AFL Rd 11 2023 Pre Game Prognostications Carlton vs Sydney

[crashlander]

Friday night: we haven't played well at night recently.

[Mantis]

Friday night: we haven't played well at night recently.

Playing at night might be the least of our recent problems. Not confident in this game.

[pinot]

We played the best team in the competition and I think Sydney right now is to our level and should win it.

[Gointocarlton]

I just hope we learnt something when we played them in the preseason game and don't get beaten by what we know.

[PaulP]

Unlike the Pies game where we had no chance, I think this game is 50/50. Both sides are in average form, and with our big, slow moving mids and scrubby disposal, the smaller ground should help rather than hinder us.

[JonDorotich]

I think we’re now beyond plastering over the cracks and need something more radical to change our fortunes and more player team meetings or contrite public apologies wont change a thing.

Facts are that our defence and mids are way too slow and our free agents are a bust. McGovern, Martin & Williams have all been beyond disappointing for different reasons.

Ideas
- Mckay back, Weitering forward
- TDK into the ruck
- Kemp third tall forward
- Dow in and Walsh to the wing

SOS, MCGovern, Acres out

The 3 players above have been butchering the ball for weeks. In addition to lacking skills, SOS and Acres are just too slow, whilst McGovern has had enough time and has never prepared well enough - it’s time to move on.

[Micky0]

I think we will win this easily.

I have tipped against us the past few weeks so I’m not blinded by our inadequacies at all.

To me there is something off about how they’re playing - watching the team play this year has felt like the bad old times. Last year on so many occasions I couldn’t believe my eyes on how well and skilful we played. Which to me says the skills are there, the utilisation is not.

So whatever they changed up this year, change it back quick smart and work out another way to improve our deficiencies.

Think we’ll win by 6 goals.

[Gointocarlton]

I think we’re now beyond plastering over the cracks and need something more radical to change our fortunes and more team meetings or public apologies is not going to change a thing.

Facts are that our defence and mids are way too slow and our free agents are a bust. McGovern, Acres, Martin & Williams have all been beyond disappointing for different reasons.

Ideas
- Mckay back, Weitering forward
- TDK into the ruck
- Kemp third tall
- Dow in and Walsh to the wing

SOS, MCGovern, Acres out

The 3 players above have been butchering the ball for weeks. McGovern has had enough time, time move on.

Interesting you say the three butchered the ball, I agree about previous weeks but Acres ran at 96DE% for his 25 touches (of which 24 are listed as effective) which is outstanding. Gov at 75% but only touched it 8 times (2 marks all day)and SOS at 50% for his 12 touches. It was Govs worst game for us this year I reckon. When he is not marking (or rather intercept marking) and pin pointing passes out of defence, like Weitering he is next to useless for us.
I doubt they'll give up on Gov after one poor game, our defence was abysmal for a large part of the first half yesterday. I sat on level 2 behind the goals we were defending in that first qtr and they were all over the place. Losing their man, poor handovers, mis match after mismatch the Coll fwds were licking their chops at how poor we were at maintaining structure down back (which was a strength last year). Poor old Weiters is a shadow of his former self at the minute, I really felt for him yesterday. He just panics about what to do when the ball comes near him, I could see every one of those instances unfolding at the end I was sitting at.

[pinot]

Ball movement, moneyball kicks and small forwards having an impact is letting us down.
When ball is in dispute we do well - when we have it the method going forward is a shambles and need to improve quickly.

[Gointocarlton]

I think we will win this easily.

I have tipped against us the past few weeks so I’m not blinded by our inadequacies at all.

To me there is something off about how they’re playing - watching the team play this year has felt like the bad old times. Last year on so many occasions I couldn’t believe my eyes on how well and skilful we played. Which to me says the skills are there, the utilisation is not.

So whatever they changed up this year, change it back quick smart and work out another way to improve our deficiencies.

Think we’ll win by 6 goals.

I'm sort of with you there Mick, rather than the skills themselves, its the decision making and running patterns that are bad. Yesterday really highlighted how off the mark we are in running patterns. I commented in the post game how they run in in pairs (min) and surrounded our ball carries. Our running in groups is largely non existent and I think thats due to fear of leaving their opponent too much space in the event of a turnover. Another thing that irks me is how stationary our blokes remain when we have the ball. Get on the move quickly FFS, then turn around and look at the team mate with the ball. So often our backs are to the play. There was one instance yesterday in the reserves game where Caddy ran along the wing/HFF, gathered and centered the ball beautifully but the recipient had his back to the ball carrier and lost it in flight. We do that stuff too often in the 1s also.
If we can just tidy up this stuff, I think some results will go our way.