Coaches’ box – with assistant coach Gavin Crosisca
Carlton v St Kilda, Friday May 4, 7.10pm, Telstra Dome
LESSONS FROM LAST WEEK: We need to get a few more games into our younger players. Last week, our young boys might have made a few errors that cost us a little late in the game and we ended up being overrun by a good quality team that was well-led by some premiership players.
OUR BACKS: The size and shape of our defence will line up quite well against St Kilda’s forwards. The main targets for our defensive six on Friday night is to make sure that we support each other as best we can, both in the air and on the ground.
THEIR FORWARDS: Stephen Milne is obviously their main crumbing goal scorer and we’ll need to control him. However, they seem to have scored mainly through marks or free kicks. I think Justin Koschitzke will start back, but you never know, so we will have to be prepared for him at both ends.
MIDFIELD BATTLE: With Lenny Hayes and Andrew Thompson going out, it takes two quality players from their midfield. Shane Birss, who they recruited from the Western Bulldogs, is a chance to come in. We hope that we’d be competitive against every midfield group we play against.
THE RUCK DUEL: St Kilda have been resting Matthew Clarke on the bench and letting Jason Blake do some ruck work here and there; but he’s also been needed back as well to make up for their injured key defenders. Michael Rix can play ruck or go forward so they still have a little depth there; it just depends on whether they bring in anyone new.
OUR FORWARDS: St Kilda really push their numbers up when the opposition has got the footy, so they might try and squeeze the game up a little bit and congest our forward line. If that is the case we are still going to play our game and get the ball in their quickly and give ‘Fev’ and Josh Kennedy a chance to mark it.
THEIR BACKS: The St Kilda defence has not been weakened, just cut down in size. Robert Harvey is getting a lot of possessions at half-back and creating some run down there as well. Jason Gram and Brendon Goddard really do zone off their opponent well and support their key defenders.
FINAL THOUGHT: We have got to play exactly like we did against Brisbane last week and really attack them hard and be aggressive at the footy. Our game is a contested brand of footy and the way St Kilda plays is also that. We’ll be trying to make it one on one even if they try and set up some loose men so it will be interesting to see how the various tactics work.
