Three things you've learned. Round eight 2021 v Carlton

[Ozza]

1. We are desperately missing Dunks in the part of the game where we don't have the ball. To the eye, Bont and Libba do their share of defending, but a few others aren't as keen. Carlton moved the ball way too easily in chunks of the game. Obviously Richmond did last week also. I'd imagine it is a work in progress to adjust.

2. Carlton are a bogey side for us - so I'm genuinely just happy to get 4 points - even though there was a fair bit that wasn't great from us in the game.

3. The skipper had 12 score involvements, 10 inside 50s, 10 clearances and 8 tackles today. Yeah he had some turnovers - but its almost always when he's striving to make the big play. 19 contested today. He does the whole lot.

[westbulldog]

1. Sweet and Khamis deserve their continuing selection.
2. We should present Jacob Weitering with a blank cheque.
3. Dogs supporters are becoming too quick to jump on and off the bandwagon. I've seen a lot of fickle supporters over here in the west but like to think Dogs people are made of a more resilient loyalty.

[MrMahatma]

1. Not new but Libba... wow. His hands. Just wow...
2. Bont. Meters gained monster!
3. Daniel out marking blokes in the last. Perfect!

[kruder]

1. I thought our mids last week were outplayed by a faster and more desperate opposition but today I realised that we have a complacency problem. Smith is No.1 offender and the comment elsewhere on Woof about being affected by Brereton's media comment could be a contributing factor. When we *want* to work hard and collectively then we are amongst the best.


2. Naughton is constantly man-handled in one-on-ones, many illegal in my view. He needs a strategy to negate this (without becoming a whinger like Riewoldt).


3. Hunter is a true professional - milking 2 very clever frees inside 50, one for a goal.


Extra. I've probably known this for a while but when switching across the backline, any potential advantage is quashed by slow decision-making by Keath, Cordy and Wood.


Bonus. I reluctantly comment on umps but they still haven't nailed down a consistent interpretation
for deliberate out of bounds. That call against Bont was a howler.

What did Derm say about Smith?

[Vred]

1. Libba is our most important midfielder, ill fight anyone who disagrees
2. Sweet / English combo going into the future looks to be the way to go, for his first real game against a ruck he did incredibly well.
3. When in previous seasons we would of rolled over and taken the L, this season we fought back, 8 goal turn around is huge.

[GVGjr]

What did Derm say about Smith?

He didn't like Smith mouthing off to the North players

[The Doctor]

1. The development work put into Sweet has been very good. I think he can make it.

2. Lipinski is just no good when the heat is on.

3. Bailey Dale is becoming a star and I was his biggest critic. Well played young man.

4. Weitering....wow!

[Mantis]

1. Buku was better than I expected, but needs time. I wouldn't play him against Port as I think we would end up playing him out of position. He is no substitute for Daniels in the backline.

2. Gee Daniels plays taller than he is. A number of times he outmarked taller opponents. He is a little gem, very underrated.

3. NAughton is not a body on body forward. He was well beaten today, but at least he kept competing.

1/ Buku is not a replacement for Daniel, he’s competing for a spot with Crozier, Wood & Duryea.

2/ He did as a defender, but got out-pointed in the air as a forward... he has to play back.

3/ Naughts is still only 21 and needs a few more years in the gym to compete effectively one on one. Weitering was the same 2 years back and shows the benefits of a couple of extra pre-seasons.

[Happy Days]

Naughton got belted by Weitering but still contributed pretty meaningfully and was clever enough to make Carlton pay every single time Weitering was caught rotating off him. Happy with his game and I’m certain a big bag is coming.

[Grantysghost]

1. We are desperately missing Dunks in the part of the game where we don't have the ball. To the eye, Bont and Libba do their share of defending, but a few others aren't as keen. Carlton moved the ball way too easily in chunks of the game. Obviously Richmond did last week also. I'd imagine it is a work in progress to adjust.

2. Carlton are a bogey side for us - so I'm genuinely just happy to get 4 points - even though there was a fair bit that wasn't great from us in the game.

3. The skipper had 12 score involvements, 10 inside 50s, 10 clearances and 8 tackles today. Yeah he had some turnovers - but its almost always when he's striving to make the big play. 19 contested today. He does the whole lot.

He had 8 turnovers and was running at about 40 percent efficiency early. It was very unlike him, but as all champs do he didn’t drop his head and turned it around late.
He did look sore at times, wasn’t chasing much and he appeared lame after a couple of contests in the third hope he’s ok. Probably just the old general soreness.

[Mantis]

1. We are desperately missing Dunks in the part of the game where we don't have the ball. To the eye, Bont and Libba do their share of defending, but a few others aren't as keen. Carlton moved the ball way too easily in chunks of the game. Obviously Richmond did last week also. I'd imagine it is a work in progress to adjust.

2. Carlton are a bogey side for us - so I'm genuinely just happy to get 4 points - even though there was a fair bit that wasn't great from us in the game.

3. The skipper had 12 score involvements, 10 inside 50s, 10 clearances and 8 tackles today. Yeah he had some turnovers - but its almost always when he's striving to make the big play. 19 contested today. He does the whole lot.

Just saw on twitter he is the 2nd player in AFL history to post these numbers... the other being GAjnr.

[Ozza]

He had 8 turnovers and was running at about 40 percent efficiency early. It was very unlike him, but as all champs do he didn’t drop his head and turned it around late.
He did look sore at times, wasn’t chasing much and he appeared lame after a couple of contests in the third hope he’s ok. Probably just the old general soreness.

Bont gets a lot of footy from middle of the ground and forward - rather than chipping it around at half back. You're always going to have some turnovers with high numbers of clearances and inside 50 kicks. Doesn't excuse all of them - but he's making the play

Top 5 in the league for metres gained this year.

[EasternWest]

Just saw on twitter he is the 2nd player in AFL history to post these numbers... the other being GAjnr.

He's sometimes so sublime it's easy to not notice some of the things he does. What a gun.

[Mantis]

He's sometimes so sublime it's easy to not notice some of the things he does. What a gun.

He was so strong in the contest yesterday... like brute force strong... the piece of play where he laid the forceful tackle, won the ball and then chipped it forward to Naughts changed the momentum of the game.

He's a jet!

[Mofra]

Macrae became just the second player in history to manage 30 possession in each of the first 8 rounds of the season.
He was massive for us as well.

Cordy had some nice moments but he just seems slower than in previous years. If we went in with the intention of playing three tall defenders (Khamis), we may as well try and release Lewis Young to be the third tall because he can at least intercept. The lesser of the two performers against Port probably loses their spot the week after.

McNeill is surely leading the competitions for steals.
I don't think Sweet is ready to ruck game in, game out but he is able to be managed through this year and play a few games when Martin is sore. Will play next week with English back in the side so that will give us a glimpse of our likely 2022+ ruck set up.

Carlton had 7 Centre clearances as a team and Pittonet had 4 of them grabbing it out of the ruck. Our mids were still pretty good except for execution in the middle part of the game.