Have opposition clubs worked out how to manipulate Cincotta matchups?

While it certainly worked for Carlton over the course of four or so weeks, Alex Cincotta’s tagging role hasn’t quite gone to plan across the last fortnight.

The Blues have lost their last two matches to GWS and the Bulldogs respectively, raising some concerns about the competition’s second-placed side.

THE AREA OF CONCERN FOR CARLTON THAT WOULD BE “IRKING” MICHAEL VOSS

Since Round 12, Cincotta has done some great jobs on star midfield types such as Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters and Essendon’s Zach Merrett while also restricting the intercepting influence of Geelong’s Tom Stewart and Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin.

However, Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne believes the tagging qualities of Cincotta have not been utilised as best they could against Stephen Coniglio, Marcus Bontempelli and Bailey Dale in recent weeks.

“Probably six or seven weeks ago is when Carlton made the move of Cincotta to start outside centre bounce and then go in to pick up the opposition's best midfielder,” Hoyne said on SEN’s Sportsday.

“It started with Zak Butters on a Thursday night over in Adelaide. He did a really good job and it's been going really well for a four or five-week period, but now the whole competition knows that it's coming.

“For the first time last week against GWS he got a little bit lost. It didn't work against Coniglio when he tried to make that move.

“Then on the weekend, I think that was the biggest one for me over this two-month period of him playing this role. He’s gone to ‘Bont’ (Bontempelli) in the exact same role, starting outside the centre square.

“Bailey Dale is matched up against him at the start of centre bounces, then he goes to Bont and Bailey Dale plays free.

“Dale's first half is ridiculous. Absolutely clearly the best player on the ground. And Bontempelli, who's getting tagged, was still the second best player on the ground.

“Then Cincotta makes the move in the second half, goes off Bont, goes to Bailey Dale because he's been dominant. Dale then has a pretty quiet second half, but the Bulldogs get the job done.”

Hoyne believes that opposition teams are wising up to what Michael Voss is scheming with Cincotta and wonders if the Blues need to revisit what’s best.

He feels that they must work things out in the next week or two before the season truly starts to heat up.

“The whole footy world knows that Carlton have got issues in terms of how they're defending stoppage at the moment,” he added.

“I just wonder whether or not the competition knows that Cincotta is coming to their best midfielder and they can orchestrate it in a way at stoppage to actually manipulate this matchup in a positive way. That is getting significant scoreboard return going against Carlton and going against them the other way.

“So I just wonder whether or not Carlton are going to have to start to look at this over the next six weeks.

“We keep talking about the premiership runway. You've got two weeks to go to get to that situation.

“Whether or not they look at the Bailey Dale situation on the weekend, whether they look at the Tom Stewart move a couple of weeks ago and use Cincotta in this role to negate the opposition's best half-back flanker, as opposed to him going up to stoppage to negate the opposition's best midfielder.”

The Blues will work out what they do with the 29-game Cincotta as they prepare for Sunday’s meeting with North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium.

A win would likely keep them in second spot ahead with third-placed Geelong currently sitting behind them on percentage.

Listen to Full On Footy analysis with Hoyne below: