Carlton's first-quarter starts are hurting them

Another mention of teams taking their foot off the pedal because they might be 5 or 6 goals up at quarter time. With the way teams can kick 3 or 4 quick goals, if I was a coach of a team that took their foot off at quarter time I would be absolutely furious. So Melbourne took their foot off at quarter time & obviously couldn’t get it back on.

"Petrovski-Seton doesn’t do tackling" Averaging 4.4 tackles per game over his career (4.8 in year 1, 4.3 in year 2 and 4.4 in year 3). " Liam Jones, is not a great judge of whether to mark or smother and simply is unable to take an overhead mark" Make's his feat of being 15th in the league for contested marks on average last year even more remarkable. "McGovern runs under the ball and is a poor judge." Just how he managed to take the equal most marks for the game against Melbourne is a mystery.

Apparently the stats say that Carlton does not tackle enough which explains why they keep getting hammered in first terms. Problem with that stat is, it fails to show that you need to be close enough to an opponent to lay a legal tackle or contest the ball. It also, fails to mention opposition sides that take their foot off the pedal when they are out of sight. Like Richmond in round 1 or Melbourne last week. Unfortunately for us Bluebaggers the players they drafted in have glaring deficiencies in their games. Petrovski-Seton doesn't do tackling, as witnessed in the first term against Melbourne. Not sure why we took him number 5 in the draft. Liam Jones, is not a great judge of whether to mark or smother and simply is unable to take an overhead mark. McGovern runs under the ball and is a poor judge. At this level, these problems are major holes that should have been picked up by recruiters. Don't get me started on the poor kicking skills. Not sure how they got through juniors with these problems to be honest, and then we go and recruit them. Just crazy. All I can say is thank goodness Silvagni is gone and hopefully, we can finally get some decent recruiters in.

:unhappy: Not at all, just answering a query as to why the team we put out last week wasn't "young".

Your playing Dons game with the injury card, when are fans going to accept every club has injuries. You get a couple back, then you lose a couple that’s always the case.

Comment was based on competitor perception of us, Macca, been said before. I just get really frustrated watching Murph and few others tentatively putting a hand out in fear of the body contact and not really committing to tackles. I even see this when we get on a roll. Have a look at SPS pulling out of spoiling a mark, it would been ugly but had he committed this would've lifted the team at a crucial time. Confidence can bring this out too. Anyway fellas, I've enjoyed your analysis over the years - keep it up.

Hard to say we are "bruise free" when we continually come back from disasterous starts and one of the best teams for contested possession and clearance differential outside of the first quarter. It isn't that we are't cracking in at all, just not doing it in that 1 quarter for some reason.

I am not claiming the blues are the youngest team but the blues are relying on player like Walsh in the midfield, McKay and Weitierng as KPP’s, players like Setterfield, Cuningham, Gibbons and Pittonet that are older but inexperienced. The point is the opposition would look at the blues and think they can ambush them early with physicality. As for the blues young players – on the weekend Dow, Fisher, Silvagni, De Koning and Kemp were all unavailable with injury (you could throw in 23 year olds like Marchbank and Curnow). Williamson (who will likely come back in this week) has battled a back injury for the last 2 years has been brought on slowly. Philp has really impressed and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him come in this week and Lochie O’brien & Liam Stocker are close as well after good games in the scratch match/ Some of the young blokes probably haven’t developed quite as well as we would have liked and Teague does seem to be making them earn it a bit more favouring more mature bodies but I can see the team getting younger as the season goes on.

I knew you would take a positive spin on it. Every team has a couple of players 30+ usually. Anyway you look at it, Carlton does not play a young team this year. Against Melbourne, just 1 player 20 or younger, 5 players 22 or younger. Compare that to my team Suns against Eagles - 7 players 20 or younger, 11 players 22 or younger. What are the reasons? Yes, some injuries, but it could be that some younger players are not developing as expected or Teague prefers mature players to get some wins on the board. You tell me. But I am a bit amused when people talk about very young Blues or Brisbane teams for that matter. The youngest team by far this year was Suns then probably WB, Swans.

The one absolute in footy is that even the best teams crack under pressure. For too many years Carlton has lacked that mongrel element that is required to sustain long periods of pressure. We've had some maligned leaders in this past who don't like the physical and it carries through, I was hoping with Crippa this would change but sadly not. Right now I would take more mongrel over better skills as teams rightly see us a bruise free footy team

Average age is a terrible stat - Simpson, Betts & Murphy are blowing it out a bit.

"Other teams know the blues are a young team" Not really. Blues were the 4th oldest team round 2, average age 26 years and 6 months.

Theis is a great article that give some context around your question PaulD; https://www.afl.com.au/news/449919/final-siren-via-the-loop-why-the-teague-train-needs-a-new-route-now Key points; Under Teague 9 out of 13 times the blues have trailed by 30 points or more during a match. 5 of those games the blues have gone on to hit the lead or drawn level - Winning 2 and losing 3 (Bulldogs by 3, Melbourne by 5 and Melbourne by 1). In a 6th (Richmond in round 1) they had a shot to get the margin back to under 10 points half way through the last before Richmond kicked the last couple to win by 24. I am not convinced a team can show the ability to comeback 6 out of 9 times and have the opposition still take their foot off the gas after getting a big quarter time lead. Key stats from round 12, 2019 – round two, 2020 (13 games Teague Coaching) In contested possession the blues are 15th in round 1 and 2nd for quarters 2-4 In Clearance Differential they are 14th in quarter 1 and 1st in quarters 2-4 In goals per inside 50 they are 18th in quarter 1 and 4th in quarters 2-4 To me there are a couple of issues; 1) the blues have an anxiety issue - coming out to play they are not "expecting to win"but "hoping" things go well. Once they get to quarter time the message is we have nothing to lose and we have come back before and they play with more confidence, making a mistake doesn't matter anymore so they don't worry and make less mistakes. 2) Other teams know the blues are a young team & slow starters so they bring the heat off the bat - from memory Saturday was Melbourne's first quarter with a pressure rating above 200 since 2018.

Maybe they've been watching the 1970 grand final for motivation one too many times is it that Carlton are starting badly, or that other sides are just better, and are taking their foot off the gas once they've jumped out to a big lead?