2017 Round 4 : Post Game thread - Carlton V Gold Coast

[spf]

Big picture guys - I was again pleased with what I saw. The kids are amazingly good considering our early into their career they are.

What do we expect to see? 

Had 9 players under 21 and went down by under 5 goals to a team who beat hawks by a record margin - all this the next week after playing in hard terrible condition that must have taxed our kids young bodies. How did essendon fare this week?

We had 8 kids in this match with the most experienced having 12 games to their name.  They all played in one game yet too many expect to see a stellar performance.

Think many need to lower their expectations - either your commited to the rebuild or your not. If your commited you have to be pleased with what your seeing.

I know I am.

That's how I see it as well Shawny. We are where we are, and no amount of wishing is going to change it. It takes time and effort.

[ElwoodBlues1]

Didn't hear any booing pre-game.

Some minor booing of Ablett for about 1qtr... like the blues it stopped in the 2nd half!

Ablett got booed most of the night where I was sitting but had the last laugh unfortunately, picked up a lot of cheap possies early and had no effect on the game
but did get on the end of some runs from other GC players and was damaging after half time as he can use the footy well.
IMO he is playing out time at GC and not going full throttle but is clever enough to keep his stats up to prove he is trying....also gets the superstar treatment off the umps,
hard to get a holding the ball or in correct disposal decision against him yet another hack player would be pinged every time.

[spf]

Could say that and I'm having a holiday of sorts ATM .????

I didn't know they let you post from in there. Best of luck anyway.

[crashlander]

I disagree that Ablett 'killed us'. Many of his possessions were cheap handball receives at the back of the mark, and 1-2 combos, the only impact of which were to inflate his possession count.

Ablett's clearances in the 3rd quarter were the things that hurt us.
One really bad sign for GC was that most of their midfielders got a huge number of handball receives. It suggests that they did NOT get their own ball. And considering how many possessions they got, when over 50% come from handball receives, it suggests that they may not like it against this year's top echelon.
In fact, it looks like many of the GC mids were basing their game on Ablett's, and that included a huge number of junk possessions.

It was also clear that we were NOT manning Ablett closely. Ed Curnow spent very little time on him. At times, Simon White was on him.

[Bear]

How many games do you think they'll win this year EB?

This time last year people were talking about top 4 and they appear to be back to that level.

I think, at their best, they are just about as good as anyone but they're as flaky as crap.

PS, Abblett is a parasite on and off the field. King of the cheapie and completely selfish.

They looked good last night... good game style, plenty of talent, if they had Prestia and JOM they would be looking to push into the 8.

Reckon they will win around 10 games... won't be easy to beat them at Metricon. Still  rely too much on Gazza Jnr... have a few blokes who like to sneak ahead of the contest... it looks good when the ball comes out to them. Loosing May for a few weeks won't help them.

[Jeffy38]

I can't remember any AFL team booing their own player, shameful.

Bombers supporters booed Stanton there for a while

[cimm1979]

Our next significant stage of progress in our redevelopment will include the replacement of the likes of:
Daisy
Kerridge
Palmer
Graham
Army.
By more skillful and talented players.

In the meantime, whichever of those happen to be rotated through selection is, IMHO, largely immaterial.

Reckon they're all close to cooked. Take out Daisy and I don't think those names will play 20 games between them this year.

Daisy will likely be out by round 10, barring injuries.

[cimm1979]

I didn't know they let you post from in there. Best of luck anyway.

Not quite that bad!

[spf]

Ricky Dyson was another. I actually met his Uncle at a Essendon vs Carlton game several years back and we chatted for quite awhile. He was talking about how bad player abuse had become and some of the things that went on. It's not just the player that cops it but even the family.

You cannot believe people would stoop to that level, but apparently they do - and this was from Essendon 'supporters'.

[LP]

Could say that and I'm having a holiday of sorts ATM .????