Roast Ratten and coaches the main problem!

[BlueTouchPaper]

Thought I had clicked on to the Richmond board.

Think we should bring up our pre-season expectations of where the club could finish.

I'm pretty sure we'd be ahead of expectation.

I can't believe you piss-weak bastards align yourself with Carlton - we're tougher than that.

Nothing worse than supporters who play down our good wins to make their point. Or dismiss the potential of our team because they are insipid "barrackers" who want instant success and ultimate reward but are too spineless to stick with the club through the tough periods.

Disgraceful.

 

[Styxx]

So because kids ( they're are not men yet) like Henderson, Gartlett, Armfield, Yarran etc don't fire every week because we expect them to play with the physical and mental maturity of AFL players 5 years older than them means we're a joke?

Some people really need to pull their heads in.

Ratten inherited a team list more interested in getting Kreuzer than winning when he started. Taking a team that was perpetually 15th and 16th for 4 to 5 years was to be miraculous turnaround and we should have a Premiership by now?

BBZZZZTTTT Wrong that doesn't happen. Hell that little dynasty up in Geelong? The team everyone respects? Took nearly 8 years to hit that peak of excellence they are on. Took their biggest draft names 4 years to acheive greatness. Most of ours are hitting years 2 or 3. KP developments like Henderson take a few years to be dominant.

We got two good wins against teams like St Kilda/ Geelong and automatically expected to be as good as they are all year? Wasn't going to happen.

Keep in mind the performance we gave today and last week are reminiscent of Round 3 against Essendon. Kids will go up, they will go down. No one should have deluded themselves into thinking we were top 4 it was a premature exhibition.

 

[mediumsizered]

McCaffer, Toovey, Beams, Sidebottom, Dawes, Leigh Brown Board MS. While i'm there i'll add Zac Dawson, Clint Jones, Baker etc etc. When are you going to stop making excuses?? Notice one thing about those group of players MS?

They are either young or not up to it theoretically, but in practice they are shit scared of their coach, play for him and his stuctures and in turn the coach and his team believe in their limited ability and/or lack of experience to get the job done and results are achieved. They're all in the best 22 of those sides.

Yarran, Garlett, Armfield, Henderson have all shown signs and played good footy this year...there as good and if not better than the players i've mentioned but they float in and out of games because they're not as structured as those in the top teams.

The Collingwood players you have named are probably rated in the last half of dozen of their 22, with Macaffer being about 24-26 on the list. Jones & Baker from St Kilda have been around a bit longer than the Carlton players I have listed & Dawson is in a similar boat to Carlos in that he is in a stop gap role until St Kilda can find a replacement for Hudghton.

If you want to get an understanding of our depth of talent, or lack thereof, make a list of our 10 most talented players & then compare it to the 10 most talented players at Geelong, St Kilda & Collingwood. That will give you a clue as to our lack of talent depth (as an example I would suggest that 19 year old Yarran is among our 10 most talented players, whereas neither Beams or Sidebottom would be in Collingwood's Top 10 most talented players).

 

[mediumsizered]

Thought I had clicked on to the Richmond board.

Think we should bring up our pre-season expectations of where the club could finish.
I'm pretty sure we'd be ahead of expectation.

I can't believe you piss-weak bastards align yourself with Carlton - we're tougher than that.

Nothing worse than supporters who play down our good wins to make their point. Or dismiss the potential of our team because they are insipid "barrackers" who want instant success and ultimate reward but are too spineless to stick with the club through the tough periods.

Disgraceful.

I think this thread might answer this question:
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=682128

Virtually 50% of those who posted in the poll did not think we would make the 8 this season.

 

[Alpha1]

Blues starting to regain confidence

Is this guy ****ing serious or what? Ratten reckons we are getting our confidence back, was he at the same game I was at today? This is shocking from a man who is meant to be our coach and a leader, no wonder the players don't give a shit, can't believe this, here is the article http://www.carltonfc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/4311/newsid/98450/default.aspx

 

[Silvagnis]

Re: Blues starting to regain confidence

Post it in one post-match thread.

Cheers.

 

[incog43]

Thought I had clicked on to the Richmond board.

Think we should bring up our pre-season expectations of where the club could finish. Expectations would have changed as the season progressed, as would the clubs goals I would imagine ...No wait..

I'm pretty sure we'd be ahead of expectation. Certainly ahead of Rattens expectations anyway, he never had any that included finals apparently

I can't believe you piss-weak bastards align yourself with Carlton - we're tougher than that. Agreed, its just the coaching staff and 50 % of the players who are heartless

Nothing worse than supporters who play down our good wins to make their point. Or dismiss the potential of our team because they are insipid "barrackers" who want instant success and ultimate reward but are too spineless to stick with the club through the tough periods. Or harp on and on about a couple of good wins, then ignore the crap relevnt to the shockers

Disgraceful. The supporters, or the players and coach

Dear me..

 

[incog43]

Re: Blues starting to regain confidence

Is this guy ****ing serious or what? Ratten reckons we are getting our confidence back, was he at the same game I was at today? This is shocking from a man who is meant to be our coach and a leader, no wonder the players don't give a shit, can't believe this, here is the article http://www.carltonfc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/4311/newsid/98450/default.aspx

Oh he is serious, mind you we are playing the eagles next week, he must figure its a sure thing

 

[incog43]

No, we outclassed them, Period. There was nothing snipered about it. Fact is when we're up and running we're the only team in the comp that can play like that. The issue is our side has lost all confidence and is in a bit of a rut. They'll work themselves out of it. No big deal. It won't be the first or last form slump we'll ever have. In fact I think these sort of situations are a great test of character for our young players. If they get through this, and play finals they might be better for it actually. Also don't mind the prospect of playing the Cats or Saints week 1. Disappointed we lost today, but have total confidence in this playing group. They showed signs in the second half. We'll be back firing very soon.

The saints or cats week 1?

I'll have what your having, lmao .

 

[btdg]

Too be honest, I agree with the initial premise of this thread. Several reasons for this:

1. Our skills. Perhaps its confidence, but several players who have shown good skills in the past are struggling heavily at the moment. Judd's kicking has deteriorated since he came to the club. The same goes for Murphy and Gibbs, and today all three were terrible. Maintaining basic skills requires the correct preparation, and right now our players don't appear to be getting it. Our tackling, previously a strength of Ratten's, has also dropped off a lot in recent weeks. Way too many tackles not sticking today and last week.

2. Structure and positioning. Really noticeable today was how bad our structure was. When Sydney had the ball, they kicked it to position, and the forwards led to that spot. We can't do this, because our forwards don't know where to lead to. At center bounces, we line up - literally- all 6 forwards through the corridor, with Betts and Garlett (both short) the front 2. If a quick kick comes forward, the opposition always has multiple players contesting against our crumbing forwards. If a player leads, they have to go very wide, or have no space and it gets cut off. Its horrible. Defensively, we're the same. We have very little understanding of how to set up a zone, and get easily beaten.

3. Motivation. Other than Judd, we barely fired a shot today. Yet our season was on the line... How is this possible? Barely a player showed visible signs of frustration, instead they just watched the game pass us by. Not enough spirit and fight in the group. 2 years ago, we barely won a game, but gave it everything we had. Now, we're in the top 8, and it looks like we don't care.

Those 3 things are the direct responsibilities of the head coach. Sadly, it looks like it might be time for Ratten to fall on his sword.

 

[XXX KINGS]

Thought I had clicked on to the Richmond board.

Think we should bring up our pre-season expectations of where the club could finish.

I'm pretty sure we'd be ahead of expectation.

I can't believe you piss-weak bastards align yourself with Carlton - we're tougher than that.

Nothing worse than supporters who play down our good wins to make their point. Or dismiss the potential of our team because they are insipid "barrackers" who want instant success and ultimate reward but are too spineless to stick with the club through the tough periods.

Disgraceful.

Why are preseason expectations even slightly relevant?

In the middle of the year we were 7-4 and expectations changed, I don't accept medicority and neither should anyone else. Once expectations are lifted we shouldn't be justifying us failing to meet them by using those we had in the beginning of the year with no exposed form to go on.

I agree with you that I don't like people playing down our good wins and I also think eventually this list will make it but the way we are currently going about it deserves to be and should be up for debate and this impacts whether our next flag will be in 3 seasons or in 10.

I don't think too many people are abandoning the club, they are just voicing their disappointment and well within their rights to do so. As a club we have been a basket case for a decade and after building some momentum the last month has been severely disheartening and if people are prepared to accept these current performances when we know what this team is capable of then those people are living in fairy land and if you think that attitude is required to be a good supporter then so are you.

 

[XXX KINGS]

Woosha may be available come end of season??

 

[Sir CJ]

The funny thing is every single one of those things you were whingeing about can be directly related to something Choco has done, yet Choco is the guy you want to replace him.

Playing Robinson at FF and Waite up the ground = Playing Ebert at FF and playing Tredders up the ground.

Hendo in defence = Salter in defence (but at least Hendo gets SOME time up forward).

AJ only getting selected on past performances = Westhoff, Motlop and Chad.

Players not fearing Ratten = Choco a) never dropped anyone and b) being a nice guy coach who would do things like have video game 'training' sessions or something equally stupid to lift morale ... or something.

There's no chance Choco will be coaching us, Rats will get one more year and prob drive us into a deeper hole and then we will get Malthouse

 

[dumb]

aw man, the 'true supporter' card. don't forget there's a line that needs to be defined between being supportive and being patronizing, too. i'm sure gibbs and other players would just love it if they got coaches skirting around the truth that they had bad games but the coach didn't want to hurt their feelings.

 

[BlueGibbs2011]

Thought I had clicked on to the Richmond board.

Think we should bring up our pre-season expectations of where the club could finish.

I'm pretty sure we'd be ahead of expectation.

I can't believe you piss-weak bastards align yourself with Carlton - we're tougher than that.

Nothing worse than supporters who play down our good wins to make their point. Or dismiss the potential of our team because they are insipid "barrackers" who want instant success and ultimate reward but are too spineless to stick with the club through the tough periods.

Disgraceful.

This IS the time to ask questions and put a rocket up the club. No one expects us to beat the Cats, Saints, Pies or Doggies to be honest (unless it is surprise win). WE do expect to be at the very least competitive vs North, Sydney, Bombers, Brisbane, Freo etc. When we play embarrasingly bad footy against these teams, we need to send a message or ask hard questions!

Understand this...right now, even though we sit 8th, we dont really have a real clue who we are better than. That is the situation we have with some great surprise wins over Saints/Geelong but poor losses vs our real competition...the teams in 6th-12th. We arent better than Saint Kilda by 10+ goals FFS. If we were playing for sheep stations, they'd smash us! Or at least beat us comfortably on class/struture/strategy/coaching/age maturity/hardness!

Pull your sheep head in and say something intelligent rather than what you think some other old timers on here want to see!

Everyones expectations pre-season was for 6-10th. This means our REAL pre-season expectations were to bea some of Bombers, Freo, North, Sydney. Some expected us to beat Doggies. No one thought we'd get ADelaide, Saints, Cats. But the point of this statement is we are losing to teasm in our own class which is BLOODY frustrating.

 

[NAUGHT5]

This is our first real bad form slump since the club turned the corner.

Not time to sack the coach.

 

[aflcliche]

I wonder what the count metre on "were a young side" line would be up to.

They're old enough to go on booze cruises, have chest hair, play better and show more sack.

 

[Shambolic]

Yes we're a young side and yes we're coming off a massive rebuilding program and yes we're coming from a long way back after terrible mismanagement of the lsit some time ago.

But as of 2010 we've had enough time to try to repair this and to me this is the season where we can start to have expectations fo finals football and constant improvement.

We seem to be a in a massive rut. our key playmakers are all out of form and our good players seem to be making too many mistakes. In this day and age of professional football surely it cant all be put down to form across so many players. To me there seems confusion or panic and when they get the ball they seem confused as to which way to progress.

 

[Bluebear]

Now i'm sick of cop outs (young, inconsistent, learning etc etc) because earlier in the year we beat Geelong on a flat track on the MCG, St Kilda by 12 goals at the dome, Adealaide and Port in Adelaide and on our day can match it with anybody.

you should read this thread:
A Reality Check
We did play well vs Cats and Saints, but:
- Career best efforts from many of our players (Russ, Army, Garlett, vs a depleted Cats (no Corey or Scarlett) shouldn't raise your expectation that it should happen every week. It was the footy version of chipping it in from 50m out. For example, Setanta kicked 5 goals vs Pies......do you think he is a 100 goal a year forward? Or is LeCras capable of kicking 200 goals in a season becaue he can kick 12 in a game? A standout effort, but not the norm.
- Saint were poor and fighting to find their new strutucture, and it wasn't just our pressure. Goddard couldn't hit a target with or without pressure. They had an off night, and we played very well and made them pay.
- Crows? Had plenty of chances to beat us but weren't good enough at the time.......I wouldn't take that as a reflection of how good we are.....and Port? Please, we beat them with one good quarter of footy, and the fact that they lead us for most of the game, and lookng at them since......hardly a "great" effort.

Case in Point 1: St Kilda game first quarter, Waite starting one out in the goal square we jump Saints and smash em on their favourite surface. Since then Waite has been playing up the ground or suspended and Ratten continues to play short people out of the square and the forward line is an absolute shambles.

Today he had Mitch Robinson or Murphy at FF for most of the day or Hampson who was ok but is no Waite. Stupidity.

Waite playing up the ground? What, you mean like a leading forward? Oh.......well maybe that's because he had zero effect when he was leading out vs the Roos, Freo and again yesterday.......he is kick chasnig.
Mitch and Murph were in the square for most of the day...........erm.....you do know that Murph is number 3.......plays midfield........got most of his ball in the midfield........yes did push forward at times.......but most of the day?
Don't exaggerate to make your point. Looks foolish.

Waite's form and lack of continuity has no place in this thread, other than maybe he played too soon at the start of the year. Since then, and including after Q time in the Saints game, he has been lazy, and instead of using his speed and size to hit contests hard and hit the pack at speed like we know he can, he has been looking for and generally finding trouble.
Not any of the coaches fault.

Point 2: Is this bloke trying to do the Luke Livingstone on Henderson??? In the last few weeks he has sent Henderson back to defence as a loose man or Full Back and he has no idea what he's doing there!

Really? Tell that to Roughead who he beat last year playing CHB. Vs doggies when he went back he impacted on the contest and saved several goals by reading the flight better and running at the contest and generally having a positive impact.

Now I agree that I'd rather see him left at CHF, but to say he has no idea in defence shows that you have no clue.

Point 3; Defence is a shambles, Aaron Joseph is a liability in the BP he is getting beaten every week, does not touch the footy and when he does he ****s it up, AJ is geting a game based on the fact he kept Ablett to half a dozen in a NAB Cup game two years ago! Time to go AJ...nowhere near good enough. Bring in Davies or someone because AJ is killing us.

Wow, you got one right.....sort of. Our defence is a shambles......but hey.....lets not pot our favourites right? I mean we shouldn't pot Walker for not defending and chasing cheap kicks up on the wing........lets not pot Bower and Jammo for failing to actually stop an opponent......lets not pot Thornton who most of the year has failed to defend and has been a turnover king.......and lets not pot Russ who's new found confidence means that he no longer knows his limitations with kicking........

Yes......lets go after the second year player in Joseph.

I'll bet you boo everytime we kick backwards or hold the ball in the air.

 

[The Toad]

FMD. I didn't think there were so many Carlton non-supporters as this.

You all need to calm the f**k down. Were going through a rough trot, it happens when your trying to rebuild a team.

We will get back to where we were earlier in the season.

For shit sake, have some faith.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

This is our first real bad form slump since the club turned the corner.

Not time to sack the coach.

simple but effective comment. i cannot believe the lack of ticker being shown by so many posters. just as well you're not playing. 2002 to 2007 ripped the club apart. How many games did we win in that time? 30 to 35[?]. How many thrashings? i'm estimating 15 to 20 100 point losses. 2008 to 2010. 31 wins. thrashings. none like the previous six seasons. it will take the rest of this season and three more to become a top side again. you've got to be patient because the team is in the building phase. the top three sides prove it takes a long time to build a team. thompson took eight seasons. malthouse has been at collingwood for more than a decade. lyon didn't start from scratch with this team [must be close to a decade for the saints]. i don't know if ratten will become an elite coach but he needs more time and so does the team.

 

[parrot]

I appreciate the need to vent. Obviously many are frustrated with our efforts over the past 4-5 weeks. I just see it as a nasty form slump, that we have to work our way out of. In fact this is an important part of our development, and we'll be better for it in the long run. Now's the time to hang tough, not panic. We've got the list talent to smash the best in the comp - that's been proven without question. We just need to regroup, and slowly regain that self-belief we had a few weeks ago. Like it or not the fact is we are playing a VERY young starting 22 i.e. investing in the future. There's upside and downside to that. We're seeing the downside now. This is a situation were experienced players would steady the ship. Instead we're backing our young leaders to work their way through it. They will.

 

[Kramer1]

Why are preseason expectations even slightly relevant?

In the middle of the year we were 7-4 and expectations changed, I don't accept medicority and neither should anyone else. Once expectations are lifted we shouldn't be justifying us failing to meet them by using those we had in the beginning of the year with no exposed form to go on.

Good point.

Adelaide in Adelaide would have been a likely loss in most peoples books at the start of the year as most had them top four...the gravitas in that victory quickly diminished though when it became clear they werent travelling too well. Things change within a season of football in the space of a few weeks.

What matters is the here and now, not last year, not the pre-season. We didn't just get over the top of the two grand finalists, or catch them on off nights...we spanked them by playing an inspired brand of football. When looking at our current predicament that is the level of performance we should be assessing ourselves against...not taking comfort in what some opposition coach or two bit journalist thought of our chances in the pre-season.

To the topic at hand...I am all for giving Ratten the opportunitites that should be afforded any senior coach. My only concern is I am not really seeing the seeds of a master plan beginning to germinate. You can forgive occasional poor performances when we are trying to adopt a new game plan, or develop kids in certain areas, but I am not seeing any continuity in the approach. There were bits and pieces that were evident early in the season but they have long since fallen away.

I think there has to be a middle ground when questioning the coach. Yes there are plenty on here jumping the gun, but nor do I agree with those just sitting back and pointing to Mark Thompson as a solid reason why Ratts will come good. What if he doesn't? What if we squander the key developmental years of this talented group under the wrong hierarchy? It must be acknowledged that we have a lot of eggs in the one basket. There needs to be someone measuring the coaching departments perofmance and asking the hard questions when need be...I am not sure that we have those people at the club.

 

[dumb]

if someone had brought up the pre-season expectations and said we'd go crap and maybe out of the 8, when we were in 5th after beating geelong + st kilda they'd have been howled down.

ratten mentioned the players gained some confidence after the game. it came in the press conference but i think it's a bit of coaching. it's something that's not obviously true. the players can read and hear that comment (easier to be made after this game than WB), and the seed will be planted... yeah, we gained a bit of confidence. we've turned it around a little bit. getting the players to act confident, or believe they are confident, is a good way to instill confidence if it's not there. not a bad tactic i think, so long as the concerns about individual players are still addressed.

 

[TheHeatleyStand]

simple but effective comment. i cannot believe the lack of ticker being shown by so many posters. just as well you're not playing. 2002 to 2007 ripped the club apart. How many games did we win in that time? 30 to 35[?]. How many thrashings? i'm estimating 15 to 20 100 point losses. 2008 to 2010. 31 wins. thrashings. none like the previous six seasons. it will take the rest of this season and three more to become a top side again. you've got to be patient because the team is in the building phase. the top three sides prove it takes a long time to build a team. thompson took eight seasons. malthouse has been at collingwood for more than a decade. lyon didn't start from scratch with this team [must be close to a decade for the saints]. i don't know if ratten will become an elite coach but he needs more time and so does the team.

yeah and were at it for 8 years....

and nothing....

most of those sides have been in perliminary finals for a few years....
Add Hawthorn .. 3 years.


Too much sugar and spin.