not ideal, but at the same time, we will find out a bit about us in the next couple of weeks. It is a bit of a blow, the way the day has panned out, but there is an opportunity sitting right in front of us and you don't wish those away. We're in a spot and we're going to see it out as best we can."

I think we've been finding out a bit about the team for the past one-two months and we've had several opportunities in the past six weeks but failed the major ones. Yes, we are plagued with injuries (bad luck or poor conditioning?) The record shows we continue to be unable to stand up when it counts/in pressure games.

One of the biggest cop out lines.

Well find out a bit about us next week. Let's see how the boys respond from that one. Expecting a response next week.

Been hearing that for about 6 weeks in a row. Been saying it myself.

Well we've found out.

We dropped a couple then had to win to keep top 4 hopes alive. Failed.

Today playing to keep finals hopes (and slim top 4 hopes alive). Failed miserably.

What is going to change next week? We will get smacked by an energised Eagles team. Then hear "years not over yet. Still possible to make it. Let's see how they respond next week"

****ed if I know what's gone wrong. But it's like the engine blew out and all 4 tires fell of at qtr time of GWS

 

[Prem17]

T

Only 19 tackles in the first half suggests a lack of intensity.

The commentators pointed out that Hawthorn broke 1 out of every 2 tackles.
That means that at least 11 players on the field can't stick a tackle.
Time to poach a NRL assistant for tackling.

 

[RAPPA]

T

The commentators pointed out that Hawthorn broke 1 out of every 2 tackles.
That means that at least 11 players on the field can't stick a tackle.
Time to poach a NRL assistant for tackling.

We are not a “strong” team by any stretch. Aside from Cripps, I wouldn’t have much confidence in our other players to be breaking tackles. Good knows how many times Walshy unsuccessfully tries it.

 

[WyntersGame_]

It’s all there in his use of the word “disappointment”

Maybe I'm expecting too much but disappointing is losing but playing well. Disappointing is losing but giving our all. Neither of these things that occurred in this game.

To me there are more choice words to be used when discussing that loss. That was the easy answer. I mean he didn't even want to say he was fustrated with that loss. He specifically said he did not want to use words like frustration

Now I'm not on the bandwagon that he needs to be sacked. I think he has grown this year as a coach but this loss was definitely more than a disappointment and I think he should have reacted as such. It felt he used the easy cop out. I mean for goodness sake we went from 2nd to being out the 8 in 6 weeks and this was the telling game that kicked us out the game. Having some passion around losing like that would be understood/expected

 

[Stickitupthem]

if I ran my business the way
Carlton football club runs there business I’d be broke
My clients would kick me to the kerb

Everyone can see the issues and or lack of effective management in this business
Big issues
Recruiting dept
the perennially injured players should have been moved on after SOS
and high contracted under performing players should have been traded away like the filth did by paying part of there contract .
This would have allowed us to develop and find players to contribute to the team and we wouldn’t be playing the same under performing players because of depth .
Effectively playing with 4 less players every year, that’s unbelievable , talk about tying one hand behind our back

MC picking players on merit who earn the call up and drop those who need to work on the deficiencies instead of playing favourites not dropping the big names send a message if your lazy your dropped that’s non happening in this team and they know it

Coaching or lack of what can I say
disgraceful
Cook has a chance in the next couple of months to right this ship before it’s too late, whether he has the energy to do that will remain to be seen .

 

[Blue4Life]

If we hadn’t played the bottom 2 teams 4 times we wouldn’t even be talking about the possibility of finals

 

[BlueSuede]

I would give my life savings and Andrew Walker's hat for someone from Men in Black to come and erase my memory of the last six hours.

 

[crippa1234]

Hear me out

This isnt a list issue.
Popular argument that everyone outside our top 5 needs to go.
I reckon many of our 6-15th best players would get strong contracts in other clubs.
I don’t think we are crap outside of the top 5 if you scrutinise each player’s individual skills.

This isn’t a selection issue either
Selection has been OK in my view, no major ins or outs that I can think of each week. We have
Yes Binns should have a crack but we used to echo that with Paddy Dow

15

Paddy Dow

Age

26

Ht

184cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

7.0

3star

HB

7.1

4star

M

2.1

2star

T

2.9

4star

CL

2.6

4star

D

7.0

1star

K

4.0

1star

HB

3.0

2star

M

3.0

3star

T

2.0

3star

CL

0.0

1star

D

12.4

4star

K

5.8

3star

HB

6.6

4star

M

1.6

2star

T

2.8

5star

CL

2.6

5star

and now he can’t crack a game in a bottom 4 side.

Voss is some of the issue
He doesn’t know how to change the style of play in the middle of the game, it’s very normal to have a single good quarter in a game, especially how we do at times, but a good coach would then see the momentum slow down and try to play a more defensive/cagey style of football, Voss just lets us continue trying to do what we did in that one good quarter and whittle away a lead.

The way he does this is that he continues to let us forward press , which makes us the easiest team in the league to score against off a turnover - we have Saad and Newman, Gov who are supposed to be defenders pushing forward into our forward 50 - which is great when we have momentum and ply the goals, but not so great when that momentum slows.

Some times that aggressive quarter we have is enough to get us through, but to be honest , there hasn’t been many games (even the wins) that Ive come out of and said that was good football.

The Main issue is predictability (which our full coaching team are also responsible for)
While our injuries were piling on last year with key players out (e.g. Walsh/Mckay/Weitering) we won every single game, we just made it work with the personnel we had.

That’s because our mid-tier players (e.g. Newman, Cottrell, Fog, Acres, Cunningham, Motlop, Boyd) who we identify as ‘role players’ actually stepped up to the plate, we were unpredictable, we didn’t know who was going to belt the next goal. Cripps was quiet at times, but it didn’t matter, we had our backs against the wall and we found a way to just win. We had that bulldogs 2016 energy.

The issue is that these players are too complacent and too comfortable with our top 5 players- in second half 2023 , we had no barometer, Fogs could be the star that kicked 4 , Cottrell was staking his argument for being a top 5 player in our club - Cunners could belt 2 quick 3rd quarter goals to get us back in it. Our players were confident in their own abilities.

Now Cripps is our barometer, the players who got us into a prelim last year are in 2024 looking at how they can get it to Cripps or Curnow and fulfil their role.

Yes Cripps can clear the ball better, yes Curnow can mark/kick straighter but what this dependency creates is a huge element of predictability in our game. Opposition teams need to shut down 2-3 players and they win the game.

It’s a shame because the list is there, our mid tier players ARE GOOD PLAYERS, the system is a disaster.

Honestly when we won our first 3-4 games, I could already see this happening, even the wins are cringe.