Resource Beyond the "66 Game" Rebuild

[Dunna Heartknee]

Malthouse won a premiership with some really top shelf small forwards (Didak, Beams, Sidebottom, Thomas and Davis). What happened at Carlton with the players sooking it up then is the same thing that is happening with the Australian Cricket team right now and Justin Langer.

Easy to blame a coach, and not the players. Just because players complain does not make them right. Might want to have a good think about the players we had at the time and how they were brought up and developed under Ratten. Can't forget the criticism of Carlton at the time and that is the hint of why the players couldn't hack a decent coach. Front running, too much say and control over the coach, conditional, soft, Poor development, lacked discipline, lack of defence etc. Those players were not going to want to change from that, it was too late.

Malthouse came in and was tough on the players, probably brought some harsh realities up, probably took away a lot of their control and tried to change things. Ratten's mistakes with developing those players was a good reason why things went they way they did. A lot of them became uncoachable because of how they were developed. They were grown men when Malthouse came over, some changed, some couldn't hack the change.

The guy had just won a premiership and played off in another with a team who had no issues with him or how he coached. Blaming the coach for Calrton's failing then is putting your head in the sand.

The development and recruiting that had gone on for years prior to Malthouse coming, that was a bomb that was planted under the club. Malthouse might have had a hand setting it off to an extent but he wasn't the reason things went to sh*t.

Betts took the money and ran, went to another club where he had to become more discipline and better at the pressure side of the game and hence a better player which he wasn't at Carlton. Garlett was a conditional front running player who we made a gameplan around, kicked goals when we went over the top into space quickly, sometimes applied pressure and sometimes didn't, did nothing at Melbourne. Yarran was a train wreck and ruined his own life and career, that's on him. Robinson, getting out of Carlton and away from all of that was the best thing for Robinson, he was forced to go to a new club and environment that demanded disciplined and turned his career around. He got out of a toxic culture and into one that is far more professional and demands higher standards.

20 yrs ago I worked with a bloke that disliked Langer immensely, his five year son went up to him and asked for his autograph, Langer told him to **** off. Sometimes it's not as black and white as we want to see it but that was a pretty ordinary effort from an apparently good bloke.

Malthouse when he arrived treated Garlett like his long lost son, then dumped him like a sack of spuds when Daisy arrived, ripping Jeffs heart out alas the form drop. He left the following season from memory.

MM was one of the worst appointments in our clubs history and a total embarrassment that our club didn't do it's homework and test him for dementia.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

It’s hard to believe we were premiership favourites in 2012 with such a young list and ended up where we did.

 

[BlueTongue]

20 yrs ago I worked with a bloke that disliked Langer immensely, his five year son went up to him and asked for his autograph, Langer told him to fu** off. Sometimes it's not as black and white as we want to see it but that was a pretty ordinary effort from an apparently good bloke.

Malthouse when he arrived treated Garlett like his long lost son, then dumped him like a sack of spuds when Daisy arrived, ripping Jeffs heart out alas the form drop. He left the following season from memory.

MM was one of the worst appointments in our clubs history and a total embarrassment that our club didn't do it's homework and test him for dementia.

I dont believe that one bit.

Even if Langer was 'that sort of bloke' he's not dumb enough to tell a 5yo to 'eff off', being in the Aus team, no way.
That would have been headlines at the time.

 

[Blues90]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

 

[RPCB]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

Absolutely.

It was a tear down rebuild, impossible for it to be a “66 game rebuild”. I am not going to do a complete counting of players not yet on our list after the 66 games - which was between 2015-2017 - but it is the majority of players on our list today, players drafted/recruited from 2018 to 2021.

 

[katmanblue]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

I wanna know when it's beginning.

 

[RPCB]

I wanna know when it's beginning.

As soon as Jacob Weitering was drafted.

 

[Cripps 'n' Blue Bloods]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

I think it was a 66 game rebuild. The problem comes from the varying expectations of what was then to happen after that 66 games.
Some thought that meant we would start playing finals the following year. Others understood that it was basically just 3 seasons of tearing down the list and heavy drafting/recruiting to establish the core of the list that was expected to take us forward. It would then take a few more years to find the right balance for the best 22, gel and compete on a regular basis.
Throw in some long term injuries to key players and coaching instability and you get to where we are.

If we had been pushing for the 8 and competitive most weeks by the end of the 66 games, it would have been a bonus, not the plan.
You don't completely rebuild a list to the extent that we did and then start playing finals within 3 seasons. You'd have to have virtually everything go right.

 

[FRUMPY]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

i just presumed the rebuild meant with the same coach, not onto the 3rd coach.....

clear as day the '66 game rebuild' didnt work out as planned, not even close.

 

[bigblueboy]

I still have no idea why people thought it would only be a 66 game rebuild

Because SOS said so: Five years, four head coaches and two CEOs: The verdict on Carlton’s 66-game rebuild

 

[gbatman]

Very strongly disagree with this, in fact it is almost like a revision of history.

In 2011 (the year before Ratten was sacked mid season) we finished the season 14-7-1 with a percentage of 130.9. We added Alan Richardson, John Barker and Gavin Brown to the coaching panel in 2011 and Chris Judd was captain and Kade Simpson vice captain. We had 3 players kick 48 goals or more. We were a kick away from a prelim without Kreuzer, Wait and Gibbs being able to play in the semi final - any of which would have made a huge difference. We were a huge chance to have beaten Geelong if we made the prelim as they beat us at Marvel by less than a kick when a concussed Robbie Warnock missed a shot late.

We would pretty much kill for a season like that now. 2011 was not an example of a team with poor standards or a team that was poorly coached by an "extremely green" coach. It was actually an example of a team on the precipice of winning the whole thing. We were the bookies favorites to win the flag pre season 2012. Then everything went to s#!t with injuries and the availability of Malthouse etc.

By all means you could argue that 2011 was a flash in the plan and that Ratten was never the man to take us forward but in that period we weren't 5 to 10 years behind the better clubs. We were one of the better clubs.

Culture is a terrible word that is thrown around like confetti. Pretty much all successful teams are described as having good culture and every unsuccessful team has a bad culture. There are a huge range of factors that determine how a team performs year in year out. To me the most important are quality of list, depth of list, having key players available and match fit, list profile in age and experience, coaching, leadership etc. Culture is one of those things but nowhere near the top of the list.

2011 was a season where things went well and we achieved a lot but either side of that we were just an ordinary side. It's not unusual for teams to pop up, have a really strong season and fall off the face of the earth, Ratten just did the same thing with St Kilda, 6th in 2020 and back down to 10th this year. Excuses, for the following seasons are rubbish. The list needed to grow and improve to go forwards from that, see our drafting to see why that didn't happen. TBH it wasn't a very good side. The midfield was shallow, the small forwards were good goal kickers and poor pressure players, there was a huge lack of key position players. The team was carried by the Hight top end talent and let down by the bottom end, the depth in reserve and the lack of youth coming through and in ability to bring in mature age talent to finish off the team due to player salary cap issues. Geelong would have wiped the floor with us, despite doing well against them in the H/A season this was a final. This is what happens if you don't run a club properly.

Appointed a rookie coach who didn't know what he was doing and was unable to totally turn the culture around. Ratten did not bring those guys up right and develop them well enough, he gave the players too much control and wasn't ruthless enough in their young era. Our recruitment department only recruited quality players by accident. It was an average recruitment department under Hughes and a basketcase under Rogers. We didn't have a list manager, that's like not having a CEO or only having one coach. What a disgrace, that's why the player contracts became such a massive issue. We didn't have proper high performance people. The best player Carlton has lost over the last 20 years was lost in Ratten's time as coach, Fevola. People bang on how Malthouse lost some players but Ratten lost a good few talented players himself. Fevola, Kennedy, Jacobs. Those three eclipse the players Malthouse lost. It was a good efforts for a club who made so many mistakes and did so much wrong to play finals but you can't operate so poorly and expect to achieve anything substantial and expect that things aren't going to fall in a heap.

We were one of the better clubs for a season. We weren't a top club though, the top 4 were well ahead. It was a flash in the pan, 5th and a couple of finals was the best that team was ever going to do and was on the way down. It peaked at 5th.

The list was on the way down, there wasn't players coming in. There was poor depth, poor player development and an out of control salary cap. Whoever was going to coach us, things were always going to go down that way. IMO Malthouse brought things forward a little faster which was a good thing. The list and the culture needed to be turfed out and an attempt to rebuild both of those things had to happen and the sooner the better IMO. Keeping a coach who tolerated the rubbish at the club would have held the impending rebuild back further, having a coach who couldn't tolerate things brought it forward which was good, we wouldn't be so far into the rebuild like we are now. We could have got Alistair Clarkson instead of Malthouse and the result would have been exactly the same. Some of the players wouldn't have liked him, the team would have fallen to bits, people would have come up with tin foil hat conclusions that the coach had lost it, become out dated and all of a sudden was no good. End of the day we had built a 5th spot quality team which had significant holes in it, which was poorly developed, not hardened and disciplined enough that lacked depth, youth and a tight salary cap and was carried by it's top end and let down by it's bottom end. That list had serious problems. Was never going to get near a premiership and that's what you get if you don't develop people well, don't manage salaries well and don't recruit well.

The main difference between Malthouse at Carlton and at his previous clubs was that he got to develop those teams, particularly with Collingwood where at Carlton they were developed by a coach who did things very differently.

A season like that now would be good, but would be extremely disappointed if that was the best we got. I believe we are building towards better things.

20 yrs ago I worked with a bloke that disliked Langer immensely, his five year son went up to him and asked for his autograph, Langer told him to fu** off. Sometimes it's not as black and white as we want to see it but that was a pretty ordinary effort from an apparently good bloke.

Malthouse when he arrived treated Garlett like his long lost son, then dumped him like a sack of spuds when Daisy arrived, ripping Jeffs heart out alas the form drop. He left the following season from memory.

MM was one of the worst appointments in our clubs history and a total embarrassment that our club didn't do it's homework and test him for dementia.

Not really good, so Langer could be a dick, you would like to think he has grown up 20 years on from that. Either way, the way he fixed a lot of issues and got that team performing can not be over looked. The players might not have liked him but he had them winning and achieving a lot. IMO those players have put themselves under the pump, if their performances slip then it begins to look like they have made the wrong choice. IMO there are a few guys in that team who probably need those harsh reality checks to perform such as Stark.

I think Garletts form had more to do with things. Garlett needed a specific game plan to perform in, a run and gun get it over the top into space one. Garlett performed well in space as did a lot of our players. He performed poorly when that space was taken away as he really only contributed in kicking goals. The game plan worked at times but the better teams who were able to get numbers back were able to beat us easily by taking away our space. We weren't a physical team. Ratten's attacking game plan was easily undone by the better sides who sat numbers back and took that space away. Our forwards were good goal kickers but none of them were the modern day pressure forwards who could kick goals and also get physical and apply really good pressure efforts when they weren't. This is what brought Garlett undone IMO. The game style played by Malthouse and Melbourne wasn't about trying to make space in the forward line, it was more your more typical gameplan where space is limited wherever the ball goes. More defence orientated. You can say what you want about that but none of the teams at the time won flags with overly attacking footy that created more forward space that Ratten employed prior to 2012. Garlett like a lot of our players weren't able to adapt to a more physical and defensive game style that limited space for players to work in. End of the day teams were winning flags playing that way and when we tried to play that way we didn't do it well.

 

[La Dispute]

Our midfield was definitely not shallow in 2011.

Judd, peak Murphy, Gibbs, Carrazzo, Scotland, Simpson, McLean.

That is a premiership capable midfield, it’s more our overall depth and talent distribution was off. We didn’t have a capable key forward and our bottom 4 or 5 players weren’t Top 4 standard.

Had we been more pragmatic with how we approached 2012-2014 we would have at least made a prelim.

 

[katmanblue]

As soon as Jacob Weitering was drafted.

 

[gbatman]

Our midfield was definitely not shallow in 2011.

Judd, peak Murphy, Gibbs, Carrazzo, Scotland, Simpson, McLean.

That is a premiership capable midfield, it’s more our overall depth and talent distribution was off. We didn’t have a capable key forward and our bottom 4 or 5 players weren’t Top 4 standard.

Had we been more pragmatic with how we approached 2012-2014 we would have at least made a prelim.

Ver very overrated midfield that apart from Judd, could be intimidated by physicality, the kind Hawthorn repeatedly belted us with. Judd was a super star who carried that midfield, it did not perform when he was not up and firing and that was laid bare for all to see on a few occasions. That midfield did not carry the load evenly. Gibbs wasn't anything special in the midfield, in fact he was mostly pretty bloody ordinary and often criticised for underperforming and tried in other positions. Apart from his last few seasons at Carlton where Gibbs finally played good football in the midfield his career as a midfielder was pretty bloody ordinary. Murphy was good at his best but we probably didn't get many years where he played near that standard, you take his 2011 season out Murphy is just a dime a dozen midfielder, one most teams have a few at that quality. Carrazzo was a decent player. Scotland was a half back who played a little bit on the wing, but he was a very good half back. Simpson back then was a decent winger but nothing special, played his best footy when he moved to defence. Mclean was poor for us, we paid big for him and he played a lot of games in the VFL because he was just that good.

We didn't have much in the VFL, we didn't have a CHF, relief ruck or a FF we could rely on. We were intimidated by the physically hard at it sides and our game plan was undone by teams who focused on flooding back into our forward half. We could not play congested footy and the whole competition figured that out, we did not like our space closed up. The top end of that team very much carried the whole team and when there were injuries what we had in reserve coming through was poor. The young players we needed to bring in to bring that quality and youthful energy simply were not there. We got rid of one of the best centre half forwards and full forwards and never replaced them. We dig ourselves into a corner with salary cap restrictions so list improvements from trades was never going to happen, we were more likely to lose players and gain them because of that and we did. We were on the downward spiral and there was nothing that could have been done to stop it. Mostly due to poor drafting and player development and poor list management.

IMO the list we have now has the potential to be better than that, but it needs to mature and develop a physical and high intensity way of playing.

 

[Jeremias]

Ver very overrated midfield that apart from Judd, could be intimidated by physicality, the kind Hawthorn repeatedly belted us with. Murphy was good at his best but we probably didn't get many years where he played near that standard, you take his 2011 season out Murphy is just a dime a dozen midfielder, one most teams have a few at that quality.

Nah. This is a pretty clear example of recency bias.

Murphy was poor at the back end of his career but he was amazing in 2011. All Australian, top 10 in the Brownlow, AFLCA MVP, B&F winner.
Was just as good in 2012 too, until the shoulder injury that came as a result of the collision with Dangerfield.

It's nonsense to suggest he was just dime a dozen at his best. He was so much more than that. We just sadly didn't see it for long enough.

 

[Metalcrusher]

Nah. This is a pretty clear example of recency bias.

Murphy was poor at the back end of his career but he was amazing in 2011. All Australian, top 10 in the Brownlow, AFLCA MVP, B&F winner.
Was just as good in 2012 too, until the shoulder injury that came as a result of the collision with Dangerfield.

It's nonsense to suggest he was just dime a dozen at his best. He was so much more than that. We just sadly didn't see it for long enough.

Which is what gbatman said .. take two years of his career out and he was dime a dozen.

 

[thylacine60]

It’s hard to believe we were premiership favourites in 2012 with such a young list and ended up where we did.

whateley had us favourites I recall........as chuffed as I was I still thought he was having a larf...........

 

[Jeremias]

Which is what gbatman said .. take two years of his career out and he was dime a dozen.

Take the best years out of the careers of most players and they become a dime a dozen.

It's such a strange way to try and discredit someone.

 

[Metalcrusher]

Take the best years out of the careers of most players and they become a dime a dozen.

It's such a strange way to try and discredit someone.

Try that with Walsh .. we would have to kick him back to the Under 12 's

 

[Arr0w]

2011 group was solid, but never a contending list

Spine was fickle

 

[Metalcrusher]

2011 group was solid, but never a contending list

Spine was fickle

 

[Magruder]

2011 group was solid, but never a contending list

Spine was fickle

yep, hard to imagine a side with Setanta and T-Bird up front as decoys for 1AW as a contender.

 

[RedFury]

Murphy just reached the start of his peak in 2011. He was only 24 and was capable of sustaining that level for 4-5 years had injury not ravaged him imo. He (and we) were robbed of his best years.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

At the time that midfield group looked pretty awesome, small forwards were amazing, strong backline. Only one tall forward (assuming Henderson was a defender but he might have actually been playing forward then.) either way there was only Jamieson, Waite and Henderson of any note who were KPP’s and all injury prone.

Strangely enough we still only have 3 KPP’s who can be trusted but higher quality this time. We tried to address that taking 3 KPP’s in the draft and all failed, again something we need to do now but hopefully we do better this time.

 

[Blueballs38]

Nah. This is a pretty clear example of recency bias.

Murphy was poor at the back end of his career but he was amazing in 2011. All Australian, top 10 in the Brownlow, AFLCA MVP, B&F winner.
Was just as good in 2012 too, until the shoulder injury that came as a result of the collision with Dangerfield.

It's nonsense to suggest he was just dime a dozen at his best. He was so much more than that. We just sadly didn't see it for long enough.

He didn’t say that he said he didn’t produce his best for long enough. I agree, Murphy at his best was elite but he did not produce it for long enough, Gibbs was spoiled from the start, should never have been in the leadership group so early, ruined him.