AFL Rd 23 2022 Post Game Postulations Carlton vs Collingwood

[Macca37]

In the cold hard light of day when the dust settles, trying going back to preseason, or 12 months ago and rate our top 25 players out of 10 and redo it now.  Docherty and Curnow were pure speculation, nothing more, Cottrell was not in anyone's top 22, O'Brien was nowhere, Young was 'break glass in emergency', Marchbank was miles away, Cripps was 'gone'......
We have shown significant improvement, players have a red hot crack and our fans just love to go to the football these days! Cookie, Vossy, Crippa we are looking in anticipation already!!

Some improvement, yes. But the reality is that at the end of the season we still have the same problem we began with, and no obvious answer, namely, an inability to play four consistent quarters of football - and anything more than half a game seems beyond us.

It begs the question: which came first , the chicken or the egg?  Is it the lack of football skills such as tackling , general field kicking and kicking for goal etc, causing the problem, or is it a team mental fragility on display every week which causes the players to wilt at the first sign of pressure which then translates to some  or all of their football skills falling away and consequently losing close matches?

Too many of our small forwards, with the exception of Motlop because of the few matches he has played, disappear when Charlie and Big H are held, and under pressure they kick poorly, make stupid decisions, and seem to have made little or no improvement this year.  I am thinking of Fisher, Owies and Durdin.

If there is no improvement from them or their replacements then we are not going to improve our position next year.

Another problem is Pittonet.  In any top four side he would be considered a second string ruckman.  He is at best able to break even with the opposition but is not good enough to give our mids consistent first use of the ball.  He desperately needs assistance

Let's hope Voss is on top of these problems otherwise 2023 could be a repeat of this year.