AFLW Rd 2 2021 Carlton vs Western Bulldogs Friday at Whitten Oval

[kruddler]

[2] We cannot kick the ball to another Carlton player.

[3] Our forwards are useless, but not because they have no talent. We just don't kick the ball to them! Is it any surprise they get so few possessions? We kick it to their opponents all of the time!

2 points, one common theme. We are missing our 'line breakers' Dalton and Walker. They are able to run and bounce and get a long kick to the advantage of our teammates....usually breaking the zones. Instead, we have nobody to do that so we grab the ball and kick it as long as we can......which is where our opposition has set up the wall and it goes straight to them.
Have a bounce and you can kick over those same opposition players.

[4] Our defence is lacking at the moment. Charlotte Wilson and Kez Harrington in particular are not getting the ball. We miss the defenders who are missing badly, especially Gab Pound.

Opposition players are keeping the ball away from them.
When you have a few 'weak links' in the absence of Pound and Mua our 'team defence' is more of an individual defence.

[5] Mimi Hill, Abby McKay, Jess Hosking and Maddy Prespakis were excellent, but there wasn't enough done by too many others.

We are missing McEvoy here, and GREG has been below par IMO. They are the 'new breed' who have size, speed and talent and offer a good counterpoint to the above.

[6] We are handball happy, but I'm not surprised, considering how poorly we kick. 3 shots at goal from close range for 2 points is not good enough. Then Georgie Gee passes the ball to nobody when she should have had a shot.

Georgia Gee needs to be told to be selfish. No way in hell she should pass the ball off when she is within kicking distance. When goals are so hard to come by, take a shot when you can. I know the girls are tight and they play team footy and look after eachother, but there is a balance we need to find and we are playing too unselfish at the moment.
The handball, handball, handball game plan gets the girls into the game, and stops kicking it to the opposition, but as i said earlier we are missing the line breakers to make that super effective.

[7] There is no way in hell that we are going to play in the GF this year. Not enough players doing enough.

I said last week that it would be a good kick up the backside. Perhaps 2 wins is the kick they need. We are both the most experienced side and the youngest side. If we get a few players back, i see us making a big run at finals. But it has to turn around now. Season is too short.

[8] Bree Moody is slowly becoming the player we hope she will be, but, my God, can she make a mistake!

2 years ago she was good. Last year she was unfit.
She is back to being fit, but still struggles being a 'dinosaur' of sorts in the ruck. It takes about 7 minutes for the ball to leave her hand and hit her foot when she is kicking, simply not enough time to do that in a pack before it gets smothered. On the run she cannot time it effectively. She also cannot bounce the ball to save herself. To get the best out of her we need her deep in defence in the hole intercepting (then handballing to a runner) or deep in attack taking marks/bringing the ball down to our crumbers. She should stay out of the middle of the ground.

That is where Al Downie comes in. Her agility, speed and tackling is more suited there.
If we are not going to play Downie to her strengths, we need to bring in Gibbs who can play ruck, take a mark and kick a goal and give Moody a chopout in the ruck.