Notes from the game: 2014 Round 15 Carlton

Sidebottom delivered a load of steel; Tyson added a sack of gold; but after an exciting first quarter, the Pies limped home to an unconvincing, dreary win. The only good news for the Bogan was that he got the quinella: Collingwood won and Carlton lost. What more could he want from a weekend of footy?

Team                    Q1      Q2      Q3      Q4      Final
Collingwood Magpies     6.3     8.8     10.12   13.13   91
Carlton Blues           2.2     6.3     7.7     11.10   76 

In many ways, the game didn't make sense. The first quarter did: we dominated the stats and saw a reward for effort on the scoreboard. But at game's end, we had dominated the stats (disposals 394-337, tackles 91-60, I50 56-45, 1% 60-47) yet barely squeaked home by 15 points. I'm sure we didn't make our line.

On the basis of the first quarter, one could have hoped for a 100-point victory; but, with a few exceptions, the Pies did not deliver quality after the break.

Newbies

Some amount of time must be allowed for new players to slot into the team and learn how to play with the others. Pendlebury and Swan seem to have an understanding. Of course, the epitome was the Krakouer brothers at North Melbourne. They had an uncanny knack of finding each other.

But how long is reasonable?

Earlier in the year, I bagged Young. It seems to me that over the past month he has come good. The real measure is the swing between best and worst. Earlier on he was making lots of mistakes. Now he has eliminated most of the really bad. As a result he is a nett contributor.

There are some players who make your heart sink when they take possession. Simon Buckley in the year before he left Collingwood was like that. Sure, he could kick it a country mile. But you just never knew where he was going to kick it. Cloke, when his kicking was woeful, is another example. But lately, Cloke has been kicking with a new-found je ne sais quoi, and as a result, an uncharacteristic accuracy. Even his misses are now forgivable.

This year, two players have made it into the Simon Buckley class: Langdon and Adams. They rack up lots of possessions (more's the pity); but their decision making and execution are wildly erratic. Such players are ditherers. It's not just that their decision making can at times be excruciating. They also camp with the ball, sometimes with false starts, while they contemplate their options, finally choosing badly. Or they choose the option that was right several seconds ago, the moment lost with the ever-changing patterns in front of them. In the midfield, they disrupt the rhythm and flow of our forward thrusts - vastly more than the odd adverse umpiring decision. In defence, they are a disaster-in-waiting.

Sometimes, a good player pauses with the ball, but, as with Cloke, you just feel that things are different, that he is not dithering; rather he is reading those patterns and anticipating an opportunity - as, so often, he does.

Thankfully, Langdon didn't play against Carlton. In this jaundiced viewer's opinion, Collingwood can ill-afford to play Langdon in defence alongside other newbies. If we had Reid, Brown and Maxwell back, they could keep Langdon on the straight and narrow. But Keeffe and Frost, for all the good work they are doing, are full-time on their own games; they don't have the wherewithal to be playing nanny to Langdon.

Langdon is inexperienced; his peccadilloes are understandable (if hard to forgive). But my understanding was that Adams came from GWS as a ready-made player. I don't think so. I'm not impressed with Adams's 26 possessions because he butchers the ball. Not always, but enough to make him notoriously erratic.

How long is reasonable?

Exacerbating the situation is the plethora of statistics we now drown in. The Footy Bogan is not immune to this phenomenon. Watching a game a few weeks ago, I thought both at the ground and in replay that Goldsack had played an influential game. When I went to look at his stats, he was well down the list of disposals. I could feel doubts creeping in.

But a mindless reading of the raw stats overlooks the effectiveness of each possession. Surely a player who kicks 6 goals from 10 possessions has had a huge influence on the game. And the player who has kicked 6 accurate passes from 10 possessions is not far behind.

What value then the accumulator whose disposal is erratic? The commentators and reporters seem to be impressed solely with the numbers. So they were fulsome in their praise of Adams. Though he did deliver well a couple of times, I think his butchered disposals outweighed the others.

In this, it is important to distinguish types of disposals. A miskick that, by chance, lands in the arms of a team mate may give the supporters joy, but it is no kudos to the player. The Collingwood crowd too often fails to appreciate the pressure on the player with the ball. With an opponent hot on his hammer, a player has to get rid of the ball quickly. But an errant disposal by a player with time and space is an unforced error.

A player in midfield is allowed to try for a risky play in the hope that it will reap rewards. If that fails to come off, I'm disappointed but accept the player's choice. In my view, there are few occasions when risky play in defence is justified. Kicking into the defensive 50 to a player metres in the clear is ok; to a contest is unforgivable.

And then there is the whole panorama of execution.

Fortunately, my example is against Carlton. With 2:46 on the clock, Curnow (Carlton's top disposer) takes a mark just back of the wing. (Interestingly, Bruce - managing what was once said of Yasser Arafat: never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity - says, "Carlton ... with a bit of belief here, I reckon.") Curnow notices a team mate (Kade Simpson) clear at CHB, arms outstretched imploringly. The nearest Pie is 12m distant and running away. The idea is spot-on; the execution, not so much. I watched it frame by frame. As Curnow turns 90 degrees to his right, Kennedy senses the danger (as Dennis often says); maybe; maybe just dumb luck. Before the ball hits Curnow's foot, Kennedy has turned, the gap now about 14m. The kick has to cover about 35m as Simpson moves towards the ball. The play is still on - but the kick is too high. It needed to be a Ben Reid bullet, never more than 3m high. Even so, with perhaps 15m of grass to cover plus the decent from its zenith, and Kennedy still more than 10m distant, it looks like Carlton will get away with it (dodge a different sort of bullet). But no, the ball is still on its upward path! Simpson cannot run forward lest he run under the ball; he can only stand and wait - as both ball and opponent approach. A consequence of the trajectory is that the Carlton player is looking into the lights.

We can calculate the speed of the ball (the acceleration is a known constant); Kennedy's figures could be calculated also. But Carlton supporters must have thought they were witnessing a train wreck. The director cuts to a close-up. Kennedy is 2m from Simpson but the ball is not in frame. Now it is, dropping almost vertically (not like a Reid pass). Simpson can only stand and wait; Kennedy bears down on him. Even if the ball misses him, he knows that Kennedy won't; contact is inevitable. Now he tries to jump up towards the ball; Kennedy also begins to leave the ground. Perhaps it will be a 3-way collision. There's still separation between players; the ball 1m above. Now 30cm, Simpson's hands, Kennedy's fist. It is a 3-way collision, Simpson's movement is downward, the ball's is downward, but the fist has substantial lateral momentum. The fist wins! The Carlton player is actually moving backwards; Kennedy forwards, the ball now in front of him. The distance between the players is over a metre and increasing. Kennedy has a couple of steps to steady as the ball runs away, Kennedy in hot pursuit, Simpson now completely out of the play. A couple of steps more and Kennedy is in a position to pick up the ball as Sidebottom cruises past. Sidebottom runs to 50 and kicks towards a vacant goal square. The ball dribbles through. This time, Bruce gets it right: "Such a slow, terrible kick." Game over.

If you want an idea of what quick movement looks like, watch a passage in the last quarter, 17m on the countdown clock. Pendlebury kicks in (a torp?) after a Carlton behind. Toovey marks and gives by hand to Kennedy running past. (In frame, Josh Thomas can be seen inboard and slightly behind Kennedy.) Kennedy fumbles, regains possession running towards the square, handpasses over the top to Lumumba, quickly forward by hand to Josh Thomas who kicks into F50 for a contested mark by Beams 40 out. Beams duly kicks the goal. The play was all instinct and hard running; not a ditherer in sight. No Carlton player came close to getting a hand on the ball from one end of the ground to the other.

Less than 2 minutes later, a passage of play which did not match the first for distance or fluency, but did for instinctive ball movement resulted in a goal to Young.

Such passages were rarely seen after quarter time.

On a brighter note, the aforementioned Keeffe and Frost have done remarkably well. I love that guys like Dwyer, Thomas, Kennedy don't try to do too much. They look for a senior (Pendles, Swan, Sidey, Beams) to hand off to.

Elliott is in a class of his own: he has become elite in what seems to be no time at all. This game was not representative as he was subbed out early, apparently injured.

The wrap

Of course any win over Carlton is to be savoured, but each week we look for signs, and each week the signs do not look promising. I don't rate Carlton this year and neither does Mick, so a 15-point win don't amount to a hill of beans in this town (Casablanca, I think).

Sources

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5882
http://afltables.com/afl/stats/games/2014/030420140629.html