Adam The God

Yep, this was my view too. Hugely aggressive set ups. I kept thinking we'll have to go ultra defensive at this next centre bounce, and then we'd leave the entire defensive side of the stoppage open. Really poor work IMV. Sometimes you have to stem the bleeding. And if we're defence first, let's stop the momentum by not allowing them to win centre clearance.

I think this is an overreaction to last night. Our forward craft and entries has been improving all year. And just the previous week, we had arguably our best forward game of the year, against arguably the second best defensive set up and personnel in the league. Last night however, for the first 2.5 quarters our forward entries were horrible. But we changed our game style to play for territory in the rain, versus the keepings off tempo game we played in drier conditions last week.

I actually think we played the first 15 minutes of the first quarter with our usual method. We tried to slingshot from the back, and then when they started piling on the scores and some rain arrived, we changed our method and played long and tried to take territory.

Sorry, but I'm going to pull you up on this. No one is saying clearances can't be important, but we're urging caution in how we read those stats. Just taking stats in isolation doesn't necessarily tell us anything.

But again, you're missing the point I was making after the Richmond game. We didn't allow goals out the front of stoppage, we didn't allow them out the front of stoppage at all, so you're not comparing apples with apples. The clearance numbers themselves don't necessarily tell you anything. If the team isn't winning clearance out the front of stoppage with little post clearance pressure, then we're in good shape behind the ball. But if our mids play like they did from centre clearances last night, we undermine our defence and open ourselves up. Richmond game, Carlton game, completely different games. How many goals from stoppage did Richmond score? And how many goals from stoppage did Carlton score? That is your answer. You seem to be going for a gotcha moment, but it isn't there.

What? Like his brilliant pass to Max under pressure? Sure, he makes some errors, I've been critical of him in the past, but he becoming a super damaging player with his run and carry, and his willingness to take on the corridor kick. He's become one of our most important players for our new method IMO.

You're talking about tonight, which I agree with. Richmond game, I did not.

We will see on that score. I have a sneaky suspicion he is.

He was very good against Brisbane when we pushed him in there in the final quarter. He won 4 or 5 clearances in one quarter. That's what I'm hoping. Maybe he competes with Billings for the half forward spot when Salo comes back. Woey needs to be able to fill holes wherever we need them though to get a place in the side. So far, so good.

It's a very odd game we're playing with Clarry. He's super low on clearance numbers and I don't know if I'm reading into it or not, but he seems to be playing an unnatural game to him. Which is probably what you're alluding to. He's a see ball, get ball genius, and I think we're trying to add layers to his game, which I only hope will improve his game going forward. Jack Viney? Steven May?

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.

The rest periods are pre planned by Selwyn...

Yep, I was wrong about Woey. He's going to make it. Really showing great improvement.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

That so called free kick against Roo on Kemp that ended up being a Melbourne goal with 5 mins to go...

Finally catching up on the podders now. Just a note for the boss, ground ball gets are really not a good indicator for us in 2024. I'd explain it as potentially resulting in the deeper lying defensive set up and less of an emphasis on winning clearance.

Last year...

Any reason this player isn't mentioned specifically? Very intriguing.

I agree with this, but they don't seem to have a great focus on developing defensive depth like we do. We've been actively developing replacements for Lever/May (in Adams and Turner), and have Petty who can swing backwards or forwards too. They seem all in on their forward half, which is mostly a result of them nailing the Curnow and McKay picks in that same draft. They have been unlucky with Jones, who has become a very good intercept marker. Put him next to Weitering, McGovern and even Marchbank and Kemp, and that's a good defensive line. So losing him back to the Dogs has hurt them, but they haven't really replaced him. Docherty's injury has hurt their half back drive too. Outside of Weitering in their current set up, all their defenders look vulnerable 1v1, and part of that is probably a lack of pressure from the rest of the team. When Carlton were on the up from the midway point of last year (after some Carlton fans wanted to sacked Voss), it was their all team defence that had clicked. They've lost that again, which suggests either they're not fit enough or it was a flash in the pan tactically, or both. I still think Voss has a Rolls Royce that he is driving like my Hyundai Tucson.

The most startling stat in that lot is Essendon...😳 And what a pity they aren't bottom 3.