Autopsy 2025 Rd 13 Shaky Blues Hold on to Beat Bombers

[NavySteel]

I think Cripps is a ****ing gun. I also think he's dumber than a brick and shouldn't be captain. Don't let him think let alone lead. Spiritual captain, sure, tell him his job and watch him beat the shit out of whoever goes near him. The rest of the leading and decisions give to Jsos or Cerra thanks.

JSOS captain would be epic.

 

[bourbons]

Good observations. We are certainly not the supporter base we used to be. The overriding sentiment is pessimism and fear of failure, even when we are going ok. The TV cameras were focusing on our supporters late in the game.

Why is it?

2 completely failed full rebuilds and the way they've consistently folded within games and seasons over the last 4 years will do that.

 

[Accidental genius]

JSOS captain would be epic.

I’m thinking the same.

I’d go as far as to stay no other player is attached to the mighty blues as he is.

 

[bourbons]

But they didn't melt? They won. Essendon pressed and the players rallied and then... They turned it on to start the last quarter, and defended effectively enough that it never got within a goal?

I'd argue they did. 3 goals after halftime, same old same old. That just ain't gonna get it done against competent teams, which Essendon were pretty far off from being last night make no mistake.

Is that not enough? Are our expectations so ridiculous that despite starting the match in the bottom 4, we have not only win but do it a certain way or we all have to self-flagellate afterwards?

Nowhere near enough imo, again if we weren't playing Essendon we would have been pantsed.

I totally accept its not a top 4 list but gee whiz I wouldn't have thought its a bottom 4 one either. Something is seriously wrong with this club.

 

[Jimmyonesix]

He's been like that since Day 1 - no real defensive nous

He has improved incrementally year-by-year, but yeah we really need more from him there still

Yes there is a reason why he has had his best games while the oppposing ruck has also been best on ground.

 

[bourbons]

I dunno. Maybe we all just need to relax and enjoy the moment a little. We probably won't win the flag this year, and that ok. We don't have to burn the place down, we can just got be entertained, cheer and enjoy the wins that come

imo its probably that more of the fanbase are waking up to the reality - that this group ain't it, its another wasted rebuild and another decade before we're (hopefully lol) in a position to truly compete again.

Its a bitter pill to swallow after the run in '23 and sitting 2nd at round 16 last year. Every time you think they've legit turned the corner they let you down again, like clockwork. It rips the guts out of the supporter base.

 

[blues4flag]

It's amazing how far divorced our supporters are from the realities of a football club. You'd think the club exists in a vacuum, where we choose to go from lowering the eyes and hitting targets inside 50, to bombing long...just because?

Michael Voss at quarter time - "good quarter boys, but I can't have you lot scoring so easily. I want to see hack kicks and long bombs this quarter!"

Don't get me started on the nonsense rhetoric that Essendon, West Coast and North games don't matter because we should beat them regardless. The level of entitlement is astonishing.

Like any organisation, nothing comes easy. We've had glaring issues all year and it's not going to fix itself. A combination of better method, more composure and different personnel should help, but it's not going to fix itself overnight.

Good signs in that first quarter should give the boys some confidence. Resorted to old habits once the Bombers dialled up the pressure. Hopefully we use the next 3 weeks to reinforce the approach while banking wins.

Seems a long shot, but it's also exactly how 2023 played out, so...

 

[Opium]

I'd argue they did. 3 goals after halftime, same old same old. That just ain't gonna get it done against competent teams, which Essendon were pretty far off from being last night make no mistake.


Nowhere near enough imo, again if we weren't playing Essendon we would have been pantsed.

I totally accept its not a top 4 list but gee whiz I wouldn't have thought its a bottom 4 one either. Something is seriously wrong with this club.

We had some really young players to last night. Carroll, O’Keefe, White, Lord, Motlop.

I would love Wilson to get a run soon to. I think he's dash off half back and kicking will really improve our transition game.

 

[ajb72]

Weitering long way off. Wouldn't have polled votes for weeks. Would put Haynes ahead of Weitering. Could raffle next 3 or 4

Hewitt, Silvagni, cerra, hollands.

Because we don’t coach fundamentals

To be fair to Haynes, he was probably expecting to give the ball to Weitering, and didn’t expect him to have dozed off outside the boundary line. Honestly not sure if he needs a reboot but to be totally off with the faeries like he was in this passage of play, is kind of what you sometimes expect with u9’s, not top level of a sport.

 

[TENACIOUS]

Ive been a Carlton supporter and member for majority of my life and I can’t remember ever feeling this disinterested about our club and team before.
Last night’s game was hard to watch, but it’s the new normal for Carlton. We’ve been conditioned for disappointment through decades of mediocrity and it’s taking its toll. The love will always be there but the care factor is fading.

Going every week, isn’t fun anymore. We all still cheer the boys on, yet know in our hearts that it’s going to be the same outcome, lead at half time and then get run over in the second half.

Ever since they made all training closed sessions, there has become a rift between the club and supporters. No other clubs do this to their supporters.

Then some dumb ass, at the club advertises the open training sessions as viewing sessions

Club is flying off-field.. But, on-field and connection to supporters is at an all time low…

 

[Benaly28]

HOKs mum on the website is awesome,so bubbly and energetic.

 

[HaydossJ]

Williams 2 goals, 2 goal assists and 8 score involvements.

One of few who can find a target i50 and one of our most important players.

 

[btdg]

I'd argue they did. 3 goals after halftime, same old same old. That just ain't gonna get it done against competent teams, which Essendon were pretty far off from being last night make no mistake.


Nowhere near enough imo, again if we weren't playing Essendon we would have been pantsed.

I totally accept its not a top 4 list but gee whiz I wouldn't have thought its a bottom 4 one either. Something is seriously wrong with this club.

We are now 11th which seems about right. Lost pretty comfortably to 7th and 9th and I think everyone would say that the Bulldogs and GWS are better than us. We just beat 10th, a team who went into the game 2.5 games ahead of us.

If nothing else Essendon have been competent - well organised and coached. They adjusted well, challenged us and we won.

'something is seriously wrong with this club'. Yep, that's my point, and I'd start by looking at the 'supporters' and how they perceive things

 

[ESKIE]

Whatever is wrong, these fade-outs have been going on since last year, why isn’t it fixed!!

 

[btdg]

imo its probably that more of the fanbase are waking up to the reality - that this group ain't it, its another wasted rebuild and another decade before we're (hopefully lol) in a position to truly compete again.

Its a bitter pill to swallow after the run in '23 and sitting 2nd at round 16 last year. Every time you think they've legit turned the corner they let you down again, like clockwork. It rips the guts out of the supporter base.

This thinking is unhealthy. Far too black and white. It only 'rips the guts' out of you if you let it.

It's not premiership or complete rebuild. It's not 'turned the corner' and then smooth sailing to premiership after premiership. Progress isn't linear, and things don't have to be burnt to the ground when we don't win. I would have thought that if any reality was setting in it would be that one. We have tried 'scorched earth' twice and it sucks. We've also annointed ourselves premiers prematurely 3-4x since and it sucks as well.

We've already turned over a heap of this group and the 'rebuild' is well underway. We played in a prelim final two years ago with a relatively mature group... and a third of that team didn't play yesterday. Instead, we're playing O'Keefe, White, Carroll, Lord, have blooded O'Farrell and Camporeale, we're getting closer to the point where Hollands and Motlop and co play a bigger role.

The goal is to be consistently decent. If we drop to 11th but retool a little, get experience into the kids, and come back stronger next year then so be it. With a decent fixture and a bit of injury luck it's not inconceivable that we scrape into finals, or at least play some big games late in the year that help our players build confidence in that type of match too.

Somehow we have reached the point where we are simultaneously a) starting the game in the bottom 4, and b) beating a major rival, who were 2.5 games ahead of us on the ladder, in front of 75,000 fans, and c) everyone is desperate to tear apart the players and coach afterwards.

It's not healthy and it must be stifling for the players and club to operate in that environment

 

[Gethelred]

They must figure he offers more the way he is than the alternatives. Hopefully that is regularly reviewed but we haven't really had obvious alternatives.

It's one of those things, I think, that'd change between coaches. Some coaches would pick the kid instead of the player who could really do with a rest/some time away - injured or not - and rationalise it as being good for the young fella's development to see just how much he has to improve. Another coach (named Vichael Moss) seems to be of the mind that you do not play kids until they're AFL ready.

It's annoying. I get playing through niggles, but if he's injured he's playing as less than half of what he can do, physically.

That is, if he's injured. If he's not, he's becoming very, very lazy.

 

[Soapy V]

Whatever is wrong, these fade-outs have been going on since last year, why isn’t it fixed!!

Because Voss believes what he is doing is right. He just believes it’s consistency and getting better

Reminds me of Einsteins doing the same thing over and over………….

 

[bringdoullback]

Essendon played a zone in the first quarter. All year, we have utterly dissected opposition zones. Our vulnerability is when they go man on man around the ground, which they did from Q2 onwards. We just struggle to know who is next to lead and move then.

The positive is that almost every opposition has to go away from its standard zone and change what it does against us. If we can figure out how to play against that then we have huge upside imo

Interesting insight.

Our defence is based on intercept marking. Essendon played into our hands in q1.

They then changed the way they brought the ball forward, and used handball chains to work through our high press zone and once through we got exposed. As the game wore on their superior running capacity allowed them to gain ascendency, especially in the 3rd.

We made some adjustments in the 4th that helped. Not certain what they were, but Cez after an extended break was our best running mid and it showed.

Doch, Acres and Hollands have some serious flaws but they were the only ones that kept running all night. This is our biggest weakness right now.

Watch the last qtr, and essendon switch to open up the ground and attack. We switch and we do it to play safe football.

Not liked motlop's form recently, but last night he was super. Running, pressure, clean with loose balls, decision making. Only mistake was running too close to man on mark when 15m out.

Margin flattering Essendon but does accurately reflect where we are at presently. We are a bottom 8 team. 11-11 is about our ceiling unless something significanrly changes.

 

[Markyd]

Lord one of the big positives for the year getting better with every game and would be nearly best kick in the team.

HOK excellent first game took some great contested marks and that rundown tackle was top shelf.

 

[JK61]

Great post btdg. It feels like some of the comments and posts are from opposition supporters.

 

[Accidental genius]

Williams 2 goals, 2 goal assists and 8 score involvements.

One of few who can find a target i50 and one of our most important players.

He just makes things happen - very intelligent user of the ball. Great awareness and reads the play very well.

Using a term form other sports - He is like our "play maker"

 

[btdg]

Interesting insight.

Our defence is based on intercept marking. Essendon played into our hands in q1.

They then changed the way they brought the ball forward, and used handball chains to work through our high press zone and once through we got exposed. As the game wore on their superior running capacity allowed them to gain ascendency, especially in the 3rd.

We made some adjustments in the 4th that helped. Not certain what they were, but Cez after an extended break was our best running mid and it showed.

Doch, Acres and Hollands have some serious flaws but they were the only ones that kept running all night. This is our biggest weakness right now.

Watch the last qtr, and essendon switch to open up the ground and attack. We switch and we do it to play safe football.

Not liked motlop's form recently, but last night he was super. Running, pressure, clean with loose balls, decision making. Only mistake was running too close to man on mark when 15m out.

Margin flattering Essendon but does accurately reflect where we are at presently. We are a bottom 8 team. 11-11 is about our ceiling unless something significanrly changes.

Our zone was bad yesterday. More than any game this season we struggled to cover the 'width' of the ground. Not sure why but those small forwards weren't getting across to cover the forward pockets/flanks, and then they seemed to always have overlap on the wing as a result. Went end to end very easily and we only survived because we defended deep so well.

that was visible in the first quarter, even when we ewre dominating (which was 50% us slicing their zone apart, and 50% their bad turnovers). Not quite sure whether we changed something structural or if it was just new players coming in - we have had a LOT of player turnover (5 changes each of hte last 3 weeks?). Docherty and Carroll both also seemed a bit in two minds about when to 'go' and when to 'defend' deep and had to cover for it with desperation and effort (which was great, but not what you want). Playing Lord as a wing probably contributed but he was against a first gamer so it didn't hurt too much.

Cerra was also a really big loss. I don't quite understand but we're only playing 4 midfielders at the moment (Cripps, Hewett, Walsh, Cerra) plus Lord (on the wing). Our 4 midfielders all had 15+ centre bounce attendances, and that was basically the midfield (Williams was the only other to have a CBA with 3, and they were all before half time). In contrast Essendon had Setterfield (went with Cripps all game) and Caldwell all match (15+) then Parish, Durham, Merrett, and Martin all had 5-10 each.

Take Cerra out for 10-15 minutes and we are bizarrely down to only THREE midfielders... no wonder we are struggling to run out games?

Nice to see Motlop get a shout-out. I thought he was excellent and it is a pity he missed the shot at the end, because he deserved a 3 goal game imo.

 

[Its an amigo!]

Ive been a Carlton supporter and member for majority of my life and I can’t remember ever feeling this disinterested about our club and team before.
Last night’s game was hard to watch, but it’s the new normal for Carlton. We’ve been conditioned for disappointment through decades of mediocrity and it’s taking its toll. The love will always be there but the care factor is fading.

I feel exactly the same. I've been a supporter since 1993, pretty much when I was 6 years old, and barracked real hard for the last 30 years. I saw some absolutely horrific years and times and yet I always was interested and had some kind of hope we would turn it around. Now i just watch, expecting games to pretty much go exactly like they did last night, but some we win, most we lose, and never are we going to be an actual premiership contender. I don't even really feel any enjoyment watching the footy anymore.

After the 2016 draft (Weitering, Harry, Charlie, Cuningham, Silvagni) with Cripps and then Walsh a couple of years later, the core of this squad should have been primed for a 2022 - 2026 run and that was always going to be our best chance to be in premiership contention. But this squad has massively underperformed/currently underperforming and we just know they are going nowhere. Cripps is looking more and more beat up, Harry looks like a shell of his former self, and Charlie looks disinterested.

On top of this, I feel we have a coaching group that would rank in the bottom four in the AFL. I still cant work out in 2022, coming into these years, that we decide that was the coaching group to take this team forward.

We have a few years left with this squad, but we are now on the downslope and I think they are going to miss their chance. Then the rebuild will start again and we are back around again. How many times have we gone on this roundabout over the last 25 years!?

Yep, I dont blame you at all for feeling disinterested.

 

[swuzzlebubble]

We made some adjustments in the 4th that helped. Not certain what they were,

Positionally, subbing White for Carroll and Gov went back to defence. In hindsight doing it earlier might have been the way to go.

Watch the last qtr, and essendon switch to open up the ground and attack. We switch and we do it to play safe football.

I noticed a few times when we were switching, the centre corridor was wide open but we still went right to the other side and ended up with out-of-bounds on the wing.

 

[Opium]

Williams 2 goals, 2 goal assists and 8 score involvements.

One of few who can find a target i50 and one of our most important players.

Loved his energy