Rd 14: Post Game Pain: Carlton vs GWS

[deags]

That spring in the step, and that vibe the boys had in their recent string of victories, just wasn't there last night. It was almost back to the old days, but not quite.

A few random points :

- Daisy was barely servicebale, but I've given up on him being the injection of high end talent that we'd hoped for, who can produce week in week out.
-Cas is the only mobile marking target we have. I can't imagine how depleted we would be without this asset, whatever other glaring faults he may have. For now, I'm glad we have him.
-White was good.
-Doc continued his very good form
-Gibbs was good.
-Our forward press was penetrated too easily for mine. I lost count of how many times GWS broke through with 2 or 3 of their players alone in the F50.
-I know GWS do this to many other teams, but their breakaways from stoppages and entries into F50 all came way too easily for mine.

Sigh..............

I was at the game, and unlike some others, I think it is a disadvantage in terms of getting a good handle on the goings on... But I thought the exact opposite of Casboult (and all of our forwards). Admittedly I could only watch them closely for half of he game when they were running towards my end. The thing that sticks out for me is the lack of work our forwards do in trying to lead and make space. Casboult would stand dead in the middle of the forward fifty and basically wait until the ball was less than a kick away before moving. He rarely made more than one lead. We often criticise the midfielders for banging it in high to a contest, but our forwards rarely give them a leading option.
Sounds like I am bashing Casboult, but same goes for all of our forwards. It's pretty disgraceful really, but while I am on the topic of working off the ball, same could be said for just about every player on the team. In most of our games it is fairly noticeable that our guys work rate, in offence, and without the ball is pretty poor. We don't get bodies moving nearly enough. It's probably why we are forced to go backwards and try to switch sides so often.
The other bugbear I have is that too often our guys are too slow in releasing the ball once they taken a mark. Often the momentum is stifled and we allow the defence to catch up. Maybe also a symptom of the lack of movement from our players, but often I see it happening when there are options to kick to.

And while Rowe has been really good of late, and even last night I thought he wasn't too bad, on at least 3 occasions, right in front of me, he was drawn out to the 50m mark by his man where he stopped and allowed his man to backtrack towards goal to be an easy kick over Rowe's head. Not the first time Ive noticed it, something he needs to work on.