Pre Game Permutations: AFL 2020 R1 Carlton vs Richmond

[crashlander]

With a less than inspiring Practice Match series and a load of players not fully fit, the opening round is beginning to look ... less than optimal.
[1] Ruck: Big problem so far with Kreuzer no where near 100 %. Our back-ups are d Koning, who is developing, but who isn't ready yet, and Pittonet, who offers something different, but who does not have many runs on the board against mature ruckmen.
[2] On-Ballers: Not looking all that good, although Cripps and Walsh appear to be going well.
[3] Tall forwards: At the moment, only Levi has shown anything. McGovern did nothing today. Charlie Curnow won't be playing for half a year and probably won't be near his best until next year. H hasn't played at all, and is extremely unlikely to line up for the first game.
[4] Defenders: We haven't seen the full defence yet. At least Jones appeared to have played reasonably today. Williamson and Docherty were good against Collingwood, but haven't done much since.
[5] Recruits: At the moment, this area is not looking promising. Martin has done OK, and we know what Eddie Betts can do, but Newnes has not excited and the rest are kids. The other younger players appear to have stagnated, other than Walsh.
[6] Our skills do not appear to have improved. We still ruin too many chances.
[7] Our pressure has been very low in the last 2 games. Nor has there been any clear tactical or strategic change visible at this time.

I hate being so negative less than 2 weeks before the season starts, and I know practice match form is not a great indication of how we may play, but at the moment, I couldn't see us as anything but rank under-dogs. If we manage to win, it will be a huge turnaround.

[Tragic]

yep

[Inboltswetrust]

We are crap.

[Gointocarlton]

With the rucks, I have always thought Kruze and Cas were our best combo in recent times. They weren't so good last night which is a concern. Kruze got spanked, when Levi went into the middle, he was very ordinary. Maybe we need to give Pitto a go, can't be any worse.

[shawny]

Almost impossible to expect change when we pick up fringe players from bottom teams year after year at the trade table because for whatever reason we just can’t get any real proven talent in the door - doing that puts all the heat on the kids to elevate their game otherwise we just can’t improve.

Loins were able to add Neale and Cameron who are both AA players in year 3. we haven’t added anyone even remotely close to that quality since the rebuild started. Love to see how they would go if you replaced neale and Cameron with 2 fringe banana players from our list. Reckon then the results would almost be reversed which would show why our failures at the trade table will again yield failures on the field.

We miss on papely and then rejoice getting a 34 year old when we bang on year and after year we will not recruit older blokes. But have no room for Daisy who probably played his best season with us over Simpson who looks cooked and also decide to keep Lang and Polson and waste time on playing them in the practice matches. Stupid is too soft a word.

We are now that dumb as a club we use our first pick in the last draft on a bloke that just did his acl and won’t even play this year. Like that’s a move a top 2 team has the luxury of making not a farking bottom team. And there are still some on her that think that was a great move too.

[flyboy77]

I noticed Murphy sat out a big chunk of H2? Why?

Ed C? Didn't see him much either?

Jack Martin will be AA in short order but until some of SPS, Fisher, Setterfield and the like can play a whole match at a good standard, we'll struggle....

Cuners should have played - he can add spark.

Dow? Still unconvinced though he tried.

Time to put Kennedy and/or JSOS in the guts for an extended time.

Special K worried me more than any - he was whipped badly. And gave us nothing around the ground.

[Macca37]

After watching our pathetic effort yesterday I watched about half of the Richmond v Giants match.  What a reality check.

We are so far off the pace of the top sides - years in fact.

I hate to admit it but the result of our recruiting  over the past five years has left the cupboard bare with few players with the necessary skills to match the best of the top eight sides.

It doesn't matter who we have as coach.  We seem to be stacked with players with mediocre skills at best who will never get better, only older.  And players who promise so much but are not able to deliver consistently.

Then we have the injury prone Charlie and Harry who we expected by now to be leaders in our move up the ladder.  Who knows when and if they will deliver in the future.

[cookie2]

I noticed Murphy sat out a big chunk of H2? Why?

Ed C? Didn't see him much either?

Jack Martin will be AA in short order but until some of SPS, Fisher, Setterfield and the like can play a whole match at a good standard, we'll struggle....

Cuners should have played - he can add spark.

Dow? Still unconvinced though he tried.

Time to put Kennedy and/or JSOS in the guts for an extended time.

Special K worried me more than any - he was whipped badly. And gave us nothing around the ground.

Those names especially together with a few others like Poulson, Harry and McGovern are just not delivering the goods at the moment. If they were we would be be in a vastly better place. At this stage I can only hope things will get better BUT I'm not holding my breath. Wish I could be a little more positive.

[flyboy77]

Those names especially together with a few others like Poulson, Harry and McGovern are just not delivering the goods at the moment. If they were we would be be in a vastly better place. At this stage I can only hope things will get better BUT I'm not holding my breath. Wish I could be a little more positive.

Did SPS or Kennedy even play in the NBs game?

Polson isn't up to it presently. Likely isn't full stop.

Play the small defender role in the NBs fort half a season and work out how to fix disposal.

[flyboy77]

After watching our pathetic effort yesterday I watched about half of the Richmond v Giants match.  What a reality check.

We are so far off the pace of the top sides - years in fact.

I hate to admit it but the result of our recruiting  over the past five years has left the cupboard bare with few players with the necessary skills to match the best of the top eight sides.

It doesn't matter who we have as coach.  We seem to be stacked with players with mediocre skills at best who will never get better, only older.  And players who promise so much but are not able to deliver consistently.

Then we have the injury prone Charlie and Harry who we expected by now to be leaders in our move up the ladder.  Who knows when and if they will deliver in the future.

yet did you see the Dees-Hawks or Port-Doggies games?

Worse than us!!