AFL 2024 Elimination Final 1 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Brisbane

[LoveNavy]

Chiming in from Edinburgh. The disappointment and the fury are palpable from here.

I didn't expect to win with a battered list but hoped we'd make turn up. Sounds like our performance was sub-par from selection day on. Pretty sure we've developed a new disadvantage for ourselves in that respect.

Sending my condolences to all Bluebaggers. 

[Mantis]

Knew this one would be a loss but 60 vs 0 early in the game was looking like a humiliation. This shows why we should never had qualified to be in the top 8. A total joke of a finals campaign. Do not look at injuries as an excuse never in this game at all. Time to overhaul the playing group if we want to have a shot at a flag.

[31Tommys_barber]

Lots of post match experts ranting on here but there’s not many of them who wouldn’t have selected the same team. We weren’t beating the Lions with the team that beat eagles or almost beat the saints.
So we rolled the dice and lost. They were runners up last year playing on their home ground with few injury worries. The first quarter and a half can sometimes happen in footy lots of teams have periods where they can’t get near it and it’s not for lack of effort. The players who came back were always going to struggle with the pace of a final but so were the kids with only two or three games in them. Give em 20 and they’ll be right.
This was not our year that the gods smiled on us too many injuries at the wrong time. AGAIN. Glad we are getting a fresh approach in our fitness department, what worked 10 years ago for Russell might not be what’s required now.
Hindsight is always 20/20

[madbluboy]

Post match experts? Did you read the forum before the match?

[Gointocarlton]

The sun rose this morning and there are more pressing issues in the world than a game of footy. I guess you really cant win 2 of your last 8 going into finals and expect to do any damage.
The positives (yes there are some)
- Hewett, Young, Newman and Cowan tried their guts out for 4 qtrs, 2 or 3 others might see their careers at Carlton come to an end.
- We scored something 11 of the last 16 goals, at least we fought it out and put some semblance on the scoreboard. A 28 point loss was looking more like a 100+ pt humiliation.
- We won the contested footy by the end of the game.

The negatives (there we too many to mention)
- The game was over at qtr time. Giving the opposition a 60-0 head start is reprehensible, I need to try and watch the 2 qtrs again. I want to know how many times we got it into our F50 but I would guess it was two tenths of SFA. First goal was at the 24 min mark of the 2nd. I thought the leadership shown by Cripps, Weiters, Walsh (ie the more senior players) and the coaches (to a lesser extent) was a extremely poor during that onslaught.
- TDK the sub might have had its reasons but it was poor tactically. Even poorer was the bloke they took off, there were 3 or 4  they could have taken off before Kennedy I thought.
- 42 tackes (to their 65) is unacceptable when you know you need to pressure a team to defeat them, especially in a final.
- Virtually zero pressure and
- Over use of handball and handballing to stationary players.
- The fumbling was so evident, we need to clean that up over the summer.
- I don't know or cant pin point what's happened to our side defensively from last year to this year but the difference is stark. We were so miserly last year. This year leaked like a sieve especially in the second half of the year. Other than missing Weiters early on in the year and Saad and Gov for a patches, they were all the for the most part. Something went seriously a miss in our back half.

Thats the guts of it. We need to do better.

[Gointocarlton]

Lots of post match experts ranting on here but there’s not many of them who wouldn’t have selected the same team. We weren’t beating the Lions with the team that beat eagles or almost beat the saints.
So we rolled the dice and lost. They were runners up last year playing on their home ground with few injury worries. The first quarter and a half can sometimes happen in footy lots of teams have periods where they can’t get near it and it’s not for lack of effort. The players who came back were always going to struggle with the pace of a final but so were the kids with only two or three games in them. Give em 20 and they’ll be right.
This was not our year that the gods smiled on us too many injuries at the wrong time. AGAIN. Glad we are getting a fresh approach in our fitness department, what worked 10 years ago for Russell might not be what’s required now.
Hindsight is always 20/20

Fair post Tommy.

[kruddler]

Lots of post match experts ranting on here but there’s not many of them who wouldn’t have selected the same team. We weren’t beating the Lions with the team that beat eagles or almost beat the saints.

Disagree.

Plenty of people called out the issues before hand and were ultimately proven right.
Whether or not we had a chance of winning, who knows. But you gotta give yourself that chance.

[PaulP]

Lots of post match experts ranting on here but there’s not many of them who wouldn’t have selected the same team. We weren’t beating the Lions with the team that beat eagles or almost beat the saints.
So we rolled the dice and lost. They were runners up last year playing on their home ground with few injury worries. The first quarter and a half can sometimes happen in footy lots of teams have periods where they can’t get near it and it’s not for lack of effort. The players who came back were always going to struggle with the pace of a final but so were the kids with only two or three games in them. Give em 20 and they’ll be right.
This was not our year that the gods smiled on us too many injuries at the wrong time. AGAIN. Glad we are getting a fresh approach in our fitness department, what worked 10 years ago for Russell might not be what’s required now.
Hindsight is always 20/20

I generally agree, but that's fans and social media.

[Lods]

I always think that after a bad loss, it’s probably better to wait until the next day before making a comment.
The emotion and disappointment of the result tends to emphasise and heighten our perceptions. Reasons for the loss are usually attributed to pre-conceived ideas such as poor selections.

Sometimes in the morning things don’t seem so bad…sometimes they do!
That was bad.
The first half particularly.
It was probably as bad as anything we dished up during the Pagan years.
The result flatters us.
Brisbane didn’t switch off at 60 in front, but they definitely ‘dropped off’ a fair bit, no doubt with next week in mind
Our last few goals were kicked in junk time.
Their inaccuracy saved us from an even more embarrassing result…and that’s an issue for them going forward.

Why did it turn out so bad?

There’s a lot of talk around the selections especially the injured. Yes, they were underdone, but they all got through the game OK. That’s a match fitness issue, rather than ‘carrying injured players’…and all would probably have been better for the run had we made it through.

Would the addition of Lord, Binns and Moir have made a difference to the 60-nil beginning? We can guess, but we can never know for sure. I personally don’t think it would have made much difference at all. These guys performed OK against a West Coast side and a “last game of the year” St Kilda.
Brisbane in Brisbane in a finals game is a dramatically different opponent. But really, folks will have their own ideas on that situation and I can understand how some will feel we lost it at selection.

One player we did miss is Cincotta. At his best he would have been very useful…but his form slipped in recent weeks.

The TDK/Kennedy one was a bit strange. The thinking was obviously that we would be close at three quarter time and a fresh DeKoning may have been the difference. The situation we found ourselves in meant he had to be activated much earlier than planned. I suspect Kennedy was always in the mix to be the one subbed, given his role was the one most similar to DeKoning’s, and the fact that he’s had a pretty exhausting couple of days. Those of us guys who’ve been in the delivery room know, that while our physical contribution is limited, it does take a toll and when it’s over you’re just looking for a place to lie down. Normally you take the next day or two off work, not jump on a plane to Brisbane to play an elimination final…and even if you do front up, half your mind is back at the hospital.

One much maligned player who did OK under a bit of an avalanche was Lewis Young. There was still a bit of uncertainty at times but not our worst by a long way.

No doubt there will be a thorough review of what went wrong, but the most obvious aspect was the lack of pressure in the first half. The manic tackling and double team tackles just weren’t there. I hate the term “didn’t come ready to play” but that’s basically what it looked like.
The other one was some of the interactions and glances between team-mates when something didn’t go as planned, which leads me to my final point. Some of the body language in recent weeks as things turned a bit pear shaped suggest a less than happy camp. That’s often a consequence of a struggling team. The next week or two will be interesting. It wouldn’t surprise to see a few requesting a move. Not just the ones like Martin who are already well on the way out, but a few we didn’t expect.

[madbluboy]

Most people including Zorko himself thought he was going to have to put up with Cincotta, instead he got it easy and tore us apart in the first half.