Review Have we earned it?

[HARV3Y]

There has been a lot of chat on the Carlton boards (mostly coming from our own supporters) questioning whether we have 'earned' the right to play finals football in 09. After 2 less than impressive weeks vs Collingwood and North many of us agreed no, but we're not going to pass up the opportunity!

After last nights win has your perception changed? Now that we have beaten the likes of Geelong, Doggies, Lions (twice) and Collingwood all from the top 8 and giving the Saints a real run for their money - does it excuse our loss to Freo and thumpings by Essendon, Collingwood and Adelaide???

Have we 'earned' the right to play finals football yet or will the next 3 weeks really tell the story or our 09 season?

I have confidence that we will win 2/3 and really give Adelaide a run but history shows that after great games, big a devistating losses will follow such as

• Nail-biter with Hawthorn then a loss to Freo
• Thump Collingwood, get smashed by the Crows
• Up there with the Saints and get blown away by Essendon
• Beat the Cats and ??????? Port

Next week could change the the momentum of our season ... or keep us doubting our place in the top 8.

GO BLUE BOYS!!

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Complete fallacy that we didn't deserve to play finals football. We have followed the path of most other up and coming sides.

* Win by playing poorly
* Lose games we should have won due to lack of composure
* Eliminate 100 point floggings
* Occasional 8-10 goal slipups
* Occasionally belting sides
* Pulling off a few highly credentialed wins

People just expect too much. No team is on for four quarters, week in and week out. Look at where we stand in terms of quarters won for the year. I'd say we would still be 3rd behind Saints and Cats.

We are finding our consistency. One week our skills are okay but our intensity if off. The next week our intensity is great but we turn it over too much. Occasionally they both come together. Fortunately when one is lacking we still manage to scrape some wins together.

The games recently were we have won ugly only serve to make up for games earlier in the season where we played well and deserved to win but didn't get the points.

 

[Tanks_Alot]

Surely there's no doubt we deserve to play finals. In fact I truly believe we're one of the only sides in there with a real chance of going all the way if we play consistently.

Look at our record against the other top eight sides and you'll see that. We've now beaten the Cats, Dogs, Pies and Lions x 2. We narrowly lost to the Saints in the last minute of the game, we should have beaten the Hawks if Fev's kick didn't scrape the post.

Adelaide have really beaten no one. They got the Pies down here in round 1 but apart from that they've only beaten us and Port. Both at AAMI which is not so much a disadvantage for Port as it was for us.

Dogs knocked off Adelaide at AAMI. They also belted Port IIRC in Darwin. That is ALL.

Lions have beaten a half of Geelong, and Port and the Crows at the Gabba. WOW.

Port havn't beaten anyone except the Crows and Lions earlier in the year at AAMI. Easiest draw of the season and still only managed 9 wins so far. If anything THIS is the team that doesn't deserve to be there.

So really, these are the teams with the best chance of the premiership (in order):

Saints
Cats
Pies
Blues

put a blanket over the rest, they won't win anything.