AFL Rd 4 2022 Pre Game Prognostications Carlton vs Gold Coast

[WASurfer]

Agree EB. Voss would know a fair bit about them too which will surely help?

Hard not to get ahead of ourselves after so long in the wilderness but the GC and Port games give us the perfect opportunity to set up a genuine finals tilt this year. If we can get to 5-0 and have guys like McGovern only a few weeks away, as well as guys like Dow, Motlop etc in good form in the VFL, then we're in a good place.

But we've lost to GC before when we should've won.....humid, slippery conditions won't help us but with our midfield grunt we should have more opportunities to score than them.

[bricky]

Lost to GC last year by bombing it long and then watching them run it back out.
After the last  3 quarters against the Hawks I hope its something we are working on.

[LP]

But we've lost to GC before when we should've won.....humid, slippery conditions won't help us but with our midfield grunt we should have more opportunities to score than them.

All those longer range around the corner set shots and banana kicks become almost harder if not impossible when conditions get greasy, the ball won't bend in flight and basically skids straight on when it hits the ground.

[WASurfer]

LP....a reason why I think we'll miss Durdin this week....his work when the ball hits the ground is really good. Puts a bit more pressure on Owies this week. Might be in Jack Martin's favour....he might be the IN for Durdin.

[Baggers]

LP....a reason why I think we'll miss Durdin this week....his work when the ball hits the ground is really good. Puts a bit more pressure on Owies this week. Might be in Jack Martin's favour....he might be the IN for Durdin.

Agree. I reckon Durds is the best of our 3 small forwards... his defensive work, speed and opportunism will be missed.

[Mav]

Yep, that play where CJ merely ambled after the ball while Durdin hit it at full speed and snapped truly made CJ look like Essendon's James Stewart allowing the bouncing ball to cross the goal line unmolested. And that was on a day when CJ was running hot.

[LP]

LP....a reason why I think we'll miss Durdin this week....his work when the ball hits the ground is really good. Puts a bit more pressure on Owies this week. Might be in Jack Martin's favour....he might be the IN for Durdin.

Last weekend I rated Owies game higher than Durdin, might not have looked much on TV but he runs end to end and applies heaps of pressure that probably goes unnoticed.

From memory at least one of Durdin's opportunities was created by an Owies contest.

FWIW, same applies to Setterfield and LoB, they all competed strongly, made contests that caused spills and the gloss goes to the finisher at the end of the possession chain, but no Owies, Setterfield, Hewett, Kennedy or LoB types doing the grunt stuff and there is no possession chain.

[Mav]

But having someone like Durdin who can can convert half chances is also vital. The ability to snap at goal with a reasonable chance of success is reasonably rare. The more blue-collar defensive small forwards tend to feed it backwards by hand and that often means chances go begging. We've all seen the chain of backwards handballs which start around the goalsquare and due to congestion & pressure they continue until the ball is outside the F50 area.

A somewhat different example occurred in the Port/Demons match last night. A Port player had managed to run the ball towards goal from o/s the 50 IIRC and failed to pull the trigger with a shot at goal repeatedly. Finally, he dodged a defender and ran to the goalsquare only to have his belated kick at goal smothered by two Demons defenders. You need guys who have a high proficiency in taking shots at goal when fleeting opportunities present.

[Professer E]

Durdin appears to really have something, whomever recruited him has a clue.

What surprised me the most on the day was CJ.  Last time we played the whorks I came away with the opinion that he was as clueless a player as I've seen,  maybe if we made him defend we might have seen a few more mistakes and panicky stuff.

[Mav]

CJ had proved himself well-and-truly before he was injured last year. It was only a matter of whether he'd be rusty after recovering from his injury and a restricted preseason. He wasn't.