Something had been nagging away at the back of my mind. We have had a much improved month. We have won two of the last four games. Not only that, our scoring rate has sky-rocketed in recent times. Suddenly we have a plethora of goal scorers.

But coincidentally, or maybe not so, our improved form started with the return of French.

Indeed, we didn't win a game without him.

What's interesting however is
Average score with French in the side: 99.85
Average score with French out of the side: 78.86

A staggering 21 points a game.

A score of 78 is less than likely to win a game.

Over the weekend I was talking to a former junior coach. He has coached the Voss boys, Keating, Hudghton, Aker when they were all little tackers. One thing he told me was, if you can get your team consistently scoring 100 points a game, you'll win many more than you lose.

This year we have scored 100 points only once without French (117 in a loss to Freo).

Overall this season:
Scores over 100: 8
Wins: 3.5 = 44% winning record

Scores under 100: 12
Wins 1 = 8% winning record

Scores over 100 with French: 7 = 54% of games (ie every 2nd game)
Scores over 100 without French: 1 = 14% of games (every 7th game)

Might be a fluke, but it appears there is a degree of correlation between our good scores and the presence of Baranaby in the middle.

he is a very influential player when on the ground aint he
He is also now helped in the ruck with Brian to let him have a rest. He doesnt have to Ruck most of the game now he only has to ruck a half and a bit

Lets hope Pagan knows this and drops him to the Bullants for the next couple.

We do much better with Bananaby in the middle because our other ruck options are part timers at best.

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

I agree Barney has made a difference but his return has also co-incided with Fish's return which meant we have also had a mcuh better structure up forward

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Carlton - Nothing's changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love

Is it Barney or is it the fact that we have a specailised ruckman actually giving our midfeilders first use of the ball. Most clubs carry two to three ruckman we have one and a couple of part timers. We did have two others that weren't bad but we traded them away.
Makes you wonder doesn't it.

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Ever since I saw the Merovingian (sp?) and Monica Belucci on Matrix II and III, I've been convinced that: French = better scoring.

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When Dick became President, it was as if everyone at Carlton came out of the hailstorm and into the sunshine - Stephen Kernahan

YARRAN!!





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You're right Sydneyblue the fact we only have one ruckman is a joke. French makes a huge difference just because he is the only one who doesn't get his pants pulled down in the ruck contests.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides