Going to the match on Thursday night, I was filled with nervous excitement. Into the second part of the first quarter, even though we were well in front, I could see just by looking at the game that we would eventually struggle to win. Sadly, I was proven correct, and it is not something that I will boast about. I was disappointed, saddened, but not surprised. Yet, according to some supporters, this is doom and gloom. That we are going to have a shocker of a season. That it is the coaches’ fault and none other. That we should once again, fire or sack another senior coach because we lost a game that we were touted, supposedly, to win against a team that finished at the bottom of the ladder in 2024. It’s round one, people, not round twelve or eighteen or the season’s last round that could determine where we finally end up at the end of August!
It is so disappointing to see “supporters” continually come out when we lose to lay the blame at the feet of the coaches’ feet, get nasty, and throw vitriol towards them. Then, they turn their attention to players who did not perform. What does this serve in the long term in a season that has just begun? What does it achieve when one week you want to throw eggs and rotten tomatoes at the team and yell at them as they come off the ground, then next week praise them when they might do well?
Judging from the video from Jack Silvagni after the game, the players have taken the blame as they just were not, well, there at every contest. That they fumbled their kicks, hand-passes and game play. However, they know that in one week, this can be turned around. Logic tells us that on paper, we should have thrashed Richmond, but the game is not won on logic or what is written on paper; it is won when the entire team, at every stage of the game, puts every effort into every kick, handball, tackle and mark to get that win. Sometimes, it works; sometimes, it just doesn’t. This does not mean that the team is going backwards or that people need to get the sack; it means that in a season that has another five and half months left, the only reasonable scenario that the team will now focus on is to correct those issues that plagued them on Thursday; and I know that they will. They will be a different team moving forward than they were on Thursday night.
I don’t care what other commentators say about Carlton, good or bad; they are just doing it for clickbait. I have not read and will not read any good, bad or ugly opinions by these commentators. If they say Carlton’s season is over in round one, that is hysterical! If they say, Carlton will flounder in 2025 after one game, that, too, is hysterical. It is the same thing said about Brisbane Lions in 2024. I’m not saying that Carlton will for sure be in the same boat as Brisbane was last year; I’m saying that it’s not the end of the world when we lose a game in round one!
I do not believe the players will accept this game as the benchmark for their season. I believe the players will dig deep moving forward, but it will be not to show the outside world but for themselves. If they dig deep and pull themselves out of Thursday night’s disappointment, then success will be forthcoming, and their actions will prove to the outside world that the team should not be dismissed so cavalierly in their first game for season 2025.
I always am and always will be GO BLUES!
SPORTZ 