News I didn't see this Walls article coming...

[Silvagnis]

Success comes in half dozens

Our bottom six does need to improve, but it's poor to include Thornton in that group ahead of Bentley who played on Saturday.

I don't rate most of Walls' bottom six Saints that were used as a comparison to make his point.

St Kilda’s bottom six
Zac Dawson, James Gwilt, Andrew McQualter, Sam Gilbert, Clint Jones and Jarryn Geary

I don't know how you can seriously point to the Saints' bottom six which includes Jones, McQualter, Dawson and Gwilt as an example of where Carlton needs to improve. Hawthorn's and Geelong's bottom six are very good, but the Saints' have poorer players than Thornton in Walls' bottom six St Kilda players. Gilbert is good and Geary is promising, but the rest aren't stars who would improve our bottom six players if they were at Carlton.

Others will argue differently no matter how Russell plays...

Russell has improved as much as a McQualter or Jones IMO.

Jones, Gwilt and McQualter play a role in their 22 like Russell does at Carlton.

By the end of the year or 2010, our bottom six might be Austin, Hampson, Yarran, Browne, Robinson and Warnock once Walker and Grigg return from injury. I'd take that bottom six ahead of the bottom six players from nearly every club.

I'm surprised that Walls didn't write that they go to ground...

 

[Artie Bucco]

he's right in a way. The problem with our bottom 6 is, it's not limited to those 6 our inconstancy amongst the bottom 6-10 is the problem.

Wiggins, Thornton and Russell imo have been ok to good this year. Setanta will struggle to play many more games. After our top 10-15 players the rest drop off quite a bit.

However getting games into Armfield, Austin, Browne, Hampson, Robinson and Yarran will close the gap. IMO when it comes to September we will not be mature enough to handle Geelong, Hawthorn or St Kilda if they are all in form at that time.

2010 is the go for us, and by then our bottom 6 players should be much better than

St Kilda’s bottom six
Zac Dawson, James Gwilt, Andrew McQualter, Sam Gilbert, Clint Jones and Jarryn Geary

Edit * just realised I reiterated what you already said....

 

[Malifice]

Robert Walls - you are ****ing goose.

This could have been said (if it needed to be said at all) in a million different ways. No wonder you are the most sacked coach in AFL/VFL history.

Way to back the team leading to an important game vs Freo.

 

[iRemember87]

Robert Walls was a great player according to my father, so i'll give him credit there, but as a commentator he is nothing but a dick.

Against Hawks he was constantly putting down Thorton, Russell, Wiggins Cloke and even Fev.

The guy is old and bitter and now ranks up with KB.

Wiggins for one has improved this year, his attack on the ball, his leading further up the ground to take a mark across half forward which we have lacked has been great, this year his shots on goal have let him down.

His lists big Irish in the bottom six, this is a guy who didn't grow up with the game but IMO has contributed his part to the team in the two games he has played.

Robert Walls might consider himself an expert but he should remember where he came from.

 

[40yearBLUE]

Robert Walls was a great player according to my father, so i'll give him credit there, but as a commentator he is nothing but a dick.

Against Hawks he was constantly putting down Thorton, Russell, Wiggins Cloke and even Fev.

The guy is old and bitter and now ranks up with KB.......

Robert Walls might consider himself an expert but he should remember where he came from.

Walls was a great player and also coached us to 2 Grand finals, 1 win 1 loss. But has done precsious little since the late 80's. He deserves some respect but I think he is way out of touch now. As a comentator I think he has to be even handed, he cant go lightly on us if we deserve criticism or people will see right through him and call him biased towards us. I think what he tends to do is mark us harder so people wont think he is biased towards us.

Of course he is right about the bottom 6, but this is hardly a new concept, the idea of top 6, mid 6 bottom 6 players has be around for years. He is right that "on any given day" in a closely matched and fought out game, the bottom 6 of one team might be the difference between winning and losing.

The problem with Walls article this week is had Fevs kick sailed through, who then had the worse bottom 6? Would he be in a position to be critcial then? And just to reiterate a point I have been making all week; From the moment Fev marked that ball with less than a minute to go and 20 meters out, the bottom 6 of our team and the entire Hawks team became irrelevent. Fev and only Fev controlled the destiny of the game, the bottom 6 and the entire Hawks team became spectators, with the possible exception of the 2 players the Hawks had on the mark, perhaps and this is a long bow to draw, perhaps they did just enough to distract Fev into a miss. But back to that moment. At that moment, the game is out of Hawk control and sits with Fev. Just prior to him having his kick we have this game won and there is nothing except hope he misses that the Hawks top, middle or bottom 6 or Robert Walls can do about it.

So this talk of bottom 6 is only relevent in light of Fev's miss and us losing. (Just so we are clear, I in no way blame Fev for the loss, as a team we had the opportunity to hammer them in the second 1/4 but did not put the score on the board again - thats 3 times out of 3 that it has cost us a game). The problem for the Blues and for most teams except the best, is that the bottom 6 is a moving feast. It is a different 6 each week. Most weeks this year Hoops, JR, Cloke and Wiggo have played well. In the second half against the Hawks JR did improve, Cloke and Wiggo did not. But to say they are in our bottom 6 consistently is another long bow to draw.

We are a little way off it, there is no denying that, but then who would expect us to be at Geelong quality yet? Teams dont build from their bottom 6 up, they get the best 6 they can assemble and build around them, and we have clearly done that with Fev, Gibbs, Murph, Kruze, Judd, Stevens, then they build a solid middle 6 and we are on the way with this group, then once they have them settled they build on the last 6, in fact they would aim for a last 12 to add rotational depth. This is underway also. Lets not forget where we have come from.

And just to add a little more perspective. Walls was banging on about Fevs grip the first 3 quarters and was made to look foolish by the end of the game when Fev had 8 and should have had 9. Fevs grip has been this way for a number of years including all his 99 last year. Walls as a CHF could only dream of kicking 99 in a season. Walls has very little of relevence to say these days. He picked a theme in the commentary against the hawks and spun it into a newspaper article. It isnt new or news so for mine it shows he has very few ideas left. Dont be suprised if Fev misses a few in the weeks to come that he has an article about Fevs grip.

 

[as0l0]

i'm ok with this article. it's fair enough.

seems to agree with Ratten since he dropped 2 of those 6.

if you think about the blokes coming through...Robinson, Garlett, Warnock, Hampson, Austin, Browne, Ellard and others then there needs to be a bottom 6 or so for those guys to replace.

Thornton will be interested to learn he is in our bottom 6. I reckon he would think he is in the best 6.

 

[Harry Madden]

I gotta say, I agree with Walls.

Don't sugar-coat it, we need to take a step up, the only way to do this is to put pressure on the players who need to improve. All 6 of those players mentioned plus one or two others need a kick in the ass.

 

[Azul]

Well, for motivational purposes I guess it's better for one of our own to troll our side rather than listen to that fab four stuff.

Still, the usual suspects will drag this thread out to 15 pages proclaiming Wallsy as the one true prophet and that Thornton and JR must be dropped.

Well Wallsy, Houlihan and O'hAilpin have been dropped, happy? Brad Fisher and Jordan Bannister haven't been sighted all year with an eye to the future.

Just remember, this week we're playing four players with 12 games experience or less. As far as replacing the dead wood in our team, players don't grow on trees. There are only so many changes one can make while sitting fourth on the ladder.

 

[40yearBLUE]

I gotta say, I agree with Walls.

Don't sugar-coat it, we need to take a step up, the only way to do this is to put pressure on the players who need to improve. All 6 of those players mentioned plus one or two others need a kick in the ass.

After we have kicked them in the ass, thwow them on the fwoow sir?

 

[Blue Bawls]

After we have kicked them in the ass, thwow them on the fwoow sir?

Woughly!

I wonder if there's some other agenda here. Nothing like public humiliation to correctly motivate a player...

 

[half_back_flank]

jeez...i must say that Geelong's bottom 6 leave everyone else for dead.

 

[celtic_pride]

Woughly!

I wonder if there's some other agenda here. Nothing like public humiliation to correctly motivate a player...

I just read the article, and didn't think anything Walls wrote came across as 'publicly humiliating' any of the players he mentioned.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to go and say that Walls is old and bitter, he is a paid football commentator and analyst ..

The most annoying part of that article for me is that this year, Zac Dawson has out-performed Bret Thornton !!!

 

[Charbzilla]

I'm surprised that Walls didn't write that they go to ground...

LOL

"Russell goes to ground too often".

He was tackling a player that had gone to ground first! ARGHH

 

[CrippsonBlue]

I don't care what anyone says, if Russell, Thornton & Houlihan are the players that make up our bottom 6 players - I'm very ok with that.

 

[Barry Zuckercorn]

There's something you have to understand about Robert Walls. He has no idea and it shows when he's commentating on TV.

But just like every dog has it's day, Robbie will occasionally make a comment that some people will agree with (ie our bottom 6 players). When this is the case, Robbie has to run with it for his credibility's sake. Hence this article.

 

[one eyed bluey]

Spot on wallsy.

I'd through scotland into that equation.

 

[Weiterbot23]

Walls has coached our side to a premiership which is more than anyone on BF has ever done.

I always agree with Wallsy and this article is no execption.

Yes we almost beat the hawks, but we did have some massive passengers that could of had us in a position where we didn't need to rely on fev to take a contested mark and kick the winning goal.

All preseason we talked about how we finally have depth, so if players aren't performing heads must roll, no one should be safe after a poor performance.

 

[gbatman]

Walls is right although I don' believe Thornton belongs in that group, it's just that Carlton have used Thornton wrong by playing him at full back, even Judd would look shit if played at full back!

We just have to be patient and waite for our passengers who are our bottom 6 to be replaced by our up and coming kids

Houlihan - Yarran
O'hAilpin - Hampson
Wiggins - Robinson
Russell - Browne
Cloke - Austin/Hartlett

Don't forget Walker!

When these kids step up and replace these players we will be a better team. If we were 5% better this year we would be 0-6! I recon next year we can make that 5% improvement.

 

[Staaar_Blue]

Walls has some credibility with what he is saying. There are too many passengers in games that go missing and it is left up to our better players to do much of the work. I think it is fair to put Thornton in this category considering all the mistakes he makes at this point in his career. More definitely needs to be asked of Houlihan, Russell and Wiggins if they want a spot in the 22 and Setanta is only in the team because Rats wants to see what he has to offer us.

I think Aussie should be left in the team for a while to find his feet as I think he could easily replace Thornton in the side in the next couple of years. Others coming through will also help the cause.

 

[HBF]

Easier just to ignore Robert Walls, even on the rare occasions he actually does praise us. He's becoming more and more irrelevant as the years go by, and why his employees continue to keep him on is starting to really make me wonder what that are doing.

 

[douls]

Easier just to ignore Robert Walls, even on the rare occasions he actually does praise us. He's becoming more and more irrelevant as the years go by, and why his employees continue to keep him on is starting to really make me wonder what that are doing.

What are you talking about? He always praises the Blues and loves where we are going. What is wrong with the article? He is spot on. Some of you blokes are way too precious. If you want the compliments you must accept some kicks up the arse too. Or should he just be sacked and become a moderator on BigFooty and talk shit with all the cool kids?

 

[blueboy25]

Its just walls sly way of getting those blokes mentioned in the article to fire up.

I would much rather those articles written every week and win then the fab four stuff and us lose.

 

[blueblooded]

Have to agree there blueboy 25, dont think Thornton as much as we cringe is in our bottom six players, i'd have him in our top 15 easily proly even top 10...hopefully just Wallsy trying to fire em up...as much as he is a goose and alot of the crap he says is worthless he is a carlton person first and foremost and i think he has the best interests of the club at heart.

I thought it was wiggos first poor game on the weekend and JR only had a bad first half imo. Our bottom 6 would be better than alot of clubs bottom six.

 

[jonoman89]

Houlihan, Wiggins and Thornton in our worst 6? Walls has NFI.

 

[Blue Bawls]

Easier just to ignore Robert Walls, even on the rare occasions he actually does praise us. He's becoming more and more irrelevant as the years go by, and why his employees continue to keep him on is starting to really make me wonder what that are doing.

Heh, makes sense that he'd try to be controversial, then - the fact that he's being discussed here works in his favour.