AFL 2023 Preliminary Final Carlton vs Brisbane Pre Game Prognostications

[laj]

Rocky nails it again!

Outs : Cunningham, Kemp, Kennedy & Owies.
Ins : Boyd, Hollands, Martin & McKay

[pinot]

Rocky is Da Man.

Damn thats brutal selection though

[Blue Moon]

I find some of the analysis in the MSM a bit bewildering. There was a comparison of midfields where Carlton was fourth. The Carlton midfield they put up for comparison was Pittonett, Cripps, Docherty and Hewitt. I would have thought our midfield would be TDK, Cripps, Cerra and Walsh.
Brisbane is likely to win because they have been the second best team over the season and equal second I the last half of the season.  They are a seriously good side, playing well and playing at home.  They have had a break and they will be determined to win after the failures over the past couple of years.
Carlton will win because they have been the best team in the second half of the season, they are a seriously good team with room for improvement. They are matched hardened, they don't give up and they will turn up to play.
Brisbane's midfield is good but can be fragile and is not as deep as Carlton's especially without Ashcroft playing. The Big O can be dominated and pushed around. Their forward line has threats everywhere but while their defence has improved they can be scored against. Our backline is better but we don't have as many threats up forward and I think we put more emphasis on defence in our forward line while Brisbane are focused on scoring.
I think the game will turn on our ball movement. We were appalling earlier in the year against Brisbane and last week the only time we strung consecutive passes together was in the last minute.
I think if we kick it to our team mates and not turn the ball over and kick the goals we should we will win.

[LP]

I sincerely doubt that will be the way we line up, the only way I can imagine those MC changes are true are changes due to injuries or illness we do not know about!

[PaulP]

Bringing Boyd in cold for a PF is a big call.

Martin, McKay are obvious ins and Hollands is probably fair enough. Not a bad team on paper.

[LP]

Bringing Boyd in cold for a PF is a big call.

I suspect now there will be some big outs before Saturday night.

[laj]

And yet the analyses on the various footy all have us as the best performing team, followed by the Giants.  I guess that's on LED rather than paper 

David King's analysis is the outlier as he cites our inability to score more than 80 points in the first two finals as limiting our chances of progression.  The flip side is that our defence, in keeping our opposition below 80 points, is outstanding.

I think that's the key to the game.  Our rucks and midfield are equal to or stronger than Brisbane's, our defence is more than capable of keeping Brisbane's forwards to a losing score, but is our forward line capable of kicking a winning score?  On paper they are, but Charlie, Harry and the supporting cast will have to play a lot better than they did in our first two finals.

King can't have thought much of Collingwood's 60 point effort (9.6) against the Pies then. Especially when their opposition have 25 shots to 15, including Melbourne's 7 out on the full's shooting at goal. We did better than that.

[PaulP]

Darcy Gardiner is ok, but Payne is a very useful out for us.

[blueday]

Who plays the 2nd key defensive position?

[PaulP]

Who plays the 2nd key defensive position?

Marchbank / McGovern, the latter most likely I'd guess.