Rd 21: Pre Game Speculations: Carlton vs Brisbane

[laj]

That is not the reality.

Casboult takes almost zero D50 marks, he is a great lead-up target but Phillips and Kreuzer easily eclipse him in terms of defensive marking, they both get in the right position to stand under the long ball and force opposition around the boundary.

Further, in terms of ruck work, losing the tap is just a small part of it, Kreuzer is infinitely better than Phillips or Casboult once the ball hits the deck. There is no comparison. Stupidly we tend to have Cripps and Kreuzer working together, yet they often just get in each others way! Cripps tends to works far better in combination with Phillips because Phillips' follow up work is so much weaker than Kreuzer's, there is no hesitation Cripps juts gets the ball.

Bolton knows the value of Kreuzer playing well, what we need is a genuine marking target besides Casboult inside F50. McKay is the best long term option besides Curnow and Cripps. If we go and recruit another one or two forwards what happens to McKay and Curnow, will we then have a list with too many forwards, it sounds like that too many rucks argument from a couple of years ago!

I'd argue our best results this season occur when we have Casboult in tandem with Jones inside F50 with Kreuzer and Phillips staying out of the F50 zone.

Our best 2016 football between Rnd 5 and Rnd 9 we had two marking forwards and two rucks playing, on one occasion we had two rucks and three marking forwards when C.Curnow played!

We play our best football with 2 key forwards and one ruck. Full stop.  There is no argument. Casboult, in that role, takes alot of marks around the wing as a get out in defence as well as taking a few in defence too. It was one of the few things that worked last year. Casboult was good around the ground and averaged 1.5 goals a game playing only half a season in the key position/ruck role, the first half as permanent 2nd ruck while Jones and Henderson held the key positions, while doing a good job around the ground and even at least decent in the ruck, and Everitt kicked 31 goals. Like I said, one of the few things that worked last year.

We had 2 rucks and 2 key forwards in rounds 5 and 6 only against Freo and Essendon. Get that right, Rucks were crap in round 5, Phillips did probably played his best game in round 6, Krezuer was crap. We were better, but very scrappy, looked like we could score though. Then Phillips did a hammy. Next round we used Kreuzer and Casboult. We know how brilliantly that worked. Kreuzer was good, Casboult 11 marks, 7 contested and kicked 3 goals, Round after that we used Kreuzer and Rowe after Casboult went down early. Kreuzer was hero playing terrifically with a knee injury with required minor surgery, and kicked the winner. Rowe was good and kicked an important goal. Then we brought in Gorringe, a forward/ruck and has spent time in the VFL even playing elsewhere, the wing even the last time he played. He's no great player but played a few good games and suited the structure. He had a great game against Geelong, Krezuer was brilliant, we won. Same against Brisbane the next week. Those weeks we looked we could score anytime we went  forward. Allowed Everitt play well those weeks. Then went crap against St.Kilda, Brought Phillips back to join Kreuzer and the whole thing has turned to crap like it was the first 4 rounds. Rucks were crap, Casboult, one out key forward couldn't get a kick (the no-nothings blamed him, not the structure), Everitt struggled, got dropped, and we've lost 8 games in a row.

I think that covers it for you. If you want to sacrifice that for a few extra tap outs then good luck to you. Scoreboard tells the story. Unless rucks are they at least half decent directing the ball in the ruck AND good around the ground then they are just filling space that someone else could use.

Anyway, I see we have picked Jones this week to partner Casboult.