John Crow Batty

I heard James Hird picked up a temporary holiday job in France. He will be in charge of the refreshment stations for the riders in the Tour de France starting soon.

Interesting to see how he goes. Not used to be left chomping on the bit and sit it out for half a season. Always an automatic selection for us. May be dynamite or a complete fizzle.

As the game resets after every goal it is really quite irrelevant to how many goals we were denied. Because if we just got one of them then everything happening afterwards would be different. Up until early last quarter we only needed one of those missed opportunities to give us a chance to win. A few were our fault for not converting gettable shots. and several were umpiring mistakes. As the game was so tight it made it nigh on impossible once they got 2+ goals up. We just did not have the fire power to score 3+ goals quickly. If we could have kept their lead under 2 goals we would have been a decent chance to pinch it late. I could see Roos tactics in what he was trying. But all the cards had to fall right. Opportunities needed to be taken. Forward defensive pressure had to be optimal. I don't think he would have foreseen that poor umpiring would have been a factor though.

The waitresses?

After a mercurial career at North wasted mostly on driving fast cars, nailing blondes and partying he had not much going for him until he discovered selling mutton. Found his niche as an entertaining big mouth for hire.

And Ablett played one of his best seasons for the Cats as a departing gesture. Oddly Frawley does not seem to be doing his best to play up to the value of the enormous sums being touted for his future services. Me thinks done deal locked in ages ago.

Sometimes I get the feeling Roos got his basic philosophy from traditional Italian soccer. Their national team has never been rated as highly as its opposition but has managed four titles, two runner ups and a couple of semi finals in 17 attempts. They played a style called "Cattenaccio" which does not translate well but means somethings like, "wrapping up your opponent up in chains". The basic philosphy was to beat superior opponents with an inferior side when it counted the most. Winning was the be all and end all. To play this game they gave up on their abilty to score goals freely as long as they stopped the opposition scoring at all. This was supplemented by hard uncomprimising physical tactics to unerve the most talented and skilled oposition. Even when they were eventually beaten it was always a tough ugly bruising encounter. Curiously now that they have given up on this style of of ugly defensive play they don't seem to be as effective and feared as they used to be.

We are not going to win with 3 goals but it was a unique rarity for a team with 3 goals to still be in the game in the last quarter. Umpires cost us a couple and gave them a couple of cheapies. It could have been a different result if we had those extra 2 coming into the last qaurter.

Even if we had Hogan and he gets 4 goals every game we will still be lacking. We just can't seem to keep the ball down there for repeat entires and multiple scoring opps. That has to be the next stage of our development. The pies cleared our defence with ridiculous ease.

Frawley ain't going back because he's gawn.

Well beaten today in a truly ugly game. Our slow ball movement and almost complete lack of forward pressure was bad. 3 goals in a full game in perfect conditions is unacceptable. Colingwood learned from other clubs mistakes and did not blaze away at goal against us. Far too many times they went back upfield to find a free player in range. Missed critical opportunities and some dodgy umpiring set us back from making any meaningful challenge in the second half. Our worst game since WC.

A point not often discussed is as Melbourne is a fast growing city, who do the new residents inclined to like the game follow? They are less like to follow a suburban name they never heard of and don't live in. Melbourne is the most likely first connection they will make because they live in Greater Melbourne first and suburb second. I know quite a few new residents from New Zealand and other places who initially followed us but then ditched us due to consistent poor performances. No one likes to follow losers. If we do become successful on the field this is a demographic that is ripe for the picking for us. In the end any argument about how we grow always comes down to winning games be it attracting new supporters or bringing back latent ones.

What better time to make such an announcement. Just before QB. If such good new hasn't happened yet, it wont happen.

Environmental and family/friends support is a big help. He will definitely get more of that over there than over here.

I thought he was just about washed up last season. I thought a delisting was coming for sure. Amazing turnaround from feckless to fab. If we can get similar to current output from him for the next three seasons he will be one of our most valuable half dozen players.

Tend to agree, he is very knowledagle in a broad sense and more worldly than the average footballer. Potential future AFL CEO material.

A 100% with you. The consesus with Bootsma is that he is a diquehead and no great loss to the game but he has managed to grab all the headlines from the real story that Carlton are shyte and in crisis. Arguably the best contribution he has made to the club.

Well he may been sick enough not to play but felt better later. We all have woken up crook, taken the day off work then felt better in the arvo. I believe Carlton after yet another disastrous loss felt they had to make a swift positive statement. They had some solid ammunition on this guy built up over time. Easier than sacking the coach. Curiously no Malthouse under pressure articles in the media this week.

He could have felt better in the arvo and went out for a bit fresh air. Gastro can come and go pretty quickly. Agree very dumb to go on twitter though.

Well he might have that. But this is unique treatment for a miscreant Carlton player. And the timing also.

I have given this matter a little thought. Something does not add up. It is quite rate for a player to be summarily sacked mid season and usually when it has happened is for serious criminal allegations. And even rarer for a club like Carlton to openly crucify a player for his moral and ethical failings. My take is Bootsma's sacking was orchestrated to deflect scrutiny from yet another severely embarrassing loss and drown out the increasingly loud "sack Malthouse, sack Kernahan" sharks that are circling. Now they can chant the culture change mantra to stall for more time.

It was the fault of whoever gave us those icky bright colours in the 70's to make us look more colourful on TV. We lost our continuity of tradition then. Tradition maintains its validity only when there is unbroken continuity. We lost it a long time ago. You can only defend tradition when you still live by it. The Pies and Hawks never deviated too much from their original look though the Hawks did try to shed those pukey colours but faced a lot of resistance from fans. As I recall there was not a whole lot of resistance to our IKEA look of the seventies at the time.

Just because he has a passing resemblance to said Mr Bolt does not mean he is a Neo Fascist. I thought he looked like a KAOS agent.

I just hope he proves me and other doubters wrong and leads us to victory with a bigger than Ben Hur performance on Monday.