Rd 12: Post Game Purgatory: Carlton vs St. Kilda

[IvanAwfulbigone]

Not surprised by the loss, felt like we've gotten out of jail a few times and the boys looked spent the past few weeks.

Still am very happy with the year to date, they've exceeded my expectations in every way and I'm still proud of them (disclaimer - I haven't seen any of the Saints game)

Be prepared to travel back in time - second to the ball all day, basic skill errors, crucial turnovers, smashed out the centre, no systematic forays into the forward line, ineffectual tackling, a seemingly half-hearted Gibbs ...

[PaulP]

Saints were smarting after last week and came out determined to make a point. With us being as flat as we were, it was a perfect storm in a sense.

Those saying that Bolts was out coached may have a point. He looked a little sheepish in his presser, kept those flunky cliches to a minimum, and actually spoke about the game.

And teams will always over possess the footy when they have no options to pass to - and they have no options to pass to because nobody's running to create those options - and they're not running because....................you get the picture.

[Robblues]

The first 10 mins of the game set the tone. As pointed out by others , we played the game in our back half. They flooded and we went into our shell because we couldnt go to our fast release game. They bottled us up and we went looking for the wrong way out. Wether were stuffed I am not sure off, I would think at this time of the year players would be still in good nick. We couldnt play on our terms which has won us games lately , it came as a shock and we were the deer in the head lights. Dont think coaches reacted quick enough to some situations, but maybe that was also designed to leave players there see there reactions , hard to tell.
Lets move on , 6 months ago , we would all have taken the win/loss count we are at. It was part of the growth , one step back , hopefully 2 steps forward

[pinot]

Its the best start we've had to the season for a few years - defeated Geelong , Collingwood and Essendon... Freo at Freo....I am happy with the game plan - really happy actually , now need to develop and play our 10 year + players.

[Jeffy38]

Nup - disagree......losing to the Saints totally cancels-out beating Geelong. Give me an honourable loss to a renowned gun team & then beat the teams around/below us everyday of the week (if I had the choice).

Why? He was arguably our worst/most ineffective player out there today.

Put this one in the time capsule, possibly an alcohol induced post. I think one can only say that if their expectations are too high.

We have struggled to beat top teams for such a long time and the Geelong win shows us that the brand and method of football we play is capable of doing damage.

[IvanAwfulbigone]

Saints were smarting after last week and came out determined to make a point. With us being as flat as we were, it was a perfect storm in a sense.

It's also amazing how often a key 'out' (Reiwoldt) will advantage the impacted team by way of new opportunities and alternatives which make planning more problematic. Geelong didn't seem to miss Hawkins on Saturday. Agree it was the perfect storm. Still disappointed though.

[blue4life]

Its the best start we've had to the season for a few years - defeated Geelong , Collingwood and Essendon... Freo at Freo....I am happy with the game plan - really happy actually , now need to develop and play our 10 year + players.

Geelong and Port have been the only wins of note but I'll still take it because it's been a while since we could beat anyone half decent.
We need to keep turning players over until we settle the side and this will take another couple of years, but the basics are there because our back 6 is above average.
Tuohy, Docherty, Byrne and Simpson are as good as any group of running backs going around, Weitering will be a star and Plowman looks solid enough.
A couple of forwards minimum is a must, and a hope that Charlie Curnow is one of them, another classy midfielder as well.
The draft this year will be critical.

[flyboy77]

Showed the need to bolster our midfield stocks!

[shawny]

Was at the game and while disapointed i saw it coming. Always a danger when you play a team quicker then yours cause if you are not switched on and willing to work hard even a lesser side will cut you up. Remember the years under ratten one thing we had was pace and we knocked over many teams we shouldn't have by cutting them open if they were a little off.

Same happened yesterday.

Stevens and co were not checked anywhere near enough and they destroyed us as a result.  Curnow/Cripps/Gibbs all wrong choices for Stevens. Had to go left field and try Armfield or even one of the Irish boys.

Bad coaching if we wanted to win but I'm confident Bolts would have made the switch but making a move to lesson his effort would have given the mids an out which maybe he didn't want to do.

The mids were not only outpaced but out worked on the spread. We underestimated what damage they could do if we didn't close them down. Hopefully lesson is learnt.

Time to bring some more kids in. I hear we had the 3rd oldest list this weekend. Time to get some games into more players that will be part of our future. 

[Baggers]

This is a critical time. It's like the culture of the past 15 years or more finally banged into BBs culture of, amongst many things, leadership density. For so long we've relied on our champs. Tiredness may have played a small part in yesterday but it seemed more about leadership laziness which could sure look like body tiredness.

I'm sure there is an amount of physical tiredness as this is probably the hardest our boys have had to train and work for many, many years (both mentally and physically) and it will take time to harden their bodies and ingrain a leadership response/thinking... it'll take time to create the 'Brutal Blues'... as yesterday and at times against Brisvegas there were periods of the old 'comfortable Carlton.'

Then there's simply the personnel issue...