The Backline.

[Joe Bloggs]

Brown..Carlisle..Very cumbersome and not suited to the modern game. I'm
If Roberton is tagged.all we have is Webster always under pressure..Geary is not a game breaker nor is Newnes. I don't see us gelling down there too well.

[Linton Lodger]

Brown..Carlisle..Very cumbersome and not suited to the modern game. I'm
If Roberton is tagged.all we have is Webster always under pressure..Geary is not a game breaker nor is Newnes. I don't see us gelling down there too well.

Our back 6 was fantastic pre season and were let down by the midfield today. Carlisle was playing his first fair dinkum match in 18 months. Brown had a decent game, it was Armitage, Ross and a few others in the midfield that let us down defensively. Not to mention the defensive work (or lack of) by our forwards after quarter time.

[loris]

We missed Dempster down there - IMHO a big selection mistake not having Dempster in the team. Brown & Carlisle very plodding & cumbersome, I agree.

May take Carlisle quite awhile to catch up with how the speed of the game is played - if he ever does. I was very concerned with his body language ...... not good. But then we knew he was a petulant, blamer of teammates when we took him on, nothing has changed by the looks of it with some of his pouting today.

However it's early days, both may jell with our game style as the weeks roll on. Neither of them have the ability of Dempster to leave his man, to cover someone else's opponent & then get back to their own oponents. The combination of Sean & Gears doing that continually down back was sadly missing today - a real change to the way our backline used to always play as a team & cover for each other.

I wish the boot studder would put longer studs into Webster boots, he loses his footing at practically every one on one contest.
His new nick name should be 'autumn leaves' always tumbling down.!

[saynta]

Shattering defeat Loris.

[Enrico_Misso]

The big cocaine snorter looked slow, overweight and disinterested.
He should have been busting his guts to win us over.
Bad bad omens.

Looks like we allowed the Druggies to shaft us again.

[White Winmar]

We missed Dempster down there - IMHO a big selection mistake not having Dempster in the team. Brown & Carlisle very plodding & cumbersome, I agree.

May take Carlisle quite awhile to catch up with how the speed of the game is played - if he ever does. I was very concerned with his body language ...... not good. But then we knew he was a petulant, blamer of teammates when we took him on, nothing has changed by the looks of it with some of his pouting today.

However it's early days, both may jell with our game style as the weeks roll on. Neither of them have the ability of Dempster to leave his man, to cover someone else's opponent & then get back to their own oponents. The combination of Sean & Gears doing that continually down back was sadly missing today - a real change to the way our backline used to always play as a team & cover for each other.

I wish the boot studder would put longer studs into Webster boots, he loses his footing at practically every one on one contest.
His new nick name should be 'autumn leaves' always tumbling down.!

It's been a weakness for him right from the start. Always sliding and going to ground. It's why I rate several others ahead of him.

[CURLY]

Webster was good I thought just no pressure from our midfield. Look at the WB last night with Boyd getting reamed the Pies had so many forward entries.

[BigMart]

Carlisle is a backline Kosi

Can take the odd big catch but is as agile as a school bus

He also loves a finger point, and to play loose

Did he learn that from Beej

[The OtherThommo]

The big cocaine snorter looked slow, overweight and disinterested.
He should have been busting his guts to win us over.
Bad bad omens.

Looks like we allowed the Druggies to shaft us again.

That's utter nonsense.

[realdeal]

Did you guys see the massacre that was our midfield!? Carlisle in his first game in 18 months was the least of our problems..

Give him a couple of weeks, geez

[BigMart]

Carlisle had trained for 4 months, played 3 full games and was on a second year kid

He is lazy, slow and argues with team mates after he's zoned off and a goal gets scored

I'd move him forward, like Hugh... seems to move like a 40yo

[Wayne42]

Carlisle was a good backman before Fish Lips tried to turn him into a Key Forward.

A year off due to the drugs saga, a life of leisure and a hip injury have seen him go backwards.

Can he turn it around ?

[BigMart]

Maybe

If he has the right match up

[SemperFidelis]

The big cocaine snorter looked slow, overweight and disinterested.
He should have been busting his guts to win us over.
Bad bad omens.

Looks like we allowed the Druggies to shaft us again.

That's utter nonsense.

Agreed, ToT. I think we can give a bloke more than one senior game to play himself in.

[CURLY]

Carlisle had trained for 4 months, played 3 full games and was on a second year kid

He is lazy, slow and argues with team mates after he's zoned off and a goal gets scored

I'd move him forward, like Hugh... seems to move like a 40yo

Yep lost all his ability after quarter time.

[loris]

Carlisle had trained for 4 months, played 3 full games and was on a second year kid

He is lazy, slow and argues with team mates after he's zoned off and a goal gets scored

I'd move him forward, like Hugh... seems to move like a 40yo

Agree he looks very lumbering - but I will cut him some slack due to the time out of the game, and hope hie gets some touch & feel for the game.
I won't accept his exceptionally poor body language on the field and giving team mates negative looks. If some of you were watching at the game and ball watching you may not be aware of some of his very poor body language - just watch a replay of the game and focus on him, not very good at times. I'm sure the coaches will stamp on it quickly or I hope they do

[The OtherThommo]

The big cocaine snorter looked slow, overweight and disinterested.
He should have been busting his guts to win us over.
Bad bad omens.

Looks like we allowed the Druggies to shaft us again.

That's utter nonsense.

Agreed, ToT. I think we can give a bloke more than one senior game to play himself in.

People seem to keep avoiding the performances of the leadership group, Semp.

As mentioned elsewhere here, which of that group were demonstrably superior to the easy targets?

By my and my associates reckoning the answer is zero.

[SemperFidelis]

Loris, I feel sure I will never want to watch the replay of that game but I am
disappointed to hear your assessment of his body language, which wasn't evident to me at the ground (I thought he was slow, but gave some good contests and the way the ball was pinging out of the midfield the greatest CHB in the world would have looked ordinary; and did bloody Hogan grow and inch or two over summer?!)

I'd be pretty sure that Gears and Shinner would sort that sort of crap out, PDQ.

[SemperFidelis]

The big cocaine snorter looked slow, overweight and disinterested.
He should have been busting his guts to win us over.
Bad bad omens.

Looks like we allowed the Druggies to shaft us again.

That's utter nonsense.

Agreed, ToT. I think we can give a bloke more than one senior game to play himself in.

People seem to keep avoiding the performances of the leadership group, Semp.

As mentioned elsewhere here, which of that group were demonstrably superior to the easy targets?

By my and my associates reckoning the answer is zero.

Agree. Every member (perhaps excepting Jack S) was well below par. I'd expect that to be remedied pretty quickly.

[samuraisaint]

Instead of bagging the backline, how about asking if anybody decided to play on Petracca today. He was left on his own all evening - given way too much space and time. Melbourne are going to be a good side this year - with all of those high draft picks it was bound to happen at some stage. They've had some really good honest victories in the past two seasons - beating Geelong at Geelong, and beating Hawthorn easily at the MCG. It takes talent to do either of those things. We couldn't do either of those things yet.
They've got Petracca, Hogan, Viney, Brayshaw, Watts, Gawn and now Jordan Lewis. I also really rate McDonald as a backman. Jetta and Garlett have the X factor for the cream on top. We've done well to beat them for ten years, and remember before today they had only beaten us twice in 12 seasons. They were going to get us sometime.
Still, finals aren't played in March and I expect us to improve, but probably only win the same number of games as last year due to the more difficult fixture, and miss finals again. All about top 4 in 2018, not just making up the numbers this year.