Post match. NAB. Pies walloped - all comments

[simon tonna]

its seems easier to pick apart all the negatives about the game but why bother.
when you've got two teams at two different levels of attitude playing in a
practice match and one of the teams hampered by the most ignorant blatant
umpiring possible, its no wonder theres complacency.

[Stupied]

[perthmagpie]

I agree Bruce, except Scharenberg may not play any part this year. Having two of your four sesamoid bones removed is quite a big deal for a running athlete. It could take three or four months to be pain free after this op and leaves him only running fully in June or even July. I am expecting nothing from him this year and that includes the foot problem even being completely fixed. He is not going to know till June when does a lot of running if it is.

[HAL]

Under what circumstances?

[collie dog]

[Boot]

A couple of things I took out of last nights shambles;
1. Disposal is still a real problem for Collingwood. Frost looks promising but how many times when he is not even under pressure does he cough it up to the opposition!! Dane Swan is a champion, but he has to get twice as many disposals as anyone else to make up for the fact that 50% of his kicks miss targets. The club knows that disposal is a key in the modern game and hence they have recruted the likes of Young, Jordan Russell last year and Tony Armstrong this year. Unfortunately ability to win the ball one-on-one is a failing of these type of players. Jury still out on Young and when he does get free his disposal is elite.

2. Our defense is shaky at best. Keefe & Brown can compete but don't provide the drive that Ben Reid does (or did) when he was playing there. Marly Williams is a tragedy if he goes to gaol. His one-on-one skill, speed and disposal are crucial to Collingwood and if we are without him the loss of Heater will come back to bite us severly.
I think the option of Ried in the forward line is a luxury we can't afford. with Cloke and White there is enough height there already so unless the defense of Maxwell, Toovey, Williams (?), Keefe and Lumumba stand up then Reid should start in defense and move forward as a swing man if required.

3. Center clearance. Grundy should be OK but its a huge ask to put on a 2nd year player to carry our rucks all year. He has shown great promise but consistency is tough for young rucks. I think we need to allow for a 2nd specialist Ruckman in the team to ensure that we don't ruin the potetnial of Grundy and Witts by limiting the team to just one of them. I know it throws the balance out but center domination is a key to winning games and we have seen that with a great on-ball team of Swan, Pendells, Ball, Beams, Adams etc that we can still loose the center clearance battle if our ruck is loosing.

4. Game plan. Too many times we get caught out with the opposition being loose in their forward line as they come out of defence for easy goals and likewise we appear to get to the center line too often to find no-one in the forward line to kick to so we have to waste time by going sideways across the ground. In those situations I would like to see if Mooney's speed can be a weapon by simply boot long into the open forward line and let him run onto the open ball to kick the goal. I have a lot of faith in Mooney if we can get his strengths into the game.

5. I look forward to the return of Beams, Adams, Dwyer. Toovey and hopefully Williams. Also I feel the side would be stronger with Hudson or Witts (when fit) rather than Lynch as the 2nd ruck.

Never give up hope, never surrender and always hate Carlton!!

3.

[Cam]

The only guys playing for anything are those not guaranteed of a round one start.

Richmond had to win after their members starting jumping off after getting done by the Dees [i work with a stack of them, should have heard the doom and gloom].

Wang oval is Etihad size, which gives us problems as well.

ANNNND that was a VFL standard backline representing us..

ANNND despite all those excuses we are no lock for top 8 methinks.

But not because of that game, because of our inexperience and massive holes that Shaw and Jolly, yes Jolly, will leave.

Let's face it, we have replaced some fine people with a mosquito fleet of kennedy, elliott, dwyer and thomas. Add them to Blair and Fasolo, and well yeah. Don't think we can afford more than say three of them in the one team, but will probably have to play most of them early.

We will go ok if Karnezis and Sharenberg can get up and about and play a role, but early I guess our backline might be Williams, Brown, Toovey, Young, Keefe, Maxwell, which won't be that bad provided Williams can play, Young doesn't get injured and Toovey returns ok. Looks like Maxy will continue to get a regular game as we won't be able to do without him.

[What'sinaname]

[collie dog]

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

Last week was a great effort with plenty to look forward too.

This week was just another practice match, "nothing to see here".

You take what you want out of these games.

Yeah, we'll be better than that but you can't tell me that it wasn't anything short of a piss poor effort. I won't be writing the season off yet but it's becoming increasingly clear that we can't rely on a 19 yr old kid to carry the ruck all year and our defence doesn't look capable of holding up against quick ball movement. Plenty to do

[Joel]

[melliot]

We did that in 2011 and contributed to our burn out.

Must say I'd prefer Sydney to win the flag rather than the hawks. It will at least contribute to the removal of COLA.

[sixpoints]

Relax. It was a practice match in Wangaratta.
NAB Cup counts for nothing. eg Jesse White kicks 5 against Geelong, that's great. Next game don't play him near the goals, let's see what Reid can do down there. Hey he kicks four.
Hell last years NAB Cup Grand Final was between Brisbane & Carlton!

[Piesnchess]

HOW many on here can recall the NAB Cup year, was it 05 ?-when Caaaaarlton won the useless thing, thought they were KIng Dick, then went onto win the WOODEN SPOON THE SAME SEASON ??

NAB Cup is meaningless tripe, glorified practice games for skint clubs who need the dosh, move on to the REAL stuff. !

[roar]

No injuries is the best result we could ask for.