NAB Challenge - Carlton v Hawthorn @ Aurora Stadium

[jeza]

Very small ground / windy day type of game. Cripps would have loved it.

Wright was excellent.

Would not trade Kerridge back for Menzel in a million years. How did Adelaide give him up? He played the game Gibbs should have.

Gibbs....

So depressing yet again watching him just go through the motions against a serious opponent. Nice in patches but could not impact the game. The problem is when he's just ok - his opponent in Lewis/Mitchell is cutting us up. He needs to have the equivalent impact the other way.

He should be in his prime leading the team - pushing for Brownlow medals. Instead he's still found wanting against the better teams.

Lamb looked really good but then vanished.

Liam Jones....

I know it's a soft target and it's already been said but HOLY - freeking - MOLY this guy is bad. Just a collection of particles that has no business being anywhere near a football ground. Wouldn't get a kick for Keilor seconds.

Phillips was sloppy and missed a lot of opportunities. Gorringe - did he get injured?

Graham / Tutt / Everitt / Boekhorst were all good but very hard to get carried away.

[blue4life]

At worst we'll manage 6-8 wins if we can consistently play as we did in the first half.

If we win 8 games I'll be over the moon, I'm more confident of a few wins since The Bumblers imploded but we'll struggle to beat anyone else.

[jeza]

Add Cripps, Walker, Murphy, Weitering and Buckley back in and we'll be a lot better than that.

So much depends on Plowman, Jaksch, Sumner, Gorringe, Lamb, Whiley, Boekhorst, Tutt, Graham, etc. producing the sort of season that Cripps did last year.

We need these guys to become not just solid players but elite.

If some can 8 wins will be achievable.

[BluePhantom]

What did I take out of the game...?
The gulf in umpiring decisions. frig me the number bull decisions that always went the Dawks way was embarrassing. Tiggy touchwood stuff. Disliked umpires

[Raydan]

Very small ground / windy day type of game.

Ground is actually the same size as the MCG, it's bigger but they bring the boundary in further.

1st quarter the boys looked sharp, the defensive set up behind the ball looked like a basketball zone, triangles every where and we were sending 2 players to the contest and tackling hard, Kerridge and Lamb doing a lot of grunt work both on and off the ball. Rowe basically played the Jason Cloe mop up game and got some easy ball thanks to the body work of others further up the field, there was a real team defensive structure, something that I've not see with Carlton before. I looked at at the coaches box, we were just in front and saw that their monitors had ABC2 on them playing Spicks & Specks.

Then the umpires basically started to ruin the game, a 50m that was barely there the free that White gave away for holding 30m out from goal he was held first and the small frees that they paid in Hawthorns favour was embarrassing. The large Carlton crowd I was in were going off their heads.  2nd & 3rd quarter the umpiring was disgraceful. Hawthorn players particularly Gibson were holding the arms of Carlton player going for the mark, if you noticed Kruezer, Jamison and Casboult all failing to get to the contest that was the reason.

Boekhursts run bounce and evade, then deliver was simply beatuiful to watch, he looked really confident out there and did some gut running both ways with no reward.

Graham does nice things but he stays off the play too much, if he's going to be a Mitchell type player then he needs to get around the ball more rather than try and make space.

Kerrdige is a hard man, sure his disposal is not silver service but he busts his ass our there to the point of exhaustion.

Lamb was another who surprised with his forward pressure, I think he was kept off in the second half to give others a longer run.

Whiley did some nice things but gets caught too often but got first use a lot early.

Tutt still scared

Jones runs quick and straight but that's it laid a lovely tackle in the last that bought the crowd to life, but was very poor apart from that.

Phillips meh. A plodder nothing more.

Gorringe played CHF early and took his man away from space which allowed moves made by Casboult and Everitt to have a use, he still went to a dangerous spot on the field but it was far enough away from the others not to allow a third man up. When he went off teh spacing up forward was all wrong and we didn't look like kicking a score.

Daisy looked slow, although did some smart things when he had the ball.

C.Curnow had Gibson who put him into the ground when ever he could, he actually kneed his head into the ground straight in front of goal but of course the umps didn't see it (surprise) and Charlie came up bent over holding his head for the next couple of minutes.

Considering who we had out and the crap umpiring, I'm not discouraged, the effort was there there was a major change to the play and a lesser team may have been beaten by the set the players were trying to perform. Hawthorn with their team boast a starting midfield were simply a class above, but the gap didn't seem as huge as last time we played them, and yes I know it's pre season.

[BluePhantom]

Jones sucks

Amen

[IvanAwfulbigone]

Weitering rolled an ankle during the week. Right decision not to risk him.

[cookie2]

What did I take out of the game...?
The gulf in umpiring decisions. frig me the number bull decisions that always went the Dawks way was embarrassing. Tiggy touchwood stuff. Disliked umpires

Absolutely agree - umpires were officious turds who overwhelmingly favoured the Hawks (don't know theraw numbers). Any frees we got seemed to be mainly in "safe" positions for the Hawk, as opposed to those given against us. Still, onward and upward boys!

[Meddy43]

Umpiring hurt us. I don't reckon the result would have differed but it certainly was costly.
Jones was terrible. Aggressive but terrible. I thought Thomas looked alright, except at one point choosing to try and knock Mitchell out of a contest instead of getting the ball himself which cost us a goal.
Cas was pretty good. Dropped a few and also looked for a lot of short passes. We ha balled a lot. Maybe too much and still too many bombs into F50. But I like the fast style of play. Everyone seemed to know where they were supposed to be. I think all in all it was a good night for us.

Where I was sitting Murph, Weitering and McKay were about 6 seats away. Murph was taking pics with fans ALL game. The young guys were signing gear and getting in pics too.
Two rows in front of them were Trigg, LoGiudice and SOS. Lots of fans were speaking with The Pres in the breaks. He seemed very receptive. Thanking fans for their support and and also thanking the for coming to chat with him. I also liked that he was asking their names.
I also must point out that the Carlton cheers were much louder than the Hawks. Tassie Hawks my ar5e!!

[jeza]

Absolutely agree - umpires were officious turds who overwhelmingly favoured the Hawks (don't know theraw numbers). Any frees we got seemed to be mainly in "safe" positions for the Hawk, as opposed to those given against us. Still, onward and upward boys!

Agreed - that whole period during the 2nd and 3rd quarter - what was going on there? They must have had 10 in a row.

Why is it always like that against Hawthorn? They seem to never cop a bad decision against them.

They got at least 4 goals from bullsheet decisions - us none.