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Universal Love Steve Silvagni - List Manager Extraordinaire

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ferrisb said:
It's easy to trash people in hindsight, but that was an astonishingly bad review.

We ended with 4 picks in the top 20, which is huge, and have continued to add bonus first rounders each year since (not to be known in 2015).

BUT the main argument was that we weren't ruthless enough; that we should have gone full rebuild and cashed in older stars like Murphy and Gibbs and built around our middle-aged core. The article was wayward here again. Ultimately we took the even more aggressive move.

Instead of cashing in 'oldies', SOS actually admitted our middle-aged core wasn't good enough either and traded out the guts of our emerging talent in Henderson / Menzel / Bell / Yarran in one year (ballsy). SOS had decided a wholesale reset was needed and went about building a new core nucleus at the youngest end of the list.

Two years later, the results are amazing. We still have a bottom-10 list (for 2018). But most of our serious talent is 22 and under, with Docherty (24yo), Plowman (23) and Cripps (22) the 'elder statesmen' of our 'list within a list'.
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Exactly. We trimmed some fat and replaced it with promising youngsters. To add to that, how good have our 'oldies' in Murph, Kade, Kreuz & Gibbs (average of 22 games and 103 SC points for the for as a reference) and how much have we not missed all that 'emerging talent' in Henderson, Bell, Yarran and Menzel (average of 7 games and 48 SC points)?

Trading the likes of Murph AND Gibbs at that time would have been reminiscent of that Melbourne 'rebuild'/demolition. I'm certainly glad we did it the way we did.
 

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Drexl 31 said:
A couple of my Cat mates are disappointed to have lost him. I think the best thing is to not expect too much and he may just surprise.
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I don't have high expectations for him. I feel like it could be another Smedts, I bloody hope My gut feel is way off.
 
BLUEALLTHRU said:
I don't have high expectations for him. I feel like it could be another Smedts, I bloody hope My gut feel is way off.
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He is a big upgrade on Smedts, where he sits in our pecking order is going to be interesting to see.

The old guard Murph and Ed, young guns Crippa, Bam Bam and SPS, Charlie if played there, developing Fisher, Dow, O'Brien, Cuningham and Polson, depth/experienced types Kerridge, Shaw and Graham (have excluded Daisy, Wright, Simmo, Mullett and young Schumacher at this stage), don't discount the outside pace of Garlett and Pickett also playing a part.

I see Lang as a likely, probable best 22, but certainly not a lock given the options and unknown developmental rate of the "kids", as well
as question of role for a few (Williamson springs to mind).
 
See Lang as a walk up start for Carlton come round 1 2018.

Not sure Lang will always be a walk up start (i.e. 2019 onwards) but for 2018 he is a need given the youth we have in the three positions we can expect him to play: HFF/Wing/Midfield.

Geelong have better or at least equal options in those same positions hence them letting him go and he deciding to leave.

Where at Geelong he offers their HFF something but their midfield nothing...at Carlton, he offers us something in both areas.
 
Coona Blues said:
He is a big upgrade on Smedts, where he sits in our pecking order is going to be interesting to see.

The old guard Murph and Ed, young guns Crippa, Bam Bam and SPS, Charlie if played there, developing Fisher, Dow, O'Brien, Cuningham and Polson, depth/experienced types Kerridge, Shaw and Graham (have excluded Daisy, Wright, Simmo, Mullett and young Schumacher at this stage), don't discount the outside pace of Garlett and Pickett also playing a part.

I see Lang as a likely, probable best 22, but certainly not a lock given the options and unknown developmental rate of the "kids", as well
as question of role for a few (Williamson springs to mind).
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Coona if he can't make the best 22 at a developing Blues side then maybe Edithvale-Aspendale(Nepean football league) is his next step,but as I said before I hope he proves me wrong.
 

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BlueRenaissance said:
See Lang as a walk up start for Carlton come round 1 2018.

Not sure Lang will always be a walk up start (i.e. 2019 onwards) but for 2018 he is a need given the youth we have in the three positions we can expect him to play: HFF/Wing/Midfield.

Geelong have better or at least equal options in those same positions hence them letting him go and he deciding to leave.

Where at Geelong he offers their HFF something but their midfield nothing...at Carlton, he offers us something in both areas.
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Agree I think he is a stop gap at best.
 
BLUEALLTHRU said:
I don't have high expectations for him. I feel like it could be another Smedts, I bloody hope My gut feel is way off.
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I'm not expecting him to be in our top 5 or anything crazy but I reckon he walks into our team. He's had some slight consistency issues but I think a lot of that is due to injuries and being played solely as a flanker or small forward more often that not. Seems like he does better work when he's getting a few midfield rotations and playing an outside/goalkicking mid kind of role.

The numbers for his better games are reasonably handy for a guy who was being played as a flanker; into that 20+ disposals, 8-10 contested, 1 or 2 goals, 5 marks, 5 tackles...

I like tackle counts as a bit of an indication that a player runs both ways. Particularly in a more outside player like Lang. An average of 5 is pretty good... drops right into the top 5 of tacklers at Carlton for this year. FWIW Kennedy and Lobbe also make the top 10: Cripps (6), Kreuzer (5.86), Ed (5.08), Lang (5), Samo (4.75), ASOS (4.71), Graham (4.7), Kennedy (4.68), Lobbe (4.63), Kerridge (4.36). Lang's best effort is 11 which is only 2 below our best tackler Cripp's highest count.

Not to mention the Carlton media content I've seen of late he looks really fit and comes across as pretty confident in himself. Remember, he didn't want to leave the Cats last year because he backed himself in to play games there in a much better midfield, so Geelong offered Smedts as a consolation prize, so to speak. Now that the Cats have added Ablett to Danger, the Selwoods, Duncan. Guthrie, Menengola.... you've got to be a pretty special player to make the cut. He's spent a few years learning from a couple of Brownlow medallists which can't hurt and I reckon with the general attitude around PP to back yourself, play to your strengths, etc I think Lang could thrive. Fingers crossed... touch wood... yada yada...
 
watching the Swans v Cats final all i was thinking to myself was, 'Geelong are never going to let Lang go now.'

Not only did they let him go, they basically gave him to us for nothing! A former first round pick who literally just stamped himself on a big final and the Cats hand him over so easily? Had to have something to do with the other deals we made with Geelong.
 
BlueRenaissance said:
See Lang as a walk up start for Carlton come round 1 2018.

Not sure Lang will always be a walk up start (i.e. 2019 onwards) but for 2018 he is a need given the youth we have in the three positions we can expect him to play: HFF/Wing/Midfield.

Geelong have better or at least equal options in those same positions hence them letting him go and he deciding to leave.

Where at Geelong he offers their HFF something but their midfield nothing...at Carlton, he offers us something in both areas.
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he decided to leave, Geelong stuffed him around. The Cats also hanging on to older players didn't help either

he had a cracking Finals game against Richmond
 
CJMB said:
I'm not expecting him to be in our top 5 or anything crazy but I reckon he walks into our team. He's had some slight consistency issues but I think a lot of that is due to injuries and being played solely as a flanker or small forward more often that not. Seems like he does better work when he's getting a few midfield rotations and playing an outside/goalkicking mid kind of role.

The numbers for his better games are reasonably handy for a guy who was being played as a flanker; into that 20+ disposals, 8-10 contested, 1 or 2 goals, 5 marks, 5 tackles...

I like tackle counts as a bit of an indication that a player runs both ways. Particularly in a more outside player like Lang. An average of 5 is pretty good... drops right into the top 5 of tacklers at Carlton for this year. FWIW Kennedy and Lobbe also make the top 10: Cripps (6), Kreuzer (5.86), Ed (5.08), Lang (5), Samo (4.75), ASOS (4.71), Graham (4.7), Kennedy (4.68), Lobbe (4.63), Kerridge (4.36). Lang's best effort is 11 which is only 2 below our best tackler Cripp's highest count.

Not to mention the Carlton media content I've seen of late he looks really fit and comes across as pretty confident in himself. Remember, he didn't want to leave the Cats last year because he backed himself in to play games there in a much better midfield, so Geelong offered Smedts as a consolation prize, so to speak. Now that the Cats have added Ablett to Danger, the Selwoods, Duncan. Guthrie, Menengola.... you've got to be a pretty special player to make the cut. He's spent a few years learning from a couple of Brownlow medallists which can't hurt and I reckon with the general attitude around PP to back yourself, play to your strengths, etc I think Lang could thrive. Fingers crossed... touch wood... yada yada...
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it isn't always true though, you need players close to tackle and some teams set ups don't allow for players to be tackled as often. Some teams rather guard space than actually try for a tackle
 

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I don't think Lang will be any good, might be like a Kerridge where you can never fully feel safe with the ball in his hands.

Happy to be proved wrong though
 
I have Lang in the starting 18 of our Best 22 on the wing, rotating into the center square first change with Kennedy and SPS (I would start Cripps, Murphy and Ed in the square).

Next tier is Fisher, Cuningham, Williamson, Charlie (if we play him in midfield), Pickett, Garlett.

We’ll see where Dow, O’Brien and Polson fit.
 
GapInIkonPark said:
I have Lang in the starting 18 of our Best 22 on the wing, rotating into the center square first change with Kennedy and SPS (I would start Cripps, Murphy and Ed in the square).

Next tier is Fisher, Cuningham, Williamson, Charlie (if we play him in midfield), Pickett, Garlett.

We’ll see where Dow, O’Brien and Polson fit.
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I think you and I are on exactly the same page here, GIIP.
 
My name geoff said:
watching the Swans v Cats final all i was thinking to myself was, 'Geelong are never going to let Lang go now.'

Not only did they let him go, they basically gave him to us for nothing! A former first round pick who literally just stamped himself on a big final and the Cats hand him over so easily? Had to have something to do with the other deals we made with Geelong.
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I wonder if Smedts stamped himself on any games whilst at Geelong.
 

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Universal Love Steve Silvagni - List Manager Extraordinaire

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