If Not BB, Who?

[PaulP]

I may be wrong but I vaguely remember we were a finals side, or close to it, from about 2009 to 20013

This has been a deliberate gutting rather than a more moderate transition
That's fair enough but folk have to start taking some ownership of that,

I agree. And that IMO, starts to happen from here on in.

[Baggers]

But Bolton was the coach in 2017 ! Doesn't that tell you something ? Do you think he's forgotten how to coach ? Don't tell me you think "he's lost the players" ?

7 wins in a season is hardly something to suggest great coaching ability. BB, sadly, at this stage, seems to be a one-dimensional coach... defensive & conservative. He does that well. And as that rootin' tootin' Magnum 45 tot'n dude once said... 'Man's got to know his limitations.'

[PaulP]

7 wins in a season is hardly something to suggest great coaching ability. BB, sadly, at this stage, seems to be a one-dimensional coach... defensive & conservative. He does that well. And as that rootin' tootin' Magnum 45 tot'n dude once said... 'Man's got to know his limitations.'

You and others are firmly wedded to the fact that the coach is the problem. I am firmly wedded to the idea that he isn't. I'm not going to budge at this point, and neither are you. Perhaps we should just leave it there for now.

[Thryleon]

It's more the 3 wins from 35. In 2017 we won 6 games and led 7 other times in last qtrs before losing. 13 times we led in the last qtr. Since then we have gone along way backwards. That's the issue. We've won 15 games from 69, 12 in the first half of Bolton's tenure, 6 of those wins in 7 games. So outside of that burst we've won 9 whole games. Irrespective of where you're at as a club that is diabolical.

Let me simplify this argument for you.

Record of Carlton Games played with Sam Docherty:  6 wins from 22 matches in 2017

Record of Carlton Games played without Sam Docherty:  2 wins from 25 matches ever since.

If you expand that out to Matty Kreuzer, we have managed to win 1 game with either of them missing since the start of 2017 (it was against the Gold Coast in QLD last year).


It speaks for how reliant we are on our better players to perform.

[Lods]

Let me simplify this argument for you.

Record of Carlton Games played with Sam Docherty:  6 wins from 22 matches in 2017

Record of Carlton Games played without Sam Docherty:  2 wins from 25 matches ever since.

If you expand that out to Matty Kreuzer, we have managed to win 1 game with either of them missing since the start of 2017 (it was against the Gold Coast in QLD last year).


It speaks for how reliant we are on our better players to perform.

….and therin lies one of our major problems.

Contrary to popular belief the consistent core of this team is not it's youth.
Apart from one or two they're just fringe players for the present accumulating game time
No,the majority of our core starting 22 is an aging group, an injury affected group and a player with the shoulders of Atlas.
Some will depart within a year or two, others may never fully break free of the injury curse...…. and heaven help us if Atlas gets a "shoulder injury"

[LP]

….and therin lies one of our major problems.

Contrary to popular belief the consistent core of this team is not it's youth.
Apart from one or two they're just fringe players for the present accumulating game time
No,the majority of our core starting 22 is an aging group, an injury affected group and a player with the shoulders of Atlas.
Some will depart within a year or two, others may never fully break free of the injury curse...…. and heaven help us if Atlas gets a "shoulder injury"

x2 it's a huge worry.

By now you would have expected some of "the others" to have moments of brilliance or games of significance, but they just haven't! :o

It would be nice before the end of the season to see one or two of "the others" take a game by the throat and delivery a win on a platter!

[ElwoodBlues1]

….and therin lies one of our major problems.

Contrary to popular belief the consistent core of this team is not it's youth.
Apart from one or two they're just fringe players for the present accumulating game time
No,the majority of our core starting 22 is an aging group, an injury affected group and a player with the shoulders of Atlas.
Some will depart within a year or two, others may never fully break free of the injury curse...…. and heaven help us if Atlas gets a "shoulder injury"

Might get a shoulder injury carrying all that money that WC and Freo will throw at him in a couple of years...

[Baggers]

You and others are firmly wedded to the fact that the coach is the problem. I am firmly wedded to the idea that he isn't. I'm not going to budge at this point, and neither are you. Perhaps we should just leave it there for now.

Wo, wo, wo... not so quick 

I don't see the senior coach as the single problem. Nuh. He's doing the best he can with what he knows. He comes out with shallow, ambiguous, psychobabble phrases and cliches but who's to know whether or not he's being fed these to keep the gullible supporters at bay by someone else at the club? It's just that when your team is consistently and persistently losing, the buck has to stop somewhere. And not to replace someone just so it doesn't seem like the 'old Carlton' has returned is absolute bullshizen.

Just for the record I think we have a few problems, from the outside looking in.

Over the past few seasons we've tried to nail some quality players only to be out done by others on every occasion. Just a couple of A graders, mid 20s going around would have helped. We apparently set up a philanthropic organisation some years ago to help relieve GWS of their non-hackers and chronically injured. So SOS hasn't performed well enough in my view - holy cr@p, I've had a go at another Bambi! Sheesh, talk about keyboard masochism!!!

I suspect that Barker is deadwood and should have moved on years ago.

A divided Board. One of them, a key player, makes piles of loot from human suffering and illness (gambling). Yeah, I can just hear some say, "Well no-one is forcing them to gamble... and it's legal." A fool's response. A response devoid of emotional intelligence and common decency. Not to mention psychological ignorance... convenient ignorance.

Comfortable assistant coaches. Most have coached in their own right. Why didn't they progress? Why did they fall back into assistant coaching? Huge cleanout needed there. Get some mongrel, uncompromising, razor blade eating, ambitious folks into key assistant roles... that includes women, there are some ripper female brains -- who've not been snapped up by the AFLW -- out there deserving a serious opportunity at the highest level.

The head of football, Juddy, has one single love and one single love only (outside his family, presumably) - money. Seems to be his real passion, lights up like Julian Clary on tour when the subject of investment and money comes up. He likes to rub shoulders with wealthy influential people to further his own 'portfolio'... and there is nothing wrong with that, some just love money. Juddy would be a great investment banker, and have no doubts had the Pratt Family been at Rottingwood, he'd have gone there. As for head of footy at PP, jury is out. Sh1te, I've done it again... I've taken aim at another Bambi!

So, who knows, maybe BB is holding the can / taking the heat for a measure of incompetence right through the place. But the buck stops somewhere.

Time will tell, and many aboard the good ship CFC should notice that there's not only a senior coach gang plank being put in place. If this rebuild doesn't work (looking like it) then many should be 'walking the plank.'

[flyboy77]

Of course we need a win but the three teams we've lost to are good teams, noting Port at home are usually very tough.

Arguably our best player after Cripps - Charlie - hasn't fired a shot yet. He needs too, injury notwithstanding.

We need Kreuzer on the park and we need to look for a long term replacement for him - Phillips - not seeing it (yet) tbh.

The GWS curse - yep, many seem injury cursed but ALL are capable of being very good players if the cards fall their way.

Some elite eg Setterfield, Marchbank and Pickett.

Pickett - who does appear cursed - is still only 22, a baby in AFL terms. Plow (Phillips aside) is the eldest of the ex GWS clique - he's only 24.5 ffs.

The rest are 21 or 22.

I'm not over whelmed by Bolts either but he needs time for the cake to rise surely?

[spf]

I'm not over whelmed by Bolts either but he needs time for the cake to rise surely?

I think we starting to see evidence of this now. Each week they seem to be improving, each week the start to take the step forward. So far we have been more than competitive in our games, and our best players have been some of the younger generation next.