Fevalenko25
Team Captain
Blues need to swallow their pride
15 May 2005 Sunday Herald Sun
Comment by Jon Ralph
EVEN as he assembled his rag-tag bunch of second-chance heroes two seasons ago, Denis Pagan would have been aware of their shortcomings.
Nonetheless, he set about rebuilding a club ravaged by retirements and salary-cap penalties the only way he knew how.
From across the land he assembled a group of players short on recent opportunities and created a vision of a proud club hauling itself back to respectability through hard work and a collective will.
But if Brisbane and Leigh Matthews have slowly learnt that you cannot beat City Hall in a heated political battle, it must be dawning on Pagan and Carlton that you cannot beat the fine print of its rules and regulations either.
Just as Essendon and Brisbane are learning the hard way that a lack of quality draft picks will always bring you to your knees, Carlton's bid to circumvent that inevitability is also crumbling.
That Carlton is now a woeful side is obvious.
Take a closer look at how far that band of rejects have come in a season and a half and you realise what Pagan must always have known.
That you can only get so far without talent, and the only way to ensure talent is high draft picks.
Next Saturday Carlton will return to Optus Oval for the last time still trying to buck the new football imperative that the only way up is through your kids, and plenty of them.
It is a fitting contrast of the old-school values and the new agenda, with Carlton short on kids and talent but with plenty of a commodity – tradition – that seems to matter less and less to on-field football success.
It was not Friday's squad that was indicative of Carlton's plight, but who was not in the team.
Glen Bowyer, David Clarke, Digby Morrell, Troy Longmuir, Jordan Bannister – all of them second-chance heroes – were named in yesterday's Northern Bullants senior side.
Ricky Mott, Daniel Harford, Stephen Kenna, and Jon McCormick – all of them cleaned out over the pre-season.
And to salt the wound, even those recruits considered success stories battled to have an impact on Friday.
Brett Johnson, Corey McGrath and Heath Scotland had 26 touches combined. Even best-and-fairest winner David Teague, the pin-up boy for redeemed rejects, has had a poor fortnight.
Almost every one of those players has shown at times they are capable of cutting it at AFL level, but not many consistently. Which is precisely why they were on the football scrap-heap that Pagan plucked them from.
The point is not to kick Carlton while it is down – it had little other choice and won an exceptional 10 games with this side last year – but to highlight that even Pagan could not right the ship.
Even if the superpowers of football have scoffed at sides like St Kilda and Fremantle scooping up handfuls of early draft picks then flourishing, the Blues may find the only way to rebound is to swallow their pride and follow suit.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15289253%5E19762,00.html
15 May 2005 Sunday Herald Sun
Comment by Jon Ralph
EVEN as he assembled his rag-tag bunch of second-chance heroes two seasons ago, Denis Pagan would have been aware of their shortcomings.
Nonetheless, he set about rebuilding a club ravaged by retirements and salary-cap penalties the only way he knew how.
From across the land he assembled a group of players short on recent opportunities and created a vision of a proud club hauling itself back to respectability through hard work and a collective will.
But if Brisbane and Leigh Matthews have slowly learnt that you cannot beat City Hall in a heated political battle, it must be dawning on Pagan and Carlton that you cannot beat the fine print of its rules and regulations either.
Just as Essendon and Brisbane are learning the hard way that a lack of quality draft picks will always bring you to your knees, Carlton's bid to circumvent that inevitability is also crumbling.
That Carlton is now a woeful side is obvious.
Take a closer look at how far that band of rejects have come in a season and a half and you realise what Pagan must always have known.
That you can only get so far without talent, and the only way to ensure talent is high draft picks.
Next Saturday Carlton will return to Optus Oval for the last time still trying to buck the new football imperative that the only way up is through your kids, and plenty of them.
It is a fitting contrast of the old-school values and the new agenda, with Carlton short on kids and talent but with plenty of a commodity – tradition – that seems to matter less and less to on-field football success.
It was not Friday's squad that was indicative of Carlton's plight, but who was not in the team.
Glen Bowyer, David Clarke, Digby Morrell, Troy Longmuir, Jordan Bannister – all of them second-chance heroes – were named in yesterday's Northern Bullants senior side.
Ricky Mott, Daniel Harford, Stephen Kenna, and Jon McCormick – all of them cleaned out over the pre-season.
And to salt the wound, even those recruits considered success stories battled to have an impact on Friday.
Brett Johnson, Corey McGrath and Heath Scotland had 26 touches combined. Even best-and-fairest winner David Teague, the pin-up boy for redeemed rejects, has had a poor fortnight.
Almost every one of those players has shown at times they are capable of cutting it at AFL level, but not many consistently. Which is precisely why they were on the football scrap-heap that Pagan plucked them from.
The point is not to kick Carlton while it is down – it had little other choice and won an exceptional 10 games with this side last year – but to highlight that even Pagan could not right the ship.
Even if the superpowers of football have scoffed at sides like St Kilda and Fremantle scooping up handfuls of early draft picks then flourishing, the Blues may find the only way to rebound is to swallow their pride and follow suit.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15289253%5E19762,00.html
