NAB Challenge: Carlton vs. Essendon Sunday 28th Feb

[DJC]

I won't say much about the game apart from acknowledging Nick Graham's form and the potential shown by Weitering, McKay, Curnow and Silvagni.  I liked the way Byrne goes about his footy too.

I went to the post game function and it was great to see so many of our legends.  Most of the players attended too and I was surprised to see how outgoing Kreuzer was as he mingled with the crowd and posed for photographs.

Matt Capuano was interviewed by the MC and had to deal with some very strange questions.  He spoke about Phillips and Gorringe and was far from satisfied with their performance (Phillips reminds me of Hampson - good leap but can't catch).  He also spoke about his role as development coach and the exciting young talent he has to work.

I had a chat with Dennis Armfield and he is just a little frustrated about not playing.  He said that he is almost good to go but has get over a couple of niggles.  He spoke about learning a new style of footy and how easy it was for the young players muck up their roles and execution.  He was disappointed with the skill errors but was confident that they will be ironed out.  He also seemed confident about the season ahead both from a personal and team perspective.

I spoke briefly to Levi Casboult and he was not very happy with his performance.  He explained that his workload is being managed and he was always going to play just the first half.  He wants to improve his work rate. 

Ed Curnow came in well after the other players had left and we had a chat for a while.  He was disappointed with his game and unhappy about the skill errors.  He felt that it was largely due to inexperience and would be sorted as players became more used to AFL tempo.

We spoke about Charlie and Ed said that he is a fantastic mark and will really have an impact when he settles in.  He said that Charlie needs to get his head right and is too easily sucked in.  Ed is confident that Charlie will shine once he accepts that opponents will be trying to unsettle him and makes the ball his object rather than evening up.

I was hoping for a win but expecting Bolton to be more concerned with developing the list.  The result was disappointing but I'm more confident that we're a team in a hurry

[BluePhantom]

We have only seen 1 quarter of a massive 'team' effort so far in the NAB and that was the first quarter against the Dawks.

[PassIt2Carrots]

BTW, what was up with SOS Jr playing? I thought that shoulder was going to put him out of action for most of the season?

That was from those who did not want to 'waste' a pick on him.

[malo]

2 mickey mouse pre-season games into a 3 + year complete re-build......I'll reserve my overreacting for a while.  And if you decide whether or not to renew your membership on that back of a result in one of these matches.........have a good hard look at yourself.

[cimm1979]

Given that 12 of Essendon's best 15 were missing most of us probably expected a tighter contest, particularly at Princes Park, or at the very least to see some acceptable level of skill.

Give it a rest .

Boltons clearly made round one the immediate objective .

Fortunately he's not pandering to the bed wetters.

[PaulP]

At this point, we have no option but to sit tight and see what Bolton and SOS can do.

Nothing to be gained by going the early crow.

We've experienced the thrill of winning a pre season comp before - a thrill that lasted all of 15 minutes.

[Brettie]

And if you decide whether or not to renew your membership on that back of a result in one of these matches.........have a good hard look at yourself.

That's a very fair call btw.....

Gonna be more pain than not this year......we just have to learn to accept that - which is a mightily tough thing to do, but at least we're finally doing things the right way off the field.

[laj]

Given that 12 of Essendon's best 15 were missing most of us probably expected a tighter contest, particularly at Princes Park, or at the very least to see some acceptable level of skill.

We left our midfield out and exposed our kids to AFL. Essendon bodies were alot bigger and some of their top ups are no mugs. We were way more undermanned compared to Essendon's 2016 list. Essendon, after all their problems, were pumped up to play hard too. For us, it was just trying things out, plus we keep our rotations under 90, which other clubs don't do in the pre-season.

We have plenty to work on and we won't win alot but it's more about process more than result driven outcome in the pre-season.

[Thryleon]

Some might say it was the result the Bombers needed.

Jones is fairly useless, and has cemented his status as whipping boy for the next two years, which can only be good to keep the fans off the kids back.

At least he is "trying".  One of these days he might knock himself out in the process of going in, which would be an improvement.

[Barbs]

Given that 12 of Essendon's best 15 were missing most of us probably expected a tighter contest, particularly at Princes Park, or at the very least to see some acceptable level of skill.

I hoped for a better contest, but in reality the dons still ran out with a more experienced team (Goddard, Zaharakis, Daniher) and brought in more match ready guys like simpkin and Crowley. We brought in several players with no seniors experience (Weitering, Mckay, Curnow, Cunningham and Silvagni) and some with minimal AFL experience (Phillips, Gorringe, Boekhurst, Gallucci, Byrne, Smith, Whiley, Dick, Graham etc).

That said, yes, I think we all expected some better skills on display and more willingness to take the game on. We are going to lose plenty of times this year, but I want to see us losing by making mistakes that are at least taking us in the right direction or give glimpses of hope (ie trying a new innovative game plan, taking some risks like playing on more with quick ball movement, playing with more physical presence) than making the same old mistakes that have been endemic in our game for the last few years (ie. booting it long to nobody and watching it come back for a goal) and got us nowhere. I'd rather see free kicks given against us for high hits in a tough contest, players getting caught with the ball while trying to take on the opposition and clangers being kicked because someone just took 4 bounces while running their guts out than the steady stream of 50m kicks from half back along the boundary line that get intercepted all to easily or are to a 3-1 contest. At least we'll learn from the former and the young guns will be better for it in a couple of years time. As a team we cannot continue to be so individually risk averse.

I really hope that what BB is drilling into the playing group after yesterday's performance is that its ok to make mistakes but its not ok to not try hard enough. As a supporter I accept mistakes will be made and there will be losses this year, some pretty bad ones too. What I can't abide this year is players not fighting like hell every time they take the field and not showing some passion for the jumper.