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.