In the cold light of a grey day, I thought maybe I'd have calmed down. But I haven't.

Against St Kilda and now against Adelaide, our foot skills have been appalling. Kicking behind, too far to the left or right, to a staionary target, etc. In fact, I suggest it is rare for us now to actually hit the target.

The commentators on Fox yesterday spoke about this being a matter of confidence. As league footballers, they said, it must be assumed they have the skills, but this problem is becoming endemic.

I accept that confidence helps, just look at the crows.

But how to rebuild ours? (and winning games is true but simply the easy answer - do the little things well and we will win).

Who is going to stop the boys holding on a little too tight?

Is it time for a week off?
change the drills?

what?

_________________
"Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost

If youre looking at making a difference you have to begin with getting rid of the coach and his assistants...

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I ultimately could only watch with the sound muted because Chris McDermott is a bone fide moron. I did hear that mentioned early on though and it is true to an extent. Being drafted to an AFL club means you should have a pretty decent skill level (exceptions like Prenda do exist though).

I'm also pretty sure that at training the skill are nowhere near as bad as they are during a game. I acknowledge that they may not be highly polished, but I'm also confident that there would be relatively few passes that miss their intended target by 10m or more on the training track compared to the number in our recent matches.

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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

Synbad mate make up your mind...is it whitnall you want gone that will turn the club around or the coach and coaching staff....every week its a different story with you....

And on skills....well maybe im stupid i dont no im not a doctor.....but wouldn't the first category you check off when wanting to draft a player is their skills. Dont you have to be able to hit targets if you want to get drafter? WHY DO WE HAVE INCOMPETENT PLAYERS WHO ARE UNABLE TO HIT 20 METER TARGETS!

MB

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Loooook OUT!

EVen Fevola's skills were terrible yesterday, and he is one player who's kicking skills would be up there with the best.

Look at Geelong - when they were winning games easily their skills were great, but when they are under the pump their skills go to crap. Take that with us and magnify it with 4 years of pain and you can probably get a glimpse.

I am not saying that a change in coaching or training methods wouldn't improve it - but I also reckon it's about confidence in themselves and their plan of attack and what they are trying to achieve (all of which are coaching issues as well).

Confidence would have to be a key issue i guess.. but one has to ask the question...we are down and out say 5 minutes into the 3rd quarter..WHY ARE JOSH KENNEDY AND LUKE BLACKWELL STILL SITTING ON THE BENCH? Why doesnt the coach sit every player down at some stage of the match be it quarter time, half time or even three quarter time and say ok..this quite clearly is not working. You Mathew Lappin where do you think you would play your best footy? Livo where would you...etc go through each player let them play where they think they would most benefit the team and just let the smile because they no they aren't going to win. So let them try and enjoy themselves in some way!

MB

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Loooook OUT!

The only thing you can do to improve skill is to work harder, but they don't do it, the training session still only goes for 2 hours, why don't they bloody train longer? say 4-5 hours, doesn't have to be really intense, just do kick to kick or something light and won't be too physical. I hate seeing them having a bit of laugh and head straight to the showers after a 2 hour session. When you are shit, work harder guys!!

That's the session you see.

Im a big picture guy i want the coaching dept gone and i want Lance traded for our long term...Cant i want both??
Incompetent development of kids and players and a low sense of self esteem will give you players who cant make decisions and hit targets.

A bad workman always blames his tools...

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Right with you MB. Let's get rid of our recruitment staff, first things first. As I have repeated ad nauseum, that can't even pick their noses let alone pick talent.

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17 4 10

Skill = Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience

Either we don't have the skills .... hard to believe as these guys are playing at the elite level (agree there do exist varying degrees of experience)

OR

It is a confidence thing (in applying that skill). Confidence in yourself and confidence in one another.

Personally I think it's the latter.

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"IF YOU FAIL TO PREPARE, YOU'RE PREPARED TO FAIL" - Mark Spitz

I reckon its more to do with decision making and positioning (without the ball) that is making us look woeful and embarrassing. Lucky for us, those two things go hand-in-hand.

For a so-called rolls royce midfielder (at least for our club), Nick Stevens is a shocking decision maker. At least it has looked that way for most of this season.

I refuse to believe that he is that bad, so I will put it down to the fact that we have a midfield unit full of border-collies - they're all run, run, run, ball, ball, ball without thinking.

Sometimes you feel like doing that trick where you pretend to throw the ball just to watch the silly mutt bolt off into the distance. Then you hold the ball up so he can see it and he comes tearing back only to fall for the same trick again...

You can't knock they're effort, they are putting in hard, but eventually, the dog cracks the shits and doesn't come back anymore.

I think our whole team should be forced to under-go regular testing like the one that rookies do to test their 'awareness'. If they fail the test, its off to the magoos until you pass.

This would hopefully fix....

1. Midfielders/half-forwards running with the flight of the ball only to create a contest for Fev/leading forwards where none should exist.

2. Players running past a contest for a handball, exept they're running directly at the contest (with their opponent in hot pursuit). This wouldn't be a problem if the next receiver wasn't running to the same spot creating even more of a contest.

3. Our execution of the flood. At the moment our players run back blindly with their opponents carrying the ball along-side them.

4. Plug a few holes around the ground where there always seems to be space for the opposition (it seems beyond our guys to play man-on-man)

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

I must be becoming populist

The hun today:

[url=http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,19287525%255E19762,00.html]Carlton missing skills
[/url]





And this one surprised me:

_________________
"Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost

I think, and this might be drawing a long bow, that the coaching staff has a lot to do with the players confidence.

It is obvious that we have players that have more skill than they are showing at the moment.

I think that the coaching staff panic in their decision makers and this in turn undermines the players confidence on the field. For example, we made some very basic errors at the start of the Adelaide game, just simple skill errors. Our players are afraid to kick to a one on one contest because they do not trust the player that they are kicking it to to be able to beat their opponent. Or they don't trust their own skill to get it to our player.

Our coaching staff made the very significant move of Lance Whitnal from the half forward to half back at the 4 minute mark of the first quarter.

Everybody knows that if Lance is up forward Carlton are planning to play attacking football and when he is in defence we have gone defensive.

I think that the move so early in the game to "stop the rot" might have that affect but I think it has the opposite. I think that the players dropped their head and realized that the coaching staff did not have the confidence in their ability.

I think that we need to give our players time and exposure. We have to back ourselves and if the wheels fall off then we have to still be able to back ourselves. Of course I will probably be on here whinging if they did not make a move and let our team get slaughtered, but the thing is our team is getting slaughtered and I think we have to start with the basics. We have to back oursleves and trust our players to be able to kick, mark and handball to an acceptable AFL level.

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"our guest is dressed by hand-me-downs, hair designed by pillow"

The players confidence is not helped by that moron Pagan every week coming out saying. What a player that Stevens would be if he was in a good side like WC or Murphy what a player he would be if he was in the mix of the Crows...This is in the players face week in week out that they are shit...Who on earth would go out there and bust their gut when your coach is in the paper every week saying how shit a team he has...I can't believe that this moron is getting away with it week after week...

It's TIME TO GO MORON PAGAN AND CO

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Blueboy forever

Maybe someone who wanted to prove the coach wrong. If they all hate him so much why wouldn;t you want to prove a point to him?

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

Because with pagan their is no praise...The only praise from him is the players are always wrong and he is always right.....This is why we are at the bottom of the ladder, oh sorry this is why for the past 3 years we are near the bottom of the ladder. The players just do not play to Penguins instructions, gawddd only knows what instructions they are.

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Blueboy forever