06-15-2020, 01:40 AM
(06-15-2020, 01:21 AM)Blue Moon link Wrote:.................................................................................................
The question I ask is is the mentality at Carlton such that the players would rather have a heroic failure than commit to the contest from the start and be burdened by the pressure of victory and winning? Are the players happy to be five goals down at quarter time and virtually out of the match, so they can release themselves from the burden of the expectations of actually winning. It is easy to console yourself with the what if we started five minutes earlier, and rejoice in the last minute Murphy goal, than actually come to the contest ready to play and accept the notion that you are not really good enough if you lose.
There was not one side I saw on the weekend that if Carlton committed itself to the contest from the first bounce, that Carlton would not be capable of beating, but if you are not going to have a go in the first quarter you are not going to win, and as long as we are able to hide behind the facade of heroic failures, everything will be ok.
Interesting post BM. I'm not sure that you could say the players are happy in the true sense of that word. I think humans are creatures of habit, and I think once the close finishes and honourable losses become ingrained, they become habits, and as we know, habits, once established, are hard to break.
What is needed, much like a true religious conversion, is a transformative experience. An experience whereby the change from a bad habit to a good one, becomes a part of who you are, a part of your inner being. In that way, the new good habit becomes like breathing - it's not an option, it's just you. Whilst I'm no fan of oversimplification, you could look at something like the Hawks "line in the sand" game as perhaps a transformative experience, although I'm guessing there was more to it than that.
No amount of sprays, bakes, roasts or anything similar will ever come close to the inner motivation that gets people to a particular level. If it's not part of you, any other solution is simply a stop gap measure in my view.