Play Nice The 'all things Carlton' mega-thread

[HBF]

Your board for one.

LOL!
I'd be more concerned about whats going on at your footy club at the moment.

 

[Gethelred]

There have been many posters share their two bobs worth but if it's not highly optimistic about the direction in which Carlton are heading they are either nuffies or trolls and have no idea what they are talking about.

My objection with this thread has rather consistently been that it's always the same criticisms that resurface, over and over again.

GWS multiplayer picks.
List is rubbish
You did this to yourself
Recycled ex-AFL players can't hack it
SOS is s**t at list management

Look, I keep coming in here for several reasons, one of which is to read honest appraisals of where Carlton are at, and how others feel we're going, and in a sense each of these points could have merit if they were presented in the right way. The problem is that, most of the time, they really aren't, penned by people with opinions over knowledge, and a deliberate ignorance of posts older than the one they just penned. If they were actually willing to form part of a discussion, then addressing the counterarguments for each of these - as have been put forward at various different times by various different people - would form a substantial component to a valid criticism, but that isn't happening. Hell, a substantial post with a lot to work with was hand-waved as merely too long to bother arguing with. In this case, these people either do not have any idea what they're talking about, whether they're serious about what they're saying or not, or they are unwilling to learn a little more in order to contribute.

Fadge, you've a few likes out of me in here, when your posts are less frustrated and more deliberate. You can surely see that some of the posts in here, espousing pro or anti Carlton views, are just trolling.

 

[gbatman]

Too long, that's funny, some people read books, actual books and newspapers, some people read news papers and long articles within them. If what I wrote is too long then that says more about the complainer really. Let's face it, the Carlton story is a long one and one which might be worth ignoring if it doesn't fit your agenda or past comments. This situation Carlton are in goes back to the late 90s and all the half arsed attempts since then to fix it.

It's funny when you have an argument based on agenda or emotion and the facts just destroy all of that, easy to ignore those facts I think.

The whole SOS/Bolton are doing a bad job because they haven't been able to rebuild an entire AFL list with no extra assistance in 3 years argument is the funniest thing. The answer is basic maths and an understanding of the game and player development. The argument that they didn't have to fully rebuild is laughable.

There are always going to be clubs getting themselves in bad situations, seems to have been the case forever. It takes a hell of a lot to get out of that.

The hard part in all of this is the AFL recognising this and recognising that the current system is broken and heavily in favor of top clubs (particularly Victorian ones) and players.

The ironic part is that one of the AFL's personal little projects is getting reamed over the very system the AFL has created. GCS losing players to free agency and free agency pressure and players seemingly allowed to walk to where every they wish. GWS starting to struggle with player retention despite being a strong club. This kind of thing, bottom clubs staying bottom clubs for far too long. Top clubs able to remain top clubs by regular restocking programs. I doubt the AFL will want this and will be interesting to see how long they put up with it.

Carlton , St Kilda, GCS, Brisbane over the years. You look at how many good players they need to be decent or a contender and how many genuine opportunities they get to get those good players. It doesn't add up. At least it doesn't add up if you want things to be done in a reasonable timeframe.

Carlton have done well trading to get extra picks and rebuilding through the draft. These young guys take 3-5 years to make an impact but it gives Carlton a very long timeframe to rebuild. AS bad as Carlton are now, they may be a 6 or 7 year build to being premiership contenders.

You consider to be a contender you need 25-30 pretty good AFL players and some genuine stars in the best 22.

6 years = 18 good draft picks and trades more or less if you are considering you might average 3 good players per season without a PP. Having all those players be in that 22-28 year old age bracket is they key. Carlton are actually probably ahead of this considering they have traded for extra draft picks and the couple of good players who were there at the start who will be there at the end.

If Carlton went the quick fix and started bringing in older players then there was never a chance they would build a side that would be a contender. Players have to be there when the time is right and if you're going to rebuild through the draft and trade out good older players like Gibbs for Good 18 year olders then you are going to suck for a good few years before things come right.

 

[blitzer]

Too long, that's funny, some people read books, actual books and newspapers, some people read news papers and long articles within them. If what I wrote is too long then that says more about the complainer really. Let's face it, the Carlton story is a long one and one which might be worth ignoring if it doesn't fit your agenda or past comments. This situation Carlton are in goes back to the late 90s and all the half arsed attempts since then to fix it.

It's funny when you have an argument based on agenda or emotion and the facts just destroy all of that, easy to ignore those facts I think.

The whole SOS/Bolton are doing a bad job because they haven't been able to rebuild an entire AFL list with no extra assistance in 3 years argument is the funniest thing. The answer is basic maths and an understanding of the game and player development. The argument that they didn't have to fully rebuild is laughable.

There are always going to be clubs getting themselves in bad situations, seems to have been the case forever. It takes a hell of a lot to get out of that.

The hard part in all of this is the AFL recognising this and recognising that the current system is broken and heavily in favor of top clubs (particularly Victorian ones) and players.

The ironic part is that one of the AFL's personal little projects is getting reamed over the very system the AFL has created. GCS losing players to free agency and free agency pressure and players seemingly allowed to walk to where every they wish. GWS starting to struggle with player retention despite being a strong club. This kind of thing, bottom clubs staying bottom clubs for far too long. Top clubs able to remain top clubs by regular restocking programs. I doubt the AFL will want this and will be interesting to see how long they put up with it.

Carlton , St Kilda, GCS, Brisbane over the years. You look at how many good players they need to be decent or a contender and how many genuine opportunities they get to get those good players. It doesn't add up. At least it doesn't add up if you want things to be done in a reasonable timeframe.

Carlton have done well trading to get extra picks and rebuilding through the draft. These young guys take 3-5 years to make an impact but it gives Carlton a very long timeframe to rebuild. AS bad as Carlton are now, they may be a 6 or 7 year build to being premiership contenders.

You consider to be a contender you need 25-30 pretty good AFL players and some genuine stars in the best 22.

6 years = 18 good draft picks and trades more or less if you are considering you might average 3 good players per season without a PP. Having all those players be in that 22-28 year old age bracket is they key. Carlton are actually probably ahead of this considering they have traded for extra draft picks and the couple of good players who were there at the start who will be there at the end.

If Carlton went the quick fix and started bringing in older players then there was never a chance they would build a side that would be a contender. Players have to be there when the time is right and if you're going to rebuild through the draft and trade out good older players like Gibbs for Good 18 year olders then you are going to suck for a good few years before things come right.

Arguing list demographics is good and all. Nobody can dispute that in a few years time Carlton will have a ton of high draft picks in their prime age. However the flipside of that is that most of their high draft picks aren't performing well at all so far. If I looked at Brisbane's young players they are absolutely destroying their Carlton counterparts both building from a similar position. They are also showing the kind of progression that people expect year on year from a complete rebuild (improving their percentage and being more competitive now).

For perspective Carlton won just 2 games this year which is one of the worst wooden spoon performances in recent history. Essendon with our senior players our suspended still won 3 games and that was in Worsfold's first year of coaching. Bolton has had 3 so far and still has yet to implement a system which shows promise out on the field. Bolton is in the top 10 for worst coaching win rates after 3 seasons of footy which is not something you can brush aside.

Having a vision is great but if you don't develop that vision in the right way with the right pieces it is all for naught.

 

[Worm4]

Arguing list demographics is good and all. Nobody can dispute that in a few years time Carlton will have a ton of high draft picks in their prime age. However the flipside of that is that most of their high draft picks aren't performing well at all so far. If I looked at Brisbane's young players they are absolutely destroying their Carlton counterparts both building from a similar position. They are also showing the kind of progression that people expect year on year from a complete rebuild (improving their percentage and being more competitive now).

For perspective Carlton won just 2 games this year which is one of the worst wooden spoon performances in recent history. Essendon with our senior players our suspended still won 3 games and that was in Worsfold's first year of coaching. Bolton has had 3 so far and still has yet to implement a system which shows promise out on the field. Bolton is in the top 10 for worst coaching win rates after 3 seasons of footy which is not something you can brush aside.

Having a vision is great but if you don't develop that vision in the right way with the right pieces it is all for naught.

You shouldn't even bother comparing Essendons spoon year with Carltons. Essendon didnt have a dozen or so under 21 kids playing all year like Carlton did . The comparisons are not similar at all.

 

[footyfan1978]

Too long, that's funny, some people read books, actual books and newspapers, some people read news papers and long articles within them. If what I wrote is too long then that says more about the complainer really. Let's face it, the Carlton story is a long one and one which might be worth ignoring if it doesn't fit your agenda or past comments. This situation Carlton are in goes back to the late 90s and all the half arsed attempts since then to fix it.

You not wrong. 1996 is the real sliding doors moment imho.
We got a quality list then but so many closer to the end. How did you replace them if you in charge ?
We had zero plan at that time and took until end of 2015 to take list management through drafting and salary caps as seriously as they needed to be seen.

 

[gbatman]

You not wrong. 1996 is the real sliding doors moment imho.
you got a quality list but so many closer to the end. How did you replace them ?
We had zero plan at that time and took until end of 2015 to take list management through drafting and salary caps as seriously as they needed to be seen.

Our drafting through the late 90s was as bad as ever, we were lucky in some regard those gun players we had back then all played for so long and were so good. We were a good side in 1999 and 2000 but it was off the back of them and Whitnall who was a father son. Sure there were some good ones we drafted but not many.

People undervalue the importance of leadership at a club. The mature strong minded players at a club run the show and dictate the culture.

You bring in talent to a club that has no leadership and you end up with players who get by on talent alone. Usually lack effort and toughness. This is what Ratten had to deal with as coach. Ratten put up with it I feel but Malthouse didn't and s**t just hit the fan which needed to happen.

When those guys from the 90's retired in the early 2000's we had no leadership and the culture went off the rails. Bring in high draft picks but they just didn't develop at the club because of that. Fair to say guys like Gibbs, Murphy, Fevola, Yarran, Waite etc all had problems with not being tough enough, disciplined enough and doing 1%ers like applying pressure. Things they wouldn't get away with at strongly led clubs.

The only way to fix that is to get rid of the players who won't comply which Malthouse started and SOS/Bolton have continued on in much better fashion. Clean the slate, bring in young and impressionable players and find mature players who bring good culture to the club. Have a strict no dickheads drafting policy and only recruit kids with good heads on their shoulders for a few years.

Now sometimes finding those players who bring professionalism and good culture means bringing in players who aren't that good like Kerridge. Kerridge strikes me as a hard worker and level headed player but his footy skills aren't great. All the same good guy to have around young and impressionable youngsters.

 

[HairyO]

You shouldn't even bother comparing Essendons spoon year with Carltons. Essendon didnt have a dozen or so under 21 kids playing all year like Carlton did . The comparisons are not similar at all.

So compare to Brisbane then.

Which was the other half of his.post you ignored.

 

[footyfan1978]

When those guys from the 90's retired in the early 2000's we had no leadership and the culture went off the rails.

That's the thing that always annoyed me at the time. We had no plan to replace them. NONE!!! Zilch.
We just let guns retire and you trying to replace them with pick 60's and 70's is just no plan at all.
Should have been trading some good players out around 27 to 30 years of age whilst got some currency and got some early draft picks to get some young guns in but did no such thing. We let a whole host of players retire with nothing in return. You let a few retire, but not every bloody one. From vague recall, if anything we were trading away early picks for guys like Mansfield and O'Reilly. Also doing dumb things like Mick McGuane. It was all over the place with no plan. No strategy. Was incredible. Salary cap nonsense by Elliott just icing on the cake of complete and utter stupidity. Two decades to learn some lessons. Appointing Malthouse was just WTF for me to see go on. Thank * for last 3 years of a plan.

 

[ItsAllAboutMe]

That's the thing that always annoyed me at the time. We had no plan to replace them. NONE!!! Zilch.
We just let guns retire and you trying to replace them with pick 60's and 70's is just no plan at all.
Should have been trading some good players out around 27 to 30 years of age whilst got some currency and got some early draft picks to get some young guns in but did no such thing. We let a whole host of players retire with nothing in return. You let a few retire, but not every bloody one. From vague recall, if anything we were trading away early picks for guys like Mansfield and O'Reilly. Also doing dumb things like Mick McGuane. It was all over the place with no plan. No strategy. Was incredible. Salary cap nonsense by Elliott just icing on the cake of complete and utter stupidity. Two decades to learn some lessons. Appointing Malthouse was just WTF for me to see go on. Thank **** for last 3 years of a plan.

F@rk that, would have hated seeing Bradley, Ratten, SOS etc wearing any jumper other than Navy Blue.

 

[footyfan1978]

F@rk that, would have hated seeing Bradley, Ratten, SOS etc wearing any jumper other than Navy Blue.

ha ha. Would not trade those guys. The Christou's, Sexton's, Hanna's, Brown etc etc should have been the types to trade. We did nothing of the sort though. Just let a zillion good players retire for nothing. In the 80's we were not so shy, there was no picks back then but not scared to let Marcou, Wow, McConville, Sheldon etc etc goto Saints via transfer fees.

 

[Rusty_lucas]

So compare to Brisbane then.

Which was the other half of his.post you ignored.

over the last 3 seasons, Carlton have won more games than Brisbane.

Progression is not always linear.

I dont think anyone will argue that carltons season was as poor as you can get, however brisbane only won 5 games with relatively full seasons from beams, zorko, Martin and others while carlton were missing docherty (full season) murphy and kruezer (most of the season)

Having their mature leaders play the full season would have helped.

We will have to wait until next year to see where both teams are at

 

[gbatman]

Arguing list demographics is good and all. Nobody can dispute that in a few years time Carlton will have a ton of high draft picks in their prime age. However the flipside of that is that most of their high draft picks aren't performing well at all so far. If I looked at Brisbane's young players they are absolutely destroying their Carlton counterparts both building from a similar position. They are also showing the kind of progression that people expect year on year from a complete rebuild (improving their percentage and being more competitive now).

For perspective Carlton won just 2 games this year which is one of the worst wooden spoon performances in recent history. Essendon with our senior players our suspended still won 3 games and that was in Worsfold's first year of coaching. Bolton has had 3 so far and still has yet to implement a system which shows promise out on the field. Bolton is in the top 10 for worst coaching win rates after 3 seasons of footy which is not something you can brush aside.

Having a vision is great but if you don't develop that vision in the right way with the right pieces it is all for naught.

Lions were impressive in the second half of this season but they have been rebuilding for ever and ever yet they are only marginally ahead. I think Brisbane's second half was mostly due to a good run of player retention (finally) and bringing in some mature aged talent. I think they are ahead of Carlton but only marginally. Can Carlton match their season and have 5 wins next year? I think so but it might be a struggle if the injury toll is the same.

Players in their first 3 years at the Carlton, the ones who played and weren't injured all seemed to progress this season even though the team didn't. Weitering had his moments where he struggled but he has had a change of role progressing into a key position and didn't take well to it initially but finished strong. Dow and O'Brien played most of the season and exceeded expectation, which I think any first year player who does so exceeds expectation if they play. Silvagni has been shuffled all around the place and has stagnated a little. Petrevski-Seton made some small improvements but isn't quite there for the rigors of midfield play yet as expected but still improved a lot IMO. Kennedy didn't have a run at it at all. McKay came on in leaps and bounds. DeKoning came on strong and impressed in his two AFL games. Marchbank was injured a lot then worked his way back to playing good football. Fisher exceeded expectations and killed it but missed a lot. Macreadie was injured or coming back from injury in the VFL all year. Cuningham was mostly injured. Polson came on slowly and gradually improved to finish strongly. Curnow played well consistently. Williamson never played through injury. Pickett keeps getting injured and couldn't seem to get fit. Kerr came on and improved but didn't play a lot due to others above him. Byrne finished the season ok after being injured a lot.

I wouldn't say Brisbane's young players are destroying it but they certainly have some impressive players. I think with both Brisbane and Essendon in that scenario is a better run with injuries and more quality senior players in the side is probably what separates the sides. Carlton have not chased quality senior players yet. They have waited until senior players in the right age group have appeared. There's no doubt that has held the team back from winning and you could argue that's a bad thing but I don't think it is. Long term it will be the right thing to do.

Getting good quick, getting back to winning quick definitely has not taken priority over building a list with quality depth.

I think Carlton are under pressure over the next two years to bring in players who will make an immediate impact along with more youth.

I think Carlton have set their list up to open their salary cap right up to take in high profile players, it's just whether those players want to come.

Silvagni Arrived and these senior players went out: Andrew Walker, Bryce Gibbs, Chris Judd, Chris Yarran, Lachie Henderson, Dennis Armfield, Tom Bell, Andrejs Everitt, Michael Jamison, Zach Tuohy, Simon White, Andrew Carrazzo and David Ellard. Pretty all much been replaced with young players from the draft and other clubs. It's a lot of senior players to lose. Some aren't great players but they are still senior players and all for various reasons had to go.

I mean you lose Gibbs, Murphy for more than half a season and Dochery for a season. Add Cripps and that's Carlton's best 4. You'd have to be some kind of special to think Carlton aren't going to go backwards from there let alone having so many missing games from your more talented youngsters. The marginal improvement from Carlton's young players doesn't make up for those losses. You take 3 of the best 4 out of any side and they slide a long way, what happens if you are already a bottom side?

The coaching I'm not worried about. I've seen bolton handle Hawthorn and Carlton when we fielded half competitive sides and things looked really good. It's just about execution at this stage and that's falling down as you might expect.

Win two games, three games of four games. It's all much of a muchness really. It's all pretty low results. It's about how you build your side. Will these sides build a team that can win a flag or will they build a side that wins 12 or 14 games and that's the ceiling?

Silvagni went tall in his first draft, can't expect much of an impact from that and picked up talls ever since. Targeted some midfielders the last couple of drafts but inside mids take as long as talls in modern footy to develop these days. I've seen where a lot of early developing footballers end up over the years and it can be pretty damn underwhelming.

 

[Bulldog1954]

Lions were impressive in the second half of this season but they have been rebuilding for ever and ever yet they are only marginally ahead. I think Brisbane's second half was mostly due to a good run of player retention (finally) and bringing in some mature aged talent. I think they are ahead of Carlton but only marginally. Can Carlton match their season and have 5 wins next year? I think so but it might be a struggle if the injury toll is the same.

I'm not sure it's just about matching their win tally next year. Brisbane had a percentage of roughly 90%, Carlton had a percentage of roughly 60%. This is a huge difference. No doubt Brisbane had a much better run with injuries, but I think Carlton are at least a couple of years away from where Brisbane are now. As I have said before, I admire the optimism of some Carlton fans, but even with the injury list and the age of the side, 2 wins and 60% was a really poor result. Carlton have some talented youth, but I don't think their youth is anymore talented then quite a few sides and Murphy, Kreuzer and Simpson are still amongst the best few players at the club. It's definitely going to be a long rebuild, which most Carlton fans seem to recognise.

 

[JohnnyFontane90]

I'm not sure it's just about matching their win tally next year. Brisbane had a percentage of roughly 90%, Carlton had a percentage of roughly 60%. This is a huge difference. No doubt Brisbane had a much better run with injuries, but I think Carlton are at least a couple of years away from where Brisbane are now. As I have said before, I admire the optimism of some Carlton fans, but even with the injury list and the age of the side, 2 wins and 60% was a really poor result. Carlton have some talented youth, but I don't think their youth is anymore talented then quite a few sides and Murphy, Kreuzer and Simpson are still amongst the best few players at the club. It's definitely going to be a long rebuild, which most Carlton fans seem to recognise.

carlton fans are unanimously behind the aggressive rebuild path the club has chosen because we all understand where the list was at at the end of 2015. this thread is mostly about trying to educate opposition fans of that situation and that 'sign better players' isn't a valid criticism right now.

now bolton on the other hand shouldn't be immune from criticism. we all know there were a whole bunch of filler players that were relied upon a lot more than we'd like this year, but even if a player isn't talented they should be able to put in effort and tackling etc which was't consistent at all this season. also he's made some questionable match day selections including things like playing too tall, bringing players back from injury before they were ready etc etc.

but we can't judge a driver on how well he's driving if the car only has 3 wheels. last year you would have said bolton was doing a pretty good job with what he had to work with. this year the sheer volume of injuries crippled anything he could do to the list with probably the least capacity to cope with it in the AFL. carlton dropped 18% from last year but the adelaide crows who were far any away the best team in the afl last year had an injury run like ours and dropped 32% this year.

recently the bulldogs and melbourne undertook the same style aggressive rebuild. but the difference between them and carlton is that bolton wants to play hawthorn and west coast style ball control type marking game as opposed to the modern trendy richmond, melbourne, collingwood, bulldogs 'small ball' type game. this game style requires strong key position play. all the key position players that will be used in this system had to be acquired when sos got there so all the early pics they had be used on talls. the next 2 drafts were used to acquire ground level players. there simply hasn't been enough time to fill all the positions on the list with enough talented players yet for this this to be a functioning team. by the end of this trade period there should be a big enough base for bolton to start to implement his system and the team should start to improve. if next season we're sitting at 2-10 at the half way point then we can start to seriously question if bolton is the man for the job or if the task is too great for him. but until then, as disappointing as this season has been he's been too handicapped by players available to him to make any rash decisions about his future just yet.

 

[Gethelred]

Arguing list demographics is good and all. Nobody can dispute that in a few years time Carlton will have a ton of high draft picks in their prime age. However the flipside of that is that most of their high draft picks aren't performing well at all so far. If I looked at Brisbane's young players they are absolutely destroying their Carlton counterparts both building from a similar position. They are also showing the kind of progression that people expect year on year from a complete rebuild (improving their percentage and being more competitive now).

The issue there is, if you rewound the clock 8 months - just before this season began - you would not have been saying that, at all.

Name the kids that haven't improved on our list, let alone 'most of [the] high draft picks'. Improvement versus Brisbane's list isn't a good measuring stick, as a)they've been at their rebuild for a year longer than we have, b) you're requiring improvement to be linear, when it nearly never is.

And Brisbane had a single best 22 player out all season in Cameron, and have an actual home ground advantage up there at the Gabba. They had a great season, but even with all that they still came bottom 4, exactly what we did 2018-17.

In fairness, you cannot really equate our year with theirs, because it ignores the serious differences in our seasons (as in, you know, the fact that at any point you care to select during the season we had roughly a third of our list out to injury).

For perspective Carlton won just 2 games this year which is one of the worst wooden spoon performances in recent history. Essendon with our senior players our suspended still won 3 games and that was in Worsfold's first year of coaching. Bolton has had 3 so far and still has yet to implement a system which shows promise out on the field. Bolton is in the top 10 for worst coaching win rates after 3 seasons of footy which is not something you can brush aside.

Having a vision is great but if you don't develop that vision in the right way with the right pieces it is all for naught.

Worsfold cluttered up the back half of the ground, using what decent players you had to make it harder to score whilst leaving Daniher out the back to kick a few cheapies. We're very familiar with the effectiveness of this at stopping the bleeding, because that was our gameplan in 2016-17. And you still only won a single game more than we did.

And, again, you couldn't have said that eight months ago. I really do lament the short memories people have.

Over the three years from 2008-2010, John Worsfold averaged a win/loss ratio of around 25% at WC; are you saying that, because of this, he was done as a coach? From 1980-1982, Alex Jesaulenko won 13 games from 66, was he a bad coach?

Conversely, from 2000-2002, Danny Frawley had 34 wins from 69 games. Does that make him a good coach?

Terry Wallace outlines precisely why measuring any three years from a coach's career is a fraught task. From 97-99, he won 46 games from 72; from 07-09, he won 16 games from 55. Which is he, a good/bad coach?

And, finally, analysing our list or the coaching is a very difficult thing to do when our 22 - outside of the old blokes in Rowe, Simpson, Murphy, Daisy - is very, very young. Average age/game stats are not a good indicator of that for us, because these four players are so much older and have played so much more football than everyone else, it balloons the figure out somewhat.

I'd argue that a coherent gameplan was evident in 2016-17, and in this season we attempted to try to assist in the development of our young KPF and moved the ball a mite faster, which exposed us on turnover. We could've just run our defensive gameplan again - as we did both times against Collingwood - but how does that help us develop?

 

[gbatman]

I'm not sure it's just about matching their win tally next year. Brisbane had a percentage of roughly 90%, Carlton had a percentage of roughly 60%. This is a huge difference. No doubt Brisbane had a much better run with injuries, but I think Carlton are at least a couple of years away from where Brisbane are now. As I have said before, I admire the optimism of some Carlton fans, but even with the injury list and the age of the side, 2 wins and 60% was a really poor result. Carlton have some talented youth, but I don't think their youth is anymore talented then quite a few sides and Murphy, Kreuzer and Simpson are still amongst the best few players at the club. It's definitely going to be a long rebuild, which most Carlton fans seem to recognise.

My time-frame on the rebuild is around 6 or 7 years and it's 3 years in, or it will be after the trade, free agency and draft is done. That's when all players will be in the prime age range and when the club will have had adequate opportunity to rebuild the list.

Carlton are only marginally behind the Lions if at all although don't be surprised if that changes drastically soon. Improvement is not linear, it depends how you go about rebuilding and what luck you have.

Let's say for example you go to Brisbane last year and take their top 4 players and remove 3 of them for this season. Remove 5 of their better youth for half the season and one of their better youth for the whole season. Can you see Brisbane winning a game? I can't. That's what happened at Carlton this year. Do that to Richmond and they struggle to make finals, do that to any other finals side and they probably don't make it. Similar thing happened to Adelaide and they went from runners up to 12th. Carlton went from 16 to 18. So it shouldn't be hard to see why Carlton have seemingly gone backwards. These figures do not count the regular short term injuries throughout the season.

Whether or not Carlton's youth is any good or improving is irrelevant to the ream's fortune as Carlton were never going to go forward under these circumstances.

 

[captain cotch 9]

Carlton have a loosers mentality atm.
"we are s**t so the system is broken"
How about you fight your way out of it....

Cant wait for R1 next year with Lynch to kick 10

 

[Worm4]

Carlton have a loosers mentality atm.
"we are s**t so the system is broken"
How about you fight your way out of it....

Cant wait for R1 next year with Lynch to kick 10

Calling it now - Lynch will be a cancer on Richmond. They dont need him.
The supporters will turn on this bloke within a month

 

[captain cotch 9]

Calling it now - Lynch will be a cancer on Richmond. They dont need him.
The supporters will turn on this bloke within a month

haha ok mate.
The only certainty is that the blues will be win-less in the 1st month.

 

[gbatman]

Carlton have a realistic mentality, they know where they are at, how long it's going to take and what they have to work with.

Carlton are one of many examples of how the system has not been working. There are a lot of clubs who have bottomed out who have taken a long time to get up. Not saying they can't get back up but the time frame to do so is longer than what is good for the clubs and the game.

The system has held Brisbane down for a long time and is tearing the GCS apart as we speak. That's real great for football in QLD...

Carlton have a lot of followers, they'll lose interest in the game, again that's not great for the game either.

Carlton will only be as bad next season if they have a big injury toll again and don't do any good at the trade/free agency game this season. At this stage it doesn't look like Carlton will be losing senior players for once like the last few seasons plus maturity should be kicking in for some. If they don't do any good at trade and free agency I think that's a big whack for the system because Carlton have put some solid work into some good players and have good cap space. If they go to strong clubs then there goes your even playing field.

Time will tell but I would be expecting Carlton to go ahead as long as senior players are retained and injuries aren't as bad although there will be a bit of a changing of the guard in regards to young players being pushed into the places if older ones I feel which does not bring about initial improvement.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Hmmnn ... interesting this thread will not die a natural death.

In my view Carlton has 3 rolled gold stars - Cripps the tall, Docherty and C Curnow. More in fact than the Club I support, which has just one.

One of the chief differences between the Blues and most successful Clubs is recruitment. Hawthorn and to a lesser extent the Swans have achieved rebuilds of their lists in double quick time. Again on Saturday a large slice of the Swans team wil have graduated from the rookie list.

That also relates to another key difference which is development. Both Hawthorn and Sydney (and now Richmond) are the primo developers of what talent they have on their lists. There is no doubt Carlton have picked up talent, but the question remains about how well it is being developed.

Carlton culture continues (as an outsider) to be imbued with the asterisk against the 1995 Flag.

Your Club is lucky to have Bolton but he needs support if Carlton is to survive let alone be seen as a credible Club again.

 

[Worm4]

haha ok mate.
The only certainty is that the blues will be win-less in the 1st month.

Lynch wont kick 10. The dynamic of how Richmond play wont allow it.

 

[captain cotch 9]

Lynch wont kick 10. The dynamic of how Richmond play wont allow it.

Jack kicked 10 a couple of weeks ago

 

[Gethelred]

Carlton have a loosers mentality atm.
"we are s**t so the system is broken"
How about you fight your way out of it....

Cant wait for R1 next year with Lynch to kick 10

You'd have to radically readjust your gameplan to fit him in.

Remember when Riewoldt - of the Nick variety - got badly injured, roundabout round 3-4 in 2010? People thought they - the Saints - would be done, because in his absence their best forward was Milne. Flash forward, and they found ways to score, and doubled down on their defence to confine sides to progressively fewer and fewer goals, meaning they'd have to kick less to win. When Riewoldt came back, it took them 3-5 games to adjust to his presence, and that's a side they built their original gameplan around.

You already have a dominant forward, Jack. How's he going to cope when suddenly you've got a possibly better forward leading into his space, used to being the man in his forward line? How are the coaches, who have trialed 2 talls before only to find themselves inadequate to the task of finding room for them, going to deal with having to deal with two of the things? How on earth will he slot in, when Jack himself these days is playing a dummy FF who's best attribute is that he's smart enough to tap the ball in the right direction for the smalls whilst being eye-catching enough to draw defenders to him at the same time? You'd have a really, really expensive version of Patton, playing Patton's game opposite Jeremy Cameron; how's that working out for GWS?

That aside...

You mean, you're all for the system now it's working for you.

Cheap troll is cheap.