2018 Rd 7: Pre Game Paranoia: Carlton vs Adelaide

[Thryleon]

In reality we now know he sat out because of injury, not because he wasn't fit enough and being managed. And it is true that sitting Kreuzer out meant others had to be on the ground injured, if I recall correctly both Kennedy and Weitering went back on the ground with ankles and corkies. But that is part of football.

But that is no different to a 100% fit player getting injured in the first few minutes. The problem you write about really becomes an issue if you start playing too many unfit players from the get go, like Kennedy, Kreuzer, Marchbank and Weitering all at once. But we've heard the coaches talk about players needing to learn to cope with adversity as part of their development. However, too many at once is clearly a problem.

On that issue, I'm pretty sure if we keep pushing Cripps he'll break down eventually, he needs to find another string to his bow so he can have a natural chop-out form the crash and bang stuff.

This is the point though.

We should ruck Phillips this weekend.  There is almost no more than a 5% more likely chance that rucking Kreuzer instead of Phillips gives us a win (and that is being remarkably generous I might add).


Kreuzer replacing Phillips, in a season where quite frankly, we are not likely to win again until we get many more fit bodies back than just Kreuzer, reeks of desperation.  Its a low percentage increase in performance, to gain very little firepower, and exposes him to much greater risk because of the FLY factor.  If we were facing Adelaide at the MCG this weekend, id change my tune somewhat, but it smells of mismanagement (again).

It seems to be a high risk, low reward option to take because Kreuzer's performance doesn't give us an edge, and Kruddlers stats point to this being the case.