A brave but ultimately unrewarded comeback.

Four umpires but little continuity in the adjudication. 

Example A
First quarter Petty’s arms impacted by Weitering in the marking action. Play on. Chopping the arms is unfashionable.

Example B

Pittonet  mere hint of high contact to the neck more of a tickle than a slap. Free kick in a goal kicking position.

Two goals down one denied one as soft as candyfloss.

Example C

Last. quarter Carlton bloke caught with ball forward pocket perfect tackle play on results in a goal. Squibb went down like wounded bull throwing his head out milks free.

In front of goal square contested ball up .Petracca thrown to the ground,  four myopic blind mice are tonight’s umpiring panel.

Example D

Cripps whose Downlow was heist of the century,  must have called on Club KC to deliver the last free kick of game. Plainly on national TV a Melbourne bloke’s guernsey was held by a Carlton bloke with two hands.

Noddy just plods along with the blinkers on.

Going to award the Stephen Silvagni award for fair play to Cripps and Co.

Edited May 9, 20241 yr by Tarax Club
6 goals zip to big a gift though.

33 minutes ago, wizardinoz said:

Should have replaced Billings earlier.

Billings was never replaced, it was Bowey.

Bailey Fritsch was embarrassing tonight. Another game where he wasn’t committed to the defensive side of the game when that’s the DNA of our team - Contest & Defence.
 

Pretending to tackle by throwing an arm out, no intent to apply pressure, constantly playing out the back & behind he’s opponent. But look out when there’s a chance to kick a snag! Ffs… Glad Goody benched him after that laconic effort late in the 4th.

 
I love Fritsch & the clinical forward brilliance of the man, but you have to apply more defensive intent when it’s your time to go.

28 minutes ago, loges said:

Don't commit too many to the contest? We were outnumbered at nearly every contest for the first 3 quarters 

that’s how teams beat us pre Yze. now we beat ourselves

10 minutes ago, Binmans PA said:

I thought we were very ordinary at centre stoppage tonight, but our whole stoppage game against Richmond was passable.

We lost stoppage tonight by -2. 

The biggest problem tonight was when we lost stoppage, what we allowed their mids to do. The lack of post clearance pressure a few times was very noticeable.

For example, the first centre clearance of the last quarter that led to a goal, we allowed Cripps to win it out the front of the stoppage, then Clarry and others failed to track Cripps to CHF, where he won the next ground ball, and kicked inside 50.

Now, our defenders should have killed that next ball out, but the damage was down from the poor concession of clearance.

I don't think we allowed Richmond a single out the front of stoppage clearance.

And I don't recall being smug, but okay.

All about that post-clearance possession isn't it! Carlton were well on top in that area.

 

43 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Our midfield were sound asleep at the start.

It's happened three times this year.

What are they doing before the game. Watching TV?

Once Cerra got subbed out we started to get on top.

2 minutes ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

Where is the technology improvement? Truck all has been done from AFL house Truck all!

Nothing has been learnt from the AFL since last years debacle.

It's 💩🏘 form from them.

I thought it was touched live but on replay it was too close to call. 

We have serious fwd talls issue which continues to dog our team since our flag in 21 ..yet we continue to try a turn defenders into fwds , our mids are getting smashed!

1 minute ago, Gawndy the Great said:

I thought it was touched live but on replay it was too close to call. 

The cameras aren't clear enough, thats my point, you could see Curnow say touched to May on the coverage.

Scoreless first qtr ... giving the other side a 6 goal head start. Not ideal.

Trac, Lever and Lingers were great and May solid. ANB and Rivers probably worth mentioning too. Rivers' kick to Max for his goal at the end was brilliant play. 

Thought it was really impressive how we ran out the game. Carlton basically stopped after getting the first of the last, but even in the third quarter, Carlton were running out of legs. A big tick to our fitness team.

When there are close games there is a tendency for us to point to lots of little 'what if' moments, and they tend to be moments towards the end of a game. The Kemp free kick that cost us a goal near the death for example, Kozzy's flying shot at a point shortly afterwards etc. But we had plenty of chances to win it, whereas they seemed to take all of their chances early, kicking them from everywhere. While we had Fritta's easy miss for him, Petty's easy miss and so on.

Carlton probably deserved to win given our shocking start, but we should and could have snatched it multiple times.

I think when we're on, we're the best team in the competition, but I must say we've had phases in three games this year in 9, where we've been dreadful. Fortunately, it was only for a quarter tonight, but a half against Sydney and the entire game against Brisbane.

I know we've had a difficult fixture and this is the life of the modern game. You've got lots of 5 day turnarounds and you have to deal with them. I don't think the 5 day turnaround was a factor tonight. I think we were beaten in the contest early and we failed to adjust perhaps when the rain hit early.

I would have liked to see us play more tempo and chip the ball around when they were dominating us early, but I can understand why we strategically went long with the wet weather. Just get it forward and maintain territory. The problem was many of these entries for probably 2.5 quarters were long and high, and to the advantage of the Carlton defender. Tommy Sparrow's inside 50s were constantly picked off.

I don't want to bag our fantastic captain, but I thought his tap work was a liability at times. I know it's raining and Pinonett is holding you the entire time, but how often did he tap straight to Carlton's +1 at stoppage? I know ruckmen must make split second decisions about where they're going to hit, but too often Max doesn't seem on the same wave length as the other mids. Is it just me? 

I just hope this game doesn't cost us a top 4 spot, because that's my feeling at the moment.

Edited May 9, 20241 yr by Binmans PA

At one stage in the tense final quarter, Chandler tackled Cincotta over the boundary line. I've been stuck ever since trying to work out a worthy 'double-chin' pun. What was the end score? 

8 minutes ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

Where is the technology improvement? Truck all has been done from AFL house Truck all!

Nothing has been learnt from the AFL since last years debacle.

Instead of investing a few million on ball chip technology and trial it in the AFLW over the past summer, they still have the HD camera technology to operate finger tip decisions.

It's 💩🏘 form from them.

It's almost like the AFL have designed an imperfect system to then enjoy the conjecture, the conversation, the air waves and the clicks.....hmmmm they may just be on to something here... 😘 💵💵💵****

***In all seriousness, there is no other possible conclusion to draw as to why there are not further cameras between the goal posts facing the point posts...

 

Edited May 9, 20241 yr by Engorged Onion

First goalless first quarter since 2008 by the way. Just yuck.

1 minute ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

The cameras aren't clear enough, thats my point, you could see Curnow say touched to May on the coverage.

Yeah  some better cameras would definitely be helpful prior to chipped balls. It may not catch it all but it will do better than what we have now

15 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

And we lost centre clearances by four. An issue that was killing us till the last.

I know we had Tracca fwd but when the blues did win a cc it resulted in a goal more often than our wins.

 

 

 

 

 

Trac was in there early as well. We just couldn't win centre clearance.

I actually thought we were far too aggressive from centre clearance. 

Clayton Oliver is playing lost.

1 minute ago, Binmans PA said:

First goalless first quarter since 2008 by the way. Just yuck.

It felt like a familiar warm blanket 😘

4 minutes ago, Winners at last said:

Scoreless first qtr ... giving the other side a 6 goal head start. Not ideal.

Yes, you can’t just rock up at lunchtime and expect to get the job done.

2 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

It felt like a familiar warm blanket 😘

I did want to crawl inside a hole and not reappear for a while there. It's been a while since we've played that badly.

Mind you, Carlton were very good early, and it was easily the best defensively they've played all year.

Edited May 9, 20241 yr by Binmans PA

Have you ever seen someone want to will their team to win as much as Trac?

Thought we performed really well tonight. Everyone stood up when it counted. unlucky not to win

51 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Clarrie is coming from a mile back, and we have no Gus. Sparrow hasn’t taken the step the club needs him too, and we are still fiddling with the balance of outside kickers and grunt.

Our midfield got absolutely spanked early, and have honestly had a pretty middling year.

It’s amazing how there’s been almost zero mention in the media about us missing Gus

Jvr having to ruck is costing his fwd craft development, yet we have Fullerton not getting a game, we won a flag with Jackson and replaced him with Grundy , it’s comical , defenders trying to be fwds & our mids are getting smashed 

1 minute ago, layzie said:

Have you ever seen someone want to will their team to win as much as Trac?

He can play into his mid thirties as a key forward if he wants.

He's a beauty up there.

Brayshaw would have been handy in this set up.