NAB Challenge: Carlton vs. Essendon Sunday 28th Feb

[blue4life]

Ciaran Byrne looks very good.
You've got to like the way Tutt goes at the ball and the contest but he's sadly lacking in ability.

[blue4life]

Tutt is a woeful footballer.  I don't care that he gets 25 possies - not that he did today - but he zero idea what to do with the pill once he gets it.

And butchers it more often than not, like Jones and a few others he's just not AFL standard and never will be.
Everitt had a poor game but he goes OK on his better days.
Rowe also had a Sav Rocca, and the less said about Casboult the better.

[Robblues]

Adding the Murphy , Gibbs list etc , will obviously help our mid field and give us more structure, it will help with defence with there experience , but they were with us last year.BUT they don't kick the goals we desperately need. They are not the finishers , and we still don't have the forward line to feed , Casboult is our key forward , and we saw today if he is missing we don't have many " Go To " options

[cookie2]

Just got home - ouch! A very painful afternoon at PP unfortunately.

And it's back to the future with fumbling and footling and the long bomb into the F50 for a turnover. 

Green sprouts were hard to come by so here's a few



Weitering looked OK.

[crazyjoedevolamk11]

Well that was absolutely pathetic today, 18,600 turned out to watch that crap....if I paid $20 to watch that shite, I'd be furious, I took my kids,  who are members again, so didn't cost us anything, but they said "Dad, nothing's changed, we are bored, can we go home please!" And I agreed, so we left at half time.....

That was a Golden Opportunity completely blown by the club....51K BY ROUND 1...."TELL HIM HE'S DREAMING"...little sprouts....pfft!

[blue4life]

And another thing.
What's with opposition players standing next to the player on the mark and blocking him on one side to give the player with the ball a clear run?
I noticed it a bit last year but the coaches have all cottoned onto it now, it's unfair and if it's not against the rules it should be.

[Lods]

I'm not to worried about that...as mediocre as it was.

A large number of the players who played today will just represent our depth and development as the year progresses.

They'll be replaced by the core group that was missing today.

For around 75% of them they won't be getting regular full games at AFL level, rather they will just be given the odd game here and there.
How they go when given those opportunities as part of the "A- team" will be more important than what they showed today.

In some respects having players like Jack, Harry and young Curnow working and learning together at the lower levels will be beneficial once they progress to more permanent roles.

Weitering , on the other hand, has already completed his apprenticeship...that was a polished and composed performance.

The big issue is that we will go into Round 1 without a lot of forward power.
Where will the goals come from?

[LoveNavy]

On balance it sounds like few were able to consistently hold their own, and that we lacked the depth and structure. At least that's my read of the game comments.

Can anyone elaborate on the performances of the first gamers?

Although we dream about our Blues winning, I got the sense from Bolts pre-game that we were showcasing our future (selling membership) to the home crowd. That being the case, I wasn't expecting too many 'wins', but sounds like there's lots of disappointed baggers  :-\

[kruddler]

Took my 16month old little fella to our heartland, just because he probably will never get to see Carlton vs Bombers at PP ever again.

Didn't get to see a whole lot of the match because of him, but am kinda half thankful for it. What i did see wasn't very impressive.

However, things to come out of today.

PP/OO/MC/VP/IP is a great venue to watch football from and has a terrific surface to play on.....but....
Don't exect to find a car park within 2km of the ground.
Don't expect to be able to buy a beer unless you are waiting for 10mins....and even then, don't be surprised if they 'sell out' halwayf through the 2nd quarter.
Don't expect to be able to buy any food unless you are waiting for 10mins...and even then, don't be surprised if they 'sell out' by halftime.
Don't expect to be able to....

In short, as long as you don't need need to park, eat, drink or take a leak.....its great. Oh yeah, and no baby changing facilities either.

I would love to play games there again, but i think we are looking at a complete rebuild to do so. Which is a shame.

Onto the football side of things....we had our 2nds in today with a large chunk of our 3rds as well! Got a good look at our kids, and i reckon Jack should get a game before most of them. Just looks like he can play.


Bit of a shout out to the lady who gave me one of the special edition posters for the little fella, because we got there too late to get one. Much appreciated, whoever you are.

[Jean-Claude]

All I could think about there today was this is what you get when the top 10 players at your club are made up of players from drafts 10 years ago and the last couple....