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Brendon Bolton and Stephen Silvagni are dead men walking at Carlton

15th April, 2019
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Roar Guru
15th April, 2019
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Carlton were competitive against Richmond and Port Adelaide in the first two rounds, which is a good effort for a club that’s still developing, but I did tend to agree with Kane Cornes that the players seem content with honourable losses.

The last two rounds were always going to be important for Brendon Bolton’s men, and they’ve failed dismally.

That inaccurate kicking cost them in the Sydney game is a myth – the Swans had 100 more disposals, and yet still laid 18 more tackles, which is a sign of poor work rate.

The Gold Coast game was simply one they had to win, and the effort was undoubtedly there – the Blues had more of the ball, won the contested possession count, laid more tackles, but still failed to win.

Carlton’s efficiency when going forward has been appalling. They’ve went 58 straight games without scoring 100 points, and 18 straight games without scoring 80 points.

That was supposed to change this year, with a more attacking game plan, but it’s been the same old story.

The game plan and team selection made no sense on the weekend. You’re going to the Gold Coast, a place which is usually dewy even during the day, and you play with three key forwards.

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The worst part is when Carlton were kicking long into their forward line in the second half, they were kicking it to Michael Gibbons, who is 175 centimetres tall, and hasn’t kicked a goal all season.

When that is happening, it’s pretty clear that something is fundamentally wrong with the communication between players and coaches.

There’s no excuses this year. Apart from Sam Docherty and Matthew Kreuzer, they are injury free.

So why aren’t players like Lochie O’Brien, Cameron Polson, Patrick Kerr and Sam Petrevski-Seton showing any signs of improvement?

The players they’ve traded in is another disaster. They’ve traded in ten Greater Western Sydney players since Stephen Silvagni got to the club, and none of them are even B-grade players.

To a lesser extent, the rookie and pre-season drafting makes no sense. Jason Tutt, Alex Silvagni and Matt Shaw were never even going to be serviceable players, let alone good.

The only good player they drafted in the rookie draft was Billy Gowers, who they subsequently delisted. He’s now a vital player in the Western Bulldogs’ forward line.

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They were the worst team in the league when Bolton got there, and in his fourth year, they’re still the worst team. What hope are supporters supposed to have?

They’ve got the Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn and North Melbourne in their next three. If they can’t win one of them, it might be time for Brendon Bolton and Stephen Silvagni to be on their way.

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