Carlton Supporters Club

Someone will need to come in for Durdin but it wont be like for like.

Historically Marshall has dominated Pitto, and Marshall is in good form, was among the BoG against the Cats and ripped Stanley a new one.

By comparison the Williams ruck duo were non-events, Bailey Williams got some taps but taps as always are mostly over-rated, and Bailey Williams had near zero other influence which left Pitto to dominate.

Marshall wins taps, gets around the field and puts in big on 2nd efforts, Pitto is going to need a bit more than superficial help this week.

Ross Lyon is going to do what any coach would do, which is to do everything in his power to get a win. You can't dog him for that. The Saints are a much tougher outfit than WC, and we'll get a good read on where we're at after this game.

Earlier in the year, pre the slide of the last 6-7 weeks and pre key injuries, I'm confident we would have swatted them away like flies. This week is a different proposition. Its this which irks me most.

No doubt. But I think all the top teams have had a few weeks of poor form. Ours has come, along with injuries, at "a most inopportune time."

Williams is a undersized ruckman who is really a KP Forward by trade and has been forced to play ruck, Pitto was ok but a dominant game from Pitto is hardly anywhere near a dominant game from TDK who  would have had 50 hitouts and 30 posessions vs WC and that would be on one leg.
Chris Scott virtually conceded Geelong were going to get flogged in the ruck and Marshall would dominate but implied they had planned for it, turned out it wasnt much of a plan and I think we need to do same but with a better plan than Geelong which I think  we can implement with our better and deeper midfield group.
Wilkie will get his 10 intercept marks if we keep bombing it long to nothing and Id be more interested in Kemp playing on him and preventing that happening and the associated rebound that he creates. Dont expect Kemp to kick another four goals but preventing Wilkie dominating will go a long way towards winning the game.
We also need to tag Sinclair, it will be a travesty seeing him rack up another 30 disposals without much effort like he usually does..

Bailey Williams has rucked for his entire AFL career, is the same size as Tom De Koning and is just a shade smaller than Pitto.  He is ranked one spot behind De Koning for hitouts this season.  He was ranked 11th in the competition for hitouts last season, one place ahead of Marshall and several ahead of Gawn, Cameron, Xerri and Pitto.  I doubt whether De Koning could have done any better than Pitto against Williams and probably would have conceded more hitouts.  Marshall is a very polished ruckman but it will be a tight contest if Pitto can reproduce the form he showed in Perth.

West Coast won the hitouts but we dominated the clearances.  Geelong smashed St Kilda in hitouts but only just won the clearances, in part because Marshall was more focused on clearances than hitouts.  Our midfield should dominate, even if Marshall gets on top of Pitto in ruck contests.  Pitto's main challenge will be negating Marshall's impact around the ground - and it would be have been nice if we were able to double team Marshall with Pitto and De Koning.

Our smaller forward line forced a change to our inside 50s and there weren't many long bombs ... that Kemp didn't mark 

The St Kilda brainstrust will be studying footage of our game to find a way to stop Kemp.  He is just that bit different to most key forwards in that he plays like a defender, is good beneath his knees and is a very good mark.  I'd bring Lemmey in this week to give them someone else to worry about.

I expect that they will also be concerned about Cripps, Hewett, Weitering, Newman, Acres, Hollands X 2, Walsh and Owies. 

Bailey Williams has rucked for his entire AFL career, is the same size as Tom De Koning and is just a shade smaller than Pitto.  He is ranked one spot behind De Koning for hitouts this season.  He was ranked 11th in the competition for hitouts last season, one place ahead of Marshall and several ahead of Gawn, Cameron, Xerri and Pitto.  I doubt whether De Koning could have done any better than Pitto against Williams and probably would have conceded more hitouts.  Marshall is a very polished ruckman but it will be a tight contest if Pitto can reproduce the form he showed in Perth.

West Coast won the hitouts but we dominated the clearances.  Geelong smashed St Kilda in hitouts but only just won the clearances, in part because Marshall was more focused on clearances than hitouts.  Our midfield should dominate, even if Marshall gets on top of Pitto in ruck contests.  Pitto's main challenge will be negating Marshall's impact around the ground - and it would be have been nice if we were able to double team Marshall with Pitto and De Koning.

Pitto had 9 HTA
Williams x2 combined for 11, but had an extra 28 ruck contests between them to get those extra 2.

Pitto had 8 clearances himself, only outdone by Cripps (10) who ironically, got himself a few extra by grabbing it out of the ruck!
Williams x2 only managed 3 between them, again with 28 extra ruck contests.

Nobody doubts TDK athletic ability, especially compared to Pitto.
However, if you look at the numbers, the point about TDK offering more on the ground is a bit of a myth as Pitto has him (and almost all rucks) covered for clearances.