Gutted for Simmo last night as Carlton fan. Puts his heart and soul into it and one or two other players let him down again. Happened so many times in recent seasons. 6 close losses this season got to hurt. Should have put away games v Brisbane, Cats, Dockers and Richmond round one if Garlett did not do his dribble kick. Also against Hawks, had the better of them till Watson missed a sitter and two goal turn around changed momentum of game. Should have beaten Dees too if Malthouse had not been stupid and dropped Waite that week and left us no forward line. Someone like Simpson and Gibbs would be bloody annoyed we dropped all those winnable games and would not have taken much to be on 11 wins right now and still part of finals. Instead we stuck on 6 wins losing so many winnable games. We got to get our fringe players to be of better standard as they are the guys costing us. We got to remove the Kane Lucas, Warnock types at end of season and find some more Everitt types that improve our list in the fringe area of 22. Ellard tries hard but think it is time to go. Just a bit short of this elite level of footy. Wood, like Warnock is not up to it but least he can mark.... We will be better when Kruezer is back and not forced to pick either.
I think next season we got to simply go with Kruezer and de-list or trade Warnock. You cannot play a 200 plus centimetre guy that cannot mark. Guys like Casboult and Rowe can help out in ruck when needed. We should draft some younger ruck long term back up and get rid of Warnock like we should have in last 3 or 4 seasons. We wasted so many seasons having Warnock on our list at a great loss. Really hurts plus a pick 11 on Kane Lucas is the other one that stings.
Happy with the Dylan Buckley and Troy Menzel youngsters though. Both injured right now but could have helped. Also happy with Docherty trade despite the out of bounds costly late kick last night. He's still young at this level and will learn from it. Pity about the coach but at same time he has learnt some lessons from his mistakes even at his elder age so that has been good to see as I hated how he think he knew it all and had this caper worked out. He did not but now he is back as a student of the game and not thinking he is a master. That helps to have his ego dented. He needed it and he even gets credit from me in what he has done with Rowe and continued to develop Casboult in role that suits both. Also with Gibbs no longer wasted on half back roles we get better value out of Gibbs being a midfielder. Yarran removed from forward pocket role helps too. Bad season but if we learn from mistakes as club, all is not lost for next season. McLean should retire, Carrots probably too and Warnock given the arse along with Lucas and Watson. That gives us 5 spots to fill at least with draft picks and trades. I suspect Ellard and one or two others also be gone from the fringe area of team. With Carrots and McLean gone I think would be stupid to not keep Waite and Judd going. They both could easily play another two seasons in my eyes. Waite probably more. Next season we get to see how Patrick Cripps goes when McLean is retired from AFL footy and back packing his way around the world. Cripps been injured this season so not had a real good look at yet. Don't mind playing Blaine Johnson a few more games and seeing what he can do. Looks to have a bit of toe and x-factor about him in small glimpses I seen but probably adjusting to tempo of higher level at this stage. Worth looking at in 4 remaining games.