Preview 2024 AFL Community Series - Carl v Melb Wed 28th Feb 6.40PM @ Ikon Park

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So was Acres I believe...and Doch...so maybe not such an 'extreme comparison' as you suggest.

We're all aware of your opinion of Pitto, and that he should be back playing Auskick alongside Newman - but the fact is that he'll be in our starting 22 when he's fit and firing - so strap yourself in Jim and enjoy the ride.
My entire point is that he's almost never fit and firing, including that night. I think we've seen maybe 2 games like the bar you're setting.

I really hope the football department don't share your view, and that he's on minimum chips with heftier appearance and performance bonuses to reflect that he is rarely available for more than 12 games a season and that his output is meagre for most of those. That's something I can get behind.

Putting aside that Doch's injury was a muscle tear, you typically put a lot more stress through your foot than your shoulder. It was an arrogant decision by Gawn and Melbourne, but to suggest he wasn't enormously impacted by the injury is silly.
 
Gawn may have carried an injury into finals, but so did Acres, Doc, Walsh, Hewett, Charlie

I'm sure other Demon players had niggles too

Still amuses me how people talk up other clubs, players, medical staff, coaches, etc, yet Carlton do all things poorly

I guess, if we finally get our act together this year, winning 2 more games come finals might change people's perceptions
 
would you mind pointing me in the direction of the back-slapping? cheers.......
If we had of pantsed Melbourne last night...there'd would have been plenty of dancing and back-slapping going on.

And that's fine, it's what we do here.

I say call it as you view it...both the good and the bad.
 
If we had of pantsed Melbourne last night...there'd would have been plenty of dancing and back-slapping going on.

And that's fine, it's what we do here.

I say call it as you view it...both the good and the bad.
sorry, bw, back slapping is congratulating - just didn't happen.....
 
My entire point is that he's almost never fit and firing, including that night. I think we've seen maybe 2 games like the bar you're setting.

I really hope the football department don't share your view, and that he's on minimum chips with heftier appearance and performance bonuses to reflect that he is rarely available for more than 12 games a season and that his output is meagre for most of those. That's something I can get behind.

Putting aside that Doch's injury was a muscle tear, you typically put a lot more stress through your foot than your shoulder. It was an arrogant decision by Gawn and Melbourne, but to suggest he wasn't enormously impacted by the injury is silly.
Never said he wasn't enormously impacted....but so were Doc and Acres....who incidentally got us over the line with the last passage of play. You should check it out at some stage, it was awesome!!

Anyway Jim, get on board the Pitto Train - TOOT TOOT!!!

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sorry, bw, back slapping is congratulating - just didn't happen.....
Could be trueish, but on the other hand there is a hypo-sensitivity against any form of team criticism.

Harry and Oli were last night's positives, team cohesion was the big negative.

Expecting Lions to win comfortably next week, but would be surprised if Carlton weren't top 4 at the end of the H & A season.

Great to be watching footy again, regardless of the result.
 
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Could be trueish, but on the other hand there is a hypo-sensitivity against any form of team criticism.

Harry and Oli were last night's positives, team cohesion was the big negative.

Expecting Lions to win comfortably next week, but would be surprised if Carlton weren't top 4 at the end of the H & A season.

Great to be watching footy again, regardless of the result.
it's not sensitivity to criticism - it's sensitivity to ridiculous suggestions that last night's result is some sort of portent to catastrophe......
 
I'm hoping the speed and intensity will lift from this.

What I see is we are still too slow around the ball. If they get it they have time to run out of the congestion and run forward which stuffs your defenders and team defence. Because of this we seem to want to push forwards up around the ball because if you aren't able to chase effectively you create congestion to create pressure which allows them to play a lose player or two behind the ball and we just kick the ball back to them going forward.

I wasn't liking when the opposition won the ball at the stoppage how much time they had and what happened when the ball spilled lose. They were first to it and ran away with it too easily, it looked like the Prelim final where we were blown away by leg speed. We will need to apply good body work and just play very close to our man to bring more pressure at stoppages. Max Gawn was a big point of difference.

I like O Hollands on the ball. He provides something we aren't good at. His pressure was good due to quality repeated efforts and good closing speed. His kicking needs to be a lot better though.

Ability to lock the ball in the forward line wasn't great. Smalls were pushed up the ground and just not there and those who were weren't applying great pressure.

Some better passages of play compared to last game.

Having Walsh and Cerra in the team is crucial as they are our two way runners in there. Walsh brings a lot of speed which we need. If we go up a gear and we bring a few in we should be fairly good.

Marchbank definitely plays if fit. Fingers crossed for Walsh.
 
Take Gawn out of that game, do they win by 6 goals? No, he dominated in the ruck contests, against an underfit Pitto. He gave his midfielders 1st use of the ball, was back, forward, taking marks around the ground and kicking a couple of goals. Oh, how I wish we had a ruckman who could do half of what Max does!!!!
have to wonder why they left Pitto in the ruck for so long when he was clearly getting belted....

Pitto looked weak, very slow and unable to really contest.

Is he injured (again)?
 

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have to wonder why they left Pitto in the ruck for so long when he was clearly getting belted....

Pitto looked weak, very slow and unable to really contest.

Is he injured (again)?
Hansen said they wanted to get a half into him which gives him a chance to be available for OR with a week's training. Would have just been conditioning - in a real game they would have made a change earlier imo. Gotta remember this was his first competitive hitout for the year.

EDIT: This was the quote from the press conference post-game:

"It was good to see 'Pitto play a half tonight. The idea of having him play tonight was he has another week to train. We’ll assess how he pulls up, what he did this game and how that influences our selection against Brisbane. It gives us the option - playing him tonight - to be selective."
 
Could you run all these questions against the final we beat them and perhaps you might get a variation in answers?
Talking about the game just played, last year is a distant memory, the here and now is what matters, who cares what variation in the answers you might get.
 
I have two thoughts:

1) Heat: Not many games are played in 35 degree heat. Most people struggle to walk in that heat. So it's important not to read too much into it.

2) System: I think there are a few teams each year who employ a superior system, that could be offensive, defensive or both. Superior systems cover those team's deficiencies or maximise output of their stars and roleplayers. It also allows teams to cover when stars are missing.

I don't think we have a superior system, probably about average compared to the competition. This means we need to rely on having superior talent - which I believe we do have compared to most teams, when all fit.
Don't agree with point 1, both teams have to play in it.

Totally agree with point 2, if you look at Richmond's 3 flags and the Pies last 2 years, they play to their strengths and exploit the oppositions weakness. We rely on talent but also a high pressure output.

It is great to have a good system but every now and then a 5 min flash of brilliance from a Dusty Martin, a Christian Petracca or a Charlie Curnow can change the result and there is not much the opposition can do about it. Harris Andrews in the prelim last year, that was just special, McCrae shut him down in the GF and the rest is history
 
Take Gawn out of that game, do they win by 6 goals? No, he dominated in the ruck contests, against an underfit Pitto. He gave his midfielders 1st use of the ball, was back, forward, taking marks around the ground and kicking a couple of goals. Oh, how I wish we had a ruckman who could do half of what Max does!!!!
Living in dreamland... if if if. No excuses.... got pumped all over the ground. Gawn is a great tap ruck maybe you learn to shark him and play a more defensive midfield set up also as breaking even especially at centre clearance would definitely help but our ball use is average at best. Lucky to make top 8 last year let alone a prelim, the Giants on the other hand look a lot more worthy of top 4.
 
Agree 100%.

You could see it with their goal celebrations, chase-down tackling.. even Goodwin after the game was stoked giving big hugs to the boys on the bench.

This win meant a lot to them - as did our win over Collingwood last pre-season (i.e., erasing mental demons). 'Football is played above the shoulders' could not have been more evident last night.

What does this mean for the actual season? We will find out come September. But it was obvious that Melbourne were desperate to win and we weren't as interested in it
Agree, but maybe semantics here...I don't think it was a matter of not being "as prepared" as it was, "as interested"
 
Garry Lyon, Nick Riewoldt and Nathan Buckley (who regardless of any media dislike from the fans) have always been steadfast on this and I totally agree

Effort will ALWAYS trump System

We, as fans tend to see the poor system, but it's harder to observe the effort output
 
Living in dreamland... if if if. No excuses.... got pumped all over the ground. Gawn is a great tap ruck maybe you learn to shark him and play a more defensive midfield set up also as breaking even especially at centre clearance would definitely help but our ball use is average at best. Lucky to make top 8 last year let alone a prelim, the Giants on the other hand look a lot more worthy of top 4.

Do you know the reasons for what we did what we did and what did we hope to achieve from the game?
 
A few more things to add about this game is the worrying signs for me is that in a very outside game we get beaten easily. They will be really happy with their speed and agility around the ball but for us it's a real worry. Both our hitouts were fairly low contested, very outside games and for us to not do better in those circumstances is a worry. I think no Walsh is a really really big out for us. He's the best outside onballer we have, he balances us up really well.

Teams have had a few seasons to adjust their setups around the ball to accommodate the changes the anti-congestion rules have brought to the game so I suspect most sides to be a little quicker through their midfield.

What also worries me is that to create pressure, because we are slow, we push forwards up around the contest. That makes it easy pickings when we kick forward for the intercept defenders. I'm not sure it's not stuffing our forward structure right up as well. If a lot of the forwards are up around the ball, we haven't got those hard leading forwards back there.

One thing I didn't like was our forwards leading patterns. They mostly were not existent. We byepass half forward a lot and that's not good. We're going long and deep a lot. When we do run the ball through the midfield the forwards need to be leading up and we need to be hitting leads. Late in the game Wilson get the ball, runs it and bullets it inside 50, not his fault it hits a Melbourne player, our forwards should have been leading up at that. What's going on there? Are our forwards too spent from spending too much time playing high up around the ground and also getting caught out of position too often? Are our forwards having to compensate too much because we are too slow around the ball?

What was happening when the ball came out of the stoppage was a real worry for mine. We were immediately behind the man and a lot of the time losing ground.

Lets see how we go but I get the feeling we will be chasing some pace in the middle of the ground at the end of the season.

As I have said over and over again, the anti-congestion rules have changed the game and we have been caught behind. We have made some improvements but have we made enough? The game is more outside, inside players need a better outside game now and closing speed, agility and break away speed are very very important now in the game. If you do not have it you struggle to apply pressure and run the ball from stoppage and through the middle. If you do not have it you need to push numbers around the stoppages which stuffs up your forward structure.

I know it was a preseason game but we did not demonstrate good closing speed at stoppages, break away speed to carry the ball from stoppages and good fast chains through the middle of the ground were rare from us.

I'm hoping that next week we see more run and dash and a big lift in speed around the stoppages.

I won't be making any judgements on this game but I will be looking to see whether the same issues are taken into the main season. Can guarantee when we tone down the attacking footy and hit the contests harder we are going to be better. The question remains, will that be enough?

This in my opinion is our scope to improve. We need to be also able to win games that are more outside. We need to be able to run and carry the footy consistently. We need to be able to generate pressure without having to push extra numbers up around the ball. We don't need to be as good at outside footy as we are at inside footy but we do need to improve it.
 
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