On 09/05/2024 at 13:18, deegirl said:

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

Yes i agree. But nothing we can do now. Just move on. 

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:24, ElDiablo14 said:

Actually, Carlton won because of that Curnow goal that was clearly touched by Steven May. Putrid AFL and their "technology", the ARC is a disgrace 🤡🤡

It's channel 7 and fox technology as per the broadcast contract with the AFL and even BT Complained aBout it.

BT also complai Ed about the disappointing crowd numbers for a Melbourne home game (which it wasn't)

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:25, Engorged Onion said:

Gents/ladies - because it's not sustainable, nor physiologically and psychologically possible.

It's a marathon and there will be fluctuation between effort and form, quarter to quarter, week to week.

The undeniable naivety, or arrogance, or expectation of some supporters* does not at all marry up with the rigors of what the sport demands from it's players through training and competition for 8 months of the year- to put on 2 hours of entertainment for the masses each week.

*not necessarily you Bobo

Just need it for 1 quarter to blow the game apart then put the defensive squeeze to kill the game.
 

  On 09/05/2024 at 12:39, Demon Dynasty said:

They aren't ordinary at CBs.  They've beaten us in this phase the last few times we've played them.

You have to ask why Goodwin played ANB in the middle for most of the 2nd half?  Think he might've had one clearance towards the end and a few involvements but that's about it.

And instead left Kozzy to rot at HF when the opposite was surely more plausible.

The decision to leave Max off for at least 10 minutes after going three quick goals down was astonishing.  JVR was smacked up and outta sorts during his stint during this period which allowed the Blues to continue on their merry way out of the middle.

The fact that neither of our KFs fired speaks volumes for me. 

And i'm not including Disco here.  He's more like a third tall behind Petty & JVR and a junior in terms of experience in our forward line.

Game on the line and neither of them were able to stick their hand up and settle us down on the scoreboard early.

Took Max to put a few serious leads in in the second half and then managed to kick a big bomb from 50.

The rest periods are pre planned by Selwyn...

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:12, Binmans PA said:

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

No way 😲

  On 09/05/2024 at 12:23, layzie said:

Most one sided 1 pt loss in recent memory. The fightback was excellent, I'm sure plenty will read way too much into it but I'm proud they never gave up.

Smashed at centre clearance. Carlton kicked 5 from CC and that was really the difference.

I think Carlton are close to #1 on goals for centre clearances, but 2nd worst at goals outside. Collingwood beat them by exploiting this by having goal side players and forcing stoppages.

We just blatantly bombed it in to outnumbered forwards and got punished on the rebound.

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:35, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

I like him a lot. I reckon he has paid his dues now.

Good call. Really nice cameo from Woey 

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:27, Binmans PA said:

My sister and I were really hoping we'd push Rivers in there in the last, and bring Woey on at half back, and Billings to sub, but Bowser seemed to struggle on his return, which meant we needed Rivers' drive at half back and probably stopped that move.

At quarter time, I don't recall seeing Goody as animated as he was in the huddle. They clearly bloody needed it.

Rivers is not skilled enough.

That sort of effort is exactly why we haven’t won a final since 21, got close in the end but like the pies final last year we gave a good team to much head start .

Dont think we have improved or fixed any of the issues from last year 

Edited May 9, 2024May 9 by Garbo

Carlton are a top 4 side, match up brilliantly against us, and love playing us. And we suck in wet weather.

We started awfully. Being down 36-0 makes beating anyone hard, let alone a top 4 side. 

It was incredible to see us stem the tide and end up feeling like we could have won, so that is a clear positive. Ultimately their cleanliness in front of goal early and our four awful misses (Petty, Fritsch, Pickett, Chandler) cost us the win. The fact it came to that despite Walsh, Cripps and Weitering playing stellar football is remarkable.

Don’t give me “the umpiring cost us” though. [censored] me. We were gifted a goal from the non-mark call late in the third and there were a stack of calls that either went in our favour or were missed. Yes, the JVR tackle was a pathetic free, but we lost this game ourselves. 

We have a midfield problem though. All three losses are hallmarked by opposition mids dominating. I liked the different looks in there tonight with ANB but we are not capable of winning it this year if we keep having games where we’re beaten this badly in the middle. 

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:18, deegirl said:

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

Wonder why 🤔

i don't have access to a replay. The Trac htb in the dying stages? Seemed a bit stiff as to prior, and how the rest of the game was adjudicated. 

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:32, Engorged Onion said:

one more, the obligatory Freo at the G....

Nah, not this year.

 

We play them in NT 😂

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:44, Skuit said:

i don't have access to a replay. The Trac htb in the dying stages? Seemed a bit stiff as to prior, and how the rest of the game was adjudicated. 

Tried to fend off so it was there,  bit sad that it basically ended the game for us after his bull-like game

  On 09/05/2024 at 12:53, 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.

Smug, dismissive call it what you want.

Our midfield was exposed early tonight when the game was there to be won. Sure stoppages would have evened up when Carlton stopped dead in the last. But as far as I’m concerned that’s red time stoppage wins. 
 

We got opened up when it counted. I’ll give us a small out because of the 5 day break, but the failure to adapt to wet weather footy is disgustingly embarrassing..

  On 09/05/2024 at 12:26, layzie said:

Us winning would have been highway robbery. 2nd best for 3 1/2 quarters by a long way 

We played better than them for 3qtrs but couldn’t convert or dominance. 

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:42, demon3165 said:

Rivers is not skilled enough.

He is starting to make bad decisions often, his look away handball back to Oliver in the last quarter when he should have drilled it long.. just dumb.

At the end of the day while Carlton deserved the win and were great early on, I don't think they can play much better than that. Apart from Saad, Williams and Motlop that was pretty much a full strength team. 

We relied on Trac to keep us in it a lot. Plenty of underperformers that I can't see staying quiet next time round. And we still nearly won it! Yes we were 2nd best tonight in my opinion but I am encouraged.

Upon reflection, we could do worse than Trac and Lever as our next co-captains.

Trac got us back into it with that amazing mark and goal, and then constantly troubled the scorers from then on. He also had 6 inside 50s, 4 clearances and game high 10 score involvements to go with his 5.1.

He's a freak.

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:48, Oxdee said:

We played better than them for 3qtrs but couldn’t convert or dominance. 

We didn't score a single point for a quarter and a half. Carlton had 6 straight on the board and were slaughtering us in all the vital stats in that time. 

More than happy for someone to explain how exactly we 'dominated' that period of the game.

 

Edited May 9, 2024May 9 by layzie

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:16, layzie said:

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

Super after quarter time tonight L ...

Have seen Clarry do it a at his best without so many scores of course.

Viney also but not to the level / consistency of the former two.

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:12, Binmans PA said:

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

Might be wrong, but I thought it was the first time we were zero points at quarter time since ‘08. So, not goalless but pointless. Utterly pointless. 
 

 

After just arriving back from the game, a few things to get off my chest.

1 - Umpires. They too easily are impacting the outcome of games. No, they weren’t to blame for our horrendous start, we managed to care of that all by ourselves, but when Trent is getting his head ripped off and no call is being made, that’s very poor. In the second half, the umps had clearly seen the free kick count at half time and tried to square it up (that’s equally poor).

2 - Carlton supporters. Couldn’t help but laugh at some clueless boofheads going off at the umps during the second quarter when they awarded us a free kick (they were a good 10 frees up at the time). The whole Carlton crowd are prima donnas, at least filth supporters are somewhat less one-eyed when it comes to umpiring. Carlton fans are about as insufferable as Bomber fans.

3 - Poor starts. Both in terms of the game and start of the quarters, we let them get the ascendency. Talk about real momentum killers. We scored our first points at something like the 9 minute mark of the 2nd quarter (there’s the game right there).

4 - Forward line. This is a head scratcher, as we looked pathetic for 75% of the game and then out of necessity to try and actually win we became aggressive. Why not from the outset? We are a defence 1, 2 & 3 team, before we even contemplate becoming aggressive. Poor, poor, poor.

5 - Goody made a move. This was almost more out of desperation than anything else, but moving Petracca forward turned the tide and nearly won us the game. I’d like to see more of this initiative shown in future,

6 - My kingdom for a decent forward line. Our current set-up is too unreliable. JVR is having a poor year but the kid is only 21 & shouldn’t need to be relied upon to lead our forward line. Kozzie is so hit and miss along with Fritsch atm. Daniel Turner is just out of the womb and Petty is not the answer as much as we want him to be. Our Achilles heel is team destroying. If our forward line was even half as talented as our back line, we’d be romping it in every year. 20 more inside 50’s and we lost. Bad delivery inside, bad choices being made when going inside, and once it’s in pathetic pressure keeping it in there. Our small forwards are next to useless at the moment. Stafford has well and truly overstated his welcome. We need a complete forward line re-set with a half decent forwards coach.

7 - midfield??? Got an absolute bath early in the game where it was ultimately won by Carlton. Too little too late when they started evening up the contest. Our midfield is incredibly shallow. Trac, Oliver, Viney and Gawn all need to play good games, because no one else is coming through to take over.

8 - We don’t learn from our mistakes. Swans, Lions now Blues. Same problems persist and we can’t do anything to stop it. We’ll make finals, but I fear we ain’t going to do much in them again this year.

Edited May 9, 2024May 9 by Demon Disciple

  On 09/05/2024 at 13:52, layzie said:

At the end of the day while Carlton deserved the win and were great early on, I don't think they can play much better than that. Apart from Saad, Williams and Motlop that was pretty much a full strength team. 

We relied on Trac to keep us in it a lot. Plenty of underperformers that I can't see staying quiet next time round. And we still nearly won it! Yes we were 2nd best tonight in my opinion but I am encouraged.

Williams is part of the reason they’ve struggled to defend recently. Not sure he’s best 22. But Fogarty and Marchbank might be. 

Still, they got peak Weitering, Walsh and Cripps, Curnow found 2 goals on May, it rained, and they kicked straight all night. It’s a super effort to be as close as we were despite all that, but equally a reminder that they play so well against us.

Expected Scores:

#AFLBluesDees Final xScores:

CARL 75 from expected 51.1 (+2 rushed)

MELB 73 from expected 72.4 (+3 rushed)

Those first 5 goals being all goals is the only reason they won. Honestly I’m fed up with finding ways to not beat Carlton.