Rd 2: Carlton vs. Sydney: Post Game Passion

[shadesy]

Far too much fumbling yesterday.....absolutely killed us......and just like last week, if Sydney ever fumbled (which was rare) we didn't punish them.

Those damn posters hurt us too......

This is the my number 1 sign of if the player can play.

One grab players look 100x quicker. Judd bang one grab, Carrots was also a great one grab player. Cripps is as well.

So many times we had hands on it, fumbled and bang Sydney took it away.

Curnow and Weitering look like one grab players. Compare that to the easy mark Jamo dropped coming out of defence.

[shadesy]

Bell?

He's playing for Brisbane doing the same dumb crap he did with us.

Good Call, he has gone North and still making dumb decisions.

Re; Thomas... Took me until the second quarter to actually remember he was playing, but his second half was super, he used his body in the contest, provided options and outmarked Buddy. Has clean hands. those terrible little dinky up and under kicks were horrid though and will injure someone, but happy to give him a pass mark for sure and agree it was his best half for the blues (the bar was set low though).

Speaking of which, why are we persisting with this slow loopy handballs, swans just closed and closed as soon as it had a bit of air, which was a lot.

[PassIt2Carrots]

Daisy was a pass for sure, as was my mate Simon White. It's always the way with White, when the side plays badly he generally looks solid but when we play well he is exposed.

[DJC]

I listened to coverage of the second half on ABC radio and the commentators made the point that our ball movement from the midfield into the forward 50 was very poor.

Any comments?

[JonHenry]

Not really, look at how Cripps hunts the ball even with two blokes hanging off him. That's how Murphy should be attacking the ball and anything less is just not good enough, for a 19 year old to be showing the captain the way is just wrong. Then add to that that Murphy could not even take advantage of the fact that Cripps had two hanging on to him. gibbs is worse I'll give you that, neither of them are worth the money they are on/ They are the highest paid players by default.

Been saying it for years.
They watched Nick Stevens too much

[Thryleon]

I love the passion about losing and it being unacceptable, but this is where we are at.

We can all whinge and compain about it not being good enough but the reality is, the boys gave it a red hot go, and you could see us trying to do stuff, but the Swans just being too quick to get into position to nullify it, and we were not clean enough to work our way through it, and hit the scoreboard.

The second quarter yesterday, we had the opportunities to kick a couple of goals, they went begging, and then we gifted a couple to the Swans instead which really blew it out.

We sometimes are guilty of playing some selfish football, as well as ignoring our teamates when they are working hard for each other.

The Swans were good yesterday.  They capitilised when they got the chance, and punished us whenever they could.  We had a few good spots, a few flat spots, and some varying efforts.  Its going to happen.  Its all about the kids now for us though.  We can't afford to get swept up in the emotion about our senior players anymore, because they are all actually slowing down and many of them wont be there in a couple of years. 

[PaulP]

I listened to coverage of the second half on ABC radio and the commentators made the point that our ball movement from the midfield into the forward 50 was very poor.

Any comments?

Agree. Either we forgot what we did well last week, or the Swans are just a better drilled, more talented and harder working unit than the Tiges. Actually, that goes without saying.

[PaulP]

Even on the outside, unless he's got plenty of time his skills are simply not that good. Give me Graham with ball in hand and time on his side any day over Murphy.

Re 2011. I made comment after the Richmond game where we won by 100 odd points that Murphy was almost Judd-like out there in the way he was attacking the ball. None of that fromm him yesterday, happy to let Cripps do all the work and see what cheapies he could pick up. And yes all the usual suspects who believe if you have some sort of skill you don't need to win your own ball will be on here shouting me down but fork it, I've had enough. Gibbs and murphy are CLEARLY our two biggest concerns at the club. Every other club has a couple of champions, we have these two.

I don't know if Murph will again reach those dizzying 2011 heights. I don't know if the succession of shoulder injuries, cheekbone injuries, concussions etc. have weakened his resolve. In my view he always has a real crack, and whilst he's not as gung ho as seasons past, I still think he tries. He would be of much more use to the team if he was moved out a little from the stoppages.

[Blue Moon]

Sometimes you can only play as good as the opposition lets you. Sydney in the mid-field were awesome. They smashed us and didn't let up. Unlike some on this site, I think Gibbs was ok, it was just he along with everyone else was overwhelmed by superior forces. I actually get a bit sick of the Gibbs bashing and general negativity but everyone is entitled to their opinions.
I sometimes think that supporters often forget the players are human. I thought Murphy, who had a good game last week, didn't come up as well this week because of his lack of preparation pre-season, which is normal. I also think that Thomas was dealing with his demons in the first half. He looked like a player who was trying to try but didn't know how to commit. I think half way through the third quarter he just decided to go. Hopefully he can continue on.
The positives were that Weitering was good again, C Curnow, while finding the pace early hard to adjust to, finished well, and while there were times I thought we were going to be really smashed, our players never gave up, which is something new. I also thought that Jamison had the better of Buddy. He got one goal from a soft 50 meter penalty, one from a soft free kick, one from a shocking turnover, and one form good play down field that Jammo couldn't stop.
The negatives were our disposals. I think our poor kicking coming out of defense cost us half our losing margin. We lacked cohesion all over the ground and we lack the ability to implement any strategy consistently. We also do not have a forward structure. I do not know if it is because our kicking skills and decision making are so poor, the forwards do not have the confidence to run to where they need to be, or
they simply do not know where they are suppose to be when the ball is coming in.
I also think we went in too top heavy, particularly in defense and I think we would have been better to have Buckley down back instead of Rowe, not that Rowe played a bad game.
I have had to rethink where we will fininsh this year after yesterday. I believe we will be down near the bottom this year, where as I thought we would be making some ladder progress this season. However I am quite positive and believe that if we can recruit well again this season, we can march up the ladder quite quickly.

[PaulP]

Generally agree BM.