KohPhi
Brownlow Medallist
- Jul 24, 2015
- 23,372
- 94,101
- AFL Club
- Carlton
- Thread starter
- #276
One player that I thought was hard done by was Ricky Mott. Only played 2 games for Carlton and was, I think, hard done by. Never thought he was going to be a world beater but I think our coach at the time - Denis Pagan - made it clear he didn't want him. His first game for Carlton was against St Kilda in Round 10, 2004 (I looked it up as I couldn't remember). I do clearly remember, though, that he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on the bench.
It seemed pretty obvious that Pagan was against him being on the ground. I was sitting high in the stand behind him the bench and, if I recall correctly, he spent much of the second half there and when he came off he never returned that day (looking up the game information I note that that game was also the one where Brendan Fevola spent much of the first quarter at full back being given a lesson in forward play by Fraser Gehrig).
I looked it up and he played again the next week against the Crows in Adelaide and only played 21% of game time. He was no world beater but surely he deserved more game time when the alternative rucks were De Luca, Norman, Prendergast, Whitnall and, I kid you not, Kade Simpson in his fourth game (and first game in which he got a kick - Kade's stats were 6 kicks, 3 marks, 3 handballs. Kicked 1.1 and yes that hit out).
Pagan was like that. We picked up a young ruckman called Lindsay Smith from North. The kid could play a bit. Was really raw, but talented. I remember David Schwarz saying how the kid had towelled up the Demons in the ressies once as a 17 or 18 year old and had a great leap.
Anyway, we trade him in and the following season, we brought in Pagan. I think Smith didn't even last the season.