Carlton vs Freo in Freo Practice Match

[shawny]

Without Cripps I'm not sure we could win a game against any team including GC, has any Carlton team relied on one so player much?, even going back to Kouta I cant think of another player who carries such a load on his shoulders.
Unless we spread the work rate and match winning load more we wont get anywhere...I know we had outs but Freo had their key backs out(Hamling/Pearce) as well as Fyfe, Mundy and Walters...those last three are about as significant as it gets for Freo and we still lost by 8 goals and didnt have a player who really stood up and tried to take the game by the scruff of the neck.
With Charlie out for an extended time the pressure of being the match winner week in and week out continues to fall on Cripps...its not healthy and I agree with the Prof that we need some of this young talent to stand up and share the load.

I copped a lot of crap at the end of the trade period for our lack of success at the trade table again when another trade period was wasted by not getting some support for Cripps and not properly addressing such a one dimensional division.

As a result our whole years success now falls again on Cripps playing a 3 vote game and also a big chunk of our kids having breakout years. Good luck with that.

The kids are unlikely to be ready - some may improve some will stay the same some will go backwards. That the nature of kids. The jury is still well and truly out on blokes that some on here think are a lock to make it. Dow, Obrien, Setterfield, Kennedy, De Koning, Marchbank, Williamson, Cunningham and Fisher all have potential but none are locks IMO. Probably add in a few more to that list if you want to be critical.

Add in blokes like Lang, Polson, O'Dwyer who wont make it you may see why I'm not so positive as many think I should be.   

If Cripps or even Kruezer go down this year we are a bottom 2-3 side. 5 years into a rebuild with the amount of picks we have had and opportunities at the trade table and yet the above sentence is a fact hence why I cant see us taking the big leap that many think will happen.