WB Game Day V Carlton R6 2020

[Hotdog60]

It will be interesting on Friday after a heavy track and shorten recovery time.

[Eastdog]

Team Stats Carl-WB

295 Disposals 306
201 Kicks 168
94 Handballs 138
131 Contested Possessions 114
69 Disposal Efficiency (%) 72
70 Marks 52
8 Contested Marks 6
43 Tackles 54
33 Clearances 30
12 Free Kicks 20
41 Inside 50 53
45 Rebound 50 25
49 Errors 30
38 Hitouts 28

[GVGjr]

Too many handballs from us given the conditions

[Mantis]

Did Port take all the wives and kids?

I would think if we didn’t take families we would have 3 or 4 less players to choose from.

[Eastdog]

Efficiency Inside 50 - sums up our night

Carlton - 54% (22 Shots from 41 Inside 50s)
Western Bulldogs - 30% (16 Shots from 53 Inside 50s)

[kruder]

It will be interesting on Friday after a heavy track and shorten recovery time.

I reckon thats part of the reason why the cue goes in the rack in so many games this year, teams are already thinking of a short break break coming up.

[GVGjr]

I reckon thats part of the reason why the cue goes in the rack in so many games this year, teams are already thinking of a short break break coming up.

I'd be surprised if they see it that way, if I was some of them I'd be even more determined not to give the MC the chance to drop me

[soupman]

I thought our desire and commitment were there for three quarters. General play was even for the first three terms. We dominated parts of the second and third for zero reward. As we got frustrated and got more desperate to chase their score they exposed us out the back too many times. Cheap coast to coast goals after we have repeated attacks. It destroys your spirit and grit.

In the final quarter after Vand missed that goal and they immediately scored we dropped our heads and were disgraceful. But for the majority of the game I thought we had our head in the game. Just played dumb football.

Blues were nice tonight. They’ve made some canny additions to address their faults, particularly inside 50 and in the coaching box.

Idk I’ve had five beers so maybe it’s that but feel like this is a mix of playing a decent side and not capitalising on our momentum. Not a devastating loss like the other two this year.

I think both above posts really sum up my thoughts. We were decent, with bad bits, as explained below. They were good, basically all night.

What happened? Sorry this is a bit rambly.

Early we were severely on the backfoot. Getting killed in the middle, combined with wet conditions making it difficult to get it out of defence, made it look like tonight was going to go very badly. Tbh we came out of the first quarter in much better shape than I anticipated 10 minutes in. These early moments (and scattered throughout he game, but particularly early), showed the limitations of English, with his inability to arrest their moment from centre bounces combined with our midfield third dissappearing act this season making it really hard for ourselves. We don't even need to win the centre clearances, but after conceding two in a row we really need to find a way to lock that shit down.

I think the next 2 and a half quarters were really even. Carlton more or less held onto the head start we gave them, both sides ran the ball fairly well, had great intensity and pressure and had forwardlines that looked like they could do damage. I don't think our forwardline looked weak, I actually thought it created a lot of chaos ball and the lack of impact guys like Weitering and Docherty had shows we did well to avoid playing into their key cogs hands. Watching on TV is horrible for assessing structure, but we did seem to almost avoid kicking to Schache and Bruce. I don't know if that was the plan, or if that was their fault, or that was our fault, but it was noticeable.

I think the biggest difference in this arm wrestle was their ability to come out of chaos chains of possession with a goal. Too often they would get reward for effort and when they get forcing the ball forward, see the Newnes goal, Gibbons goal, most stuff Jack Martin was involved with etc. We however often faltered at the end, Ed Richards being the prime example of this with two horrendous stuffups.

At the end Vandermeer's miss into an instant goal for them that was basically the sealer broke us and that led to us switching off inexcusably. We were mostly woeful after that, and we really need a better culture where we don't just roll over when it doesn't go our way, especially when we've nearly had two weeks off.

Key areas where we lost it.

Centre clearances. As stated above early it gave them a head start that we never clawed back. We need to find a way to make our losses in the midfield scoreless draws instead of easy clearances for the opposition. This was compounded in the wet with a side that came to bring the pressure.

Big man impacts. Aside from Keath and to a lesser extent Cordy our big men/marking men (Bont and Wood) had no impact. We got killed in the air while aside from Weitering all Carltons bigs including normally poor guys like McGovern and McKay had a big impact on the game.

Small forwards impacts. I thought Vandermeer was good, Dale ok, Wallis ok in a defensive role, West very poor (and played very selfish, often going for marks or plays he had no right going for. He has to know when to reign it in and do the simple stuff), Lipinski good in flashes but otherwise very quiet, Richards terrible execution. Their guys led by Martin, Betts and Gibbons were all good. Tbf Martin is so much better than any of the other guys listed, but we needed more from our smalls especially when our talls gave us so little.

Chaos chain goals. Theirs ended up in team lifting plays where 5+ guys were directly involved in a team lifting goal, we did just as much work and stuffed it up. Richards was the main culprit here, he had two opportunities virtually in the goalsquare and stuffed it up both times. In each case a goal was super important for us and I belive both times it ended up with htem kicking the next one.

Little errors. Stuff like Macrae dropping a chestmark, Butler not carrying the ball over the line after Keaths amazing effort vs Betts, the aforementioned Richards fumbles/misses really killed us. I think all the above cost us goals, if not directly then soon after. Carlton played really well and made us earn our goals.

Inability to get our dangerous players to be dangerous. Macrae and Hutner were both good, but they don't reall hurt sides. Again Bontempelli had nowhere near enough impact, and i have no idea why we kept him forward when Curnow moved onto Bailey Smith. They can't tag both of them, so why would you keep Bont forward where aside from one very well taken set shot he had no impact?

The positives.

Alex Keath. Amazing. Serious Brian Lake vibes. Physically dominant, that same shuffly short step sprint, surly temperament and tendency to take of with the ball in a slight arc and kick long. His last few games have been very impressive.

[Sedat]

Great write-up Soupaman. The only minor quibble I have is you are IMO too generous to Dale and Wally. For 52 entries into our F50, we need them to be so much more involved than 6 and 7 possessions respectively. Betts, Martin and Gibbons all had double the involvement than these two and also combined for 8 goals from far less F50 entries.

Gee Martin is a class player. He causes maximum damage from his possessions and is often involved in their scoring chains. No wonder we went so hard after him.

[comrade]

Excellent write up Soupa, the lack of reward for effort was really telling for us.

Our attitude and lack of application when the chips are down is a massive concern. Cordy was laughing and bantering with McGovern all night, and he wasn't the only one.

Professional sport is such a mental game, we really struggle with it.

[jeemak]

Good write up Soupaman.

Not really a lot I can say other than I didn't think the ruck contests put us at a disadvantage, rather, our midfielders were either offencive or stagnant and that cost us some decisive clearances.

The amount of faffing about with the footy by hand in the conditions with a forward press higher than what it seemed to be the last few weeks hurt us. This resulted in an extremely congested forward line and plenty of opportunity for the Blues to transition cleanly once we were cooked after multiple entries.

However you're right, some key moments where opportunities should have been taken but weren't, and exactly the opposite from the Blues did us in.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Media talking up carltons game as sexy and fast. Yes they didn’t do much wrong, but the media said the same thing about the saints after their win over us. Anyone else think it’s more us that are making teams look good? I mean, when you allow so much space out the back, even the worst teams can look good when they just have to fling the ball over 1 or two players’ heads and into an open goal

[comrade]

Media talking up carltons game as sexy and fast. Yes they didn’t do much wrong, but the media said the same thing about the saints after their win over us. Anyone else think it’s more us that are making teams look good? I mean, when you allow so much space out the back, even the worst teams can look good when they just have to fling the ball over 1 or two players’ heads and into an open goal

Yeah, think you're on to something.

When you restrict teams to less than 40 points for 3 weeks in a row, then concede 100+ it's all down to attitude and application.

[GVGjr]

Yeah, think you're on to something.

When you restrict teams to less than 40 points for 3 weeks in a row, then concede 100+ it's all down to attitude and application.

Do you think it's a case we don't have that genuine hunger?
I think we've proven our best is very competitive but there is a question mark if we are going to see the good, bad or downright ugly each week.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Saw an interesting stat regarding carlton and us. Since 2018 their average score against all teams except us is 69.1. Against us it’s 101.3. They’re our new bogey team for sure