Lets be honest....

[PINNACLE HEALTH]

I'm as happy as the next supporter that we had another win but after watching the game last night i came to the conclusion that we were'nt better than the eagles we just were'nt as bad.
If we had've played like that against anyone else besides Melbourne we woud've gort smashed, it was just lucky they are on a downer lately.
We turn the ball over too much on our half forward line, we are desperately in need of a chf that can take a grab, and i mean a strong pack mark not someone like Fisher or Hartlett that takes it on the lead 5meters infront of is opponent.
Cloke is a big strong lad who is capable of taking a strong pack mark, and thats who i'd be blooding at chf.

But having said all that i'll take a win for the blue boys anyday and it was good to see in the last ten minutes of the last quarter when the Eagles were threatening to take the lead that we dug deep, showed some character and kicked away again.

I reckon if Carrazo could fix his kicking up he'd start getting more recognition as a quality onballer because i'd like to know out of his 18 kix last night how many were effective.

 

[FevolasFox]

Good morning Mr. Negative.

 

[parrot]

I'm as happy as the next supporter that we had another win but after watching the game last night i came to the conclusion that we were'nt better than the eagles we just were'nt ....

I don't think we have performed brilliantly all year in fact. But that's not the point. 2008 is a development year. It's about developing a new gameplan, and getting gametime into our young players and developing them in the proper way. Ratten is also going through a learning phase no doubt in terms of coaching tactics. 2008 was always going to be a rocky road, but the important point is that we are now on the right development track, and making small, but steady progress. On last night's effort, which was well below our best, would still have been good enough to humble about 10-11 other teams in the comp. But our goal is flags, and only flags, so lots of work still left to do.

 

[mediumsizered]

I'm as happy as the next supporter that we had another win but after watching the game last night i came to the conclusion that we were'nt better than the eagles we just were'nt as bad.
If we had've played like that against anyone else besides Melbourne we woud've gort smashed, it was just lucky they are on a downer lately.
We turn the ball over too much on our half forward line, we are desperately in need of a chf that can take a grab, and i mean a strong pack mark not someone like Fisher or Hartlett that takes it on the lead 5meters infront of is opponent.
Cloke is a big strong lad who is capable of taking a strong pack mark, and thats who i'd be blooding at chf.

But having said all that i'll take a win for the blue boys anyday and it was good to see in the last ten minutes of the last quarter when the Eagles were threatening to take the lead that we dug deep, showed some character and kicked away again.

I reckon if Carrazo could fix his kicking up he'd start getting more recognition as a quality onballer because i'd like to know out of his 18 kix last night how many were effective.

To be a successful team you need to win games even when you are not playing all that well. The fact that we won by 37 points despite making a number of skill & decision errors, tells us that we are learning how to win games when things aren't totally going right. Our wins in recent seasons have come on days when a lot of things have gone right. We haven't had too many, if any, wins when things have been a little tough. The pleasing factor was that the team, including the kids, held their nerve when they were challenged. This, against a team that contained 11 premiership players & 14 of the players that were very game in the semi final loss to Collingwood last season.

 

[dukester95]

Although we are guilty of playing sloppy football at times, I thought there were a lot of positives out of the game. We won without a stellar performance from Judd. Our defensive pressure is getting better and we have Thornton and Walker to come back in. Bentick played well. Ellard kicked a goal in his first game. Browne looks like he will be a real asset to the team.
..now we just gotta wait two weeks till we meet Brissy at the Dome, should cream em.

 

[Mentallo]

Lets be honest.
5 players with 10 or less games of AFL experience, Bower less than 20, throw in Gibbs in his second season, a mad Irishman, i would say it was a terrific effort, disappointing we let them back in but fantastic that they could regain their composure and fight back to a respectable 6 goal win.
Positives out weigh the negatives 10 to 1 after that win last night espescially when you have been as shit as we have for the last 6 years.

 

[Funkalicous]

I wouldn't focus on the negatives. Fact is, we still have passengers in the side. But also consider we have our fair share of injuries too.

I thought this game was better for our development than the Melbourne game. We could've lost in the most embarrassing of circumstances, which would've absolutely smashed our confidence. But the players showed that they wanted it. They showed a bit of ticker.

I'm very happy with the result. 6 goal win in Subi. When was the last time you could say that? If we win next week, that's 4 wins in 5 weeks. When could you last say that?!

 

[jj1978]

More positives than negatives...

1. We won on their home turf (fortress) where we havn't had a win since 2000.
2. Besides short cameo performances from Judd and Stevens the win was built from some of our kids and least experienced; Murphy, Russel (yeah I know!), Bower, Cloke, Browne and Grigg.
3. You forget that we were missing, Thornton, Hartlett, Houlihan, Walker and Hadley and our structure still went alright indicating we are having a bit of depth coming through.
4. 2 new kids got the taste of a win early in their career (Ellard, Browne), which is great!
5. West Coast has in most of their games this year come out and had a great quarter (even against the Dogs) and pegged things back, and like a good team we rode it and then ran it home in a flurry!
6. WE WON!!!

 

[Mike_blues]

we only played 1 bad quarter which ws the 3rd
its gonna happen more than half our team have less than 50 games experience
i was very happy with the result and glad we ran out the game
some sloopy football but its gonna happen.
make the most of wins they have been rare in the recent past

 

[as0l0]

I agree with the original poster. But not just in the context of last nights game. I've come to the conclusion that we aren't better than last year, we're just less bad. What the hell does that mean? It means we aren't making the horrible mistakes that cause losses and we aren't giving in and getting thrashings.

The thing is we were pretty good for the first half of last year, but it was our badness, the horrible mistakes that cost goals, the giving up, that stopped us from winning more games.

 

[the rotating forward]

to be honest from an outsider's point of view, a west coast comeback was always gonna happen. A spirited talk at half time would have looked after that one, thus west coast came out all guns blazin. But to Carlton's credit, they withstood it and then kicked away. Not a great performance, but not bad either. To win at Subi takes a fair bit of effort, especially when youve only won 1 of your past 31 interstate matches

 

[Magnificence]

I'm as happy as the next supporter that we had another win but after watching the game last night i came to the conclusion that we were'nt better than the eagles we just were'nt as bad.
If we had've played like that against anyone else besides Melbourne we woud've gort smashed, it was just lucky they are on a downer lately.
We turn the ball over too much on our half forward line, we are desperately in need of a chf that can take a grab, and i mean a strong pack mark not someone like Fisher or Hartlett that takes it on the lead 5meters infront of is opponent.
Cloke is a big strong lad who is capable of taking a strong pack mark, and thats who i'd be blooding at chf.

But having said all that i'll take a win for the blue boys anyday and it was good to see in the last ten minutes of the last quarter when the Eagles were threatening to take the lead that we dug deep, showed some character and kicked away again.

I reckon if Carrazo could fix his kicking up he'd start getting more recognition as a quality onballer because i'd like to know out of his 18 kix last night how many were effective.

3 wins so far looks good to me

 

[The Coach]

I agree with the original poster. But not just in the context of last nights game. I've come to the conclusion that we aren't better than last year, we're just less bad. What the hell does that mean? It means we aren't making the horrible mistakes that cause losses and we aren't giving in and getting thrashings.

The thing is we were pretty good for the first half of last year, but it was our badness, the horrible mistakes that cost goals, the giving up, that stopped us from winning more games.

We are improving - you are talking rubbish. We are doing more good things but are yet to eliminate the horrible mistakes - did you not see last week's game?

 

[as0l0]

did you not see last week's game?

I did see them and also noticed that we lost. But we are less bad right? We make less horrible mistakes right?

 

[Magnificence]

I did see them and also noticed that we lost. But we are less bad right? We make less horrible mistakes right?

Did u catch the pies game? Not sure if you recall the pies ran the cats to within a kick in last years preliminary final and we killed them

 

[TOA.]

We unbelievably crap and had guys missing that we couldnt replace but you guys played well. You'll be around the 8 on that performance, not sure you could expect much better than that this year?

 

[chelseacarlton]

it was a great win
it was expected that they would come out after the first half and have a dip
but to the team they stood up and countered the intensity
in the past they would have folded
brilliant albeit not totally convincing win
and at subi
and i agree with the second post
good morning negative

 

[Poz_Utd_V.2]

I will pose this question

Was the team better against West Coast then against Adelaide, or do you think we put in a better performance against Adelaide?

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

To be a successful team you need to win games even when you are not playing all that well. The fact that we won by 37 points despite making a number of skill & decision errors, tells us that we are learning how to win games when things aren't totally going right. Our wins in recent seasons have come on days when a lot of things have gone right. We haven't had too many, if any, wins when things have been a little tough. The pleasing factor was that the team, including the kids, held their nerve when they were challenged. This, against a team that contained 11 premiership players & 14 of the players that were very game in the semi final loss to Collingwood last season.

Exactly right. Since when were we good enough to win ugly? We usually need all of the stars aligned to win a game and here we are playing like crap and winning. Another crap game out of the way, who knows, the next we could all click again like we did against the Pies.

Last night Judd had to battle hard in a scragfest for his kicks, Fev had a purple patch but then was well held/beaten. We won a game without starring roles from our best two players.

Glass half full I reckon, we have another four points and got an ugly game out of the way. We all know we look sensational when we click and that we click every few games. We are just unlucky that other teams click at the same time as us sometimes, like the Bombers in round 3.

 

[as0l0]

Did u catch the pies game? Not sure if you recall the pies ran the cats to within a kick in last years preliminary final and we killed them

i saw that one too, and that's the only game this year where we have played like a really good team. Against Melbourne, we weren't good, we just weren't as bad as we used to be...and that's no problem, we still won, we still move forward, one more step. Just like last night.

 

[drusswaylander]

I agree with the original poster. But not just in the context of last nights game. I've come to the conclusion that we aren't better than last year, we're just less bad. What the hell does that mean? It means we aren't making the horrible mistakes that cause losses and we aren't giving in and getting thrashings.

The thing is we were pretty good for the first half of last year, but it was our badness, the horrible mistakes that cost goals, the giving up, that stopped us from winning more games.

I can sort of see where you are coming from, but I actually think that we are still making just as many terrible mistakes and we are still going missing for large parts of the game. The difference to me has been that when we have won we have actually taken our chances when they have presented themselves.

All of our wins have been pretty even games at least scoring shot wise. We have just been better at kicking for goal in simplistic terms.

If we can eliminate the major clangers that are gifting goals to the opposition and keep the concentration levels up we could actually become a good side

The fitness levels will probably take a year or two to get to an acceptable level, because the new fitness bloke can't change that in one pre-season.

The Judd factor will also take a season or two to kick as he gets back to full fitness and his professionalism rubs off on the other guys

Some nice signs, but lots of room for improvement

 

[drusswaylander]

I'm as happy as the next supporter that we had another win but after watching the game last night i came to the conclusion that we were'nt better than the eagles we just were'nt as bad.
If we had've played like that against anyone else besides Melbourne we woud've gort smashed, it was just lucky they are on a downer lately.
We turn the ball over too much on our half forward line, we are desperately in need of a chf that can take a grab, and i mean a strong pack mark not someone like Fisher or Hartlett that takes it on the lead 5meters infront of is opponent.
Cloke is a big strong lad who is capable of taking a strong pack mark, and thats who i'd be blooding at chf.

But having said all that i'll take a win for the blue boys anyday and it was good to see in the last ten minutes of the last quarter when the Eagles were threatening to take the lead that we dug deep, showed some character and kicked away again.

I reckon if Carrazo could fix his kicking up he'd start getting more recognition as a quality onballer because i'd like to know out of his 18 kix last night how many were effective.

On a positive note isn't it nice to actually have the option to be negative about a win

 

[BBSK]

well as of this afternoon were just outside the 8 by percentage................... who wouldve thought that we would be in this position the time round 7 was wrapped up at the start of the year? cant ask for more and yes i am rabbling

 

[Dramoth]

Lets be brutally honest...

We won, they lost...

We could have seriously cocked it up and lost... but we didnt

There were obviously some negatives from the game, but there were a lot more positives from it all.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Too drunk to read the paras,
but as i blur through it

3 and 4 after 7 weeks sits great with me,
been in every game so far,
new kids have appeared,
and they show or they go,

won an interstate game for the first time since,
Nikki Lauda had ears,

so am very happy at the moment.