The only way we could be in a worse place is if we assembled a list of a couple of good young players, some pretty good yet over priced stars poached from other clubs and filled the rest with average ordinary players with deficiencies and draft/trade on a conservative manner. Like we did last time. Happy to be down the bottom for the reasons we are.
We aren't going badly because we are badly coached or because we have recruited poorly. We have a good coach and have assembled a very good recruiting team. Just hasn't had time to take effect yet.
We're losing because we have too many players with too many deficiencies, too many young players and not enough top level players in their prime.
We have not quite entered a building phase yet. Unfortunately we have had to do a near complete rebuild. The players we got rid of were got rid of because their age did not match the rebuilding time frame which I think will be 5-7 years or because they weren't good enough or because they did not fit in with the culture we are trying to create at Carlton.
First step is replacing the players who don't tick all the boxes and that's pretty much all of them. Finding 20 odd gun players and another 10 really serviceable ones. How many draft picks and trade options do we get? It's a big number.
We've done well to get so far into replacing so many players really and you replace older mature players with young ones, what do you expect when it usually takes an AFL footballer around 4 years to mature into that level of football and find their feet?
The Way I see it...
2008 - 2015 - Yarran Rowe Casboult Curnow Cripps only players of quality drafted. Lots of our better AFL players gone. Walker, Judd, Robinson, Yarran, McLean, Betts, Henderson, Armfield, Scotland, Waite, Duigan, Garlett, Jamison, Carrazzo gone, mostly for nothing, we've spent time replacing them and replacing those who have gone afterwards. Replacing is effective when you are up the top but we were down the bottom.
2015 - Silvagni Bolton alliance arrives. List replacement begins, starts with drafting talls. Crunow, Weitering, McKay, Silvagni and Cuningham arrive. Henderson, Bell, Yarran out. Talls should have real impact in 2019-2020. Smalls 2018-2019. Curnow has been an early developer. The rest are going at a normal rate. Kerridge, Lamb, Phillips, Plowman traded in to fit culture and age requirements and are more replacements than improvements. Focus on age demographic of list. Clearly aiming for when the talls develop which will be around 2019-2020 for real improvement.
2016 - Another replacement period. Focus on smaller midfield Types. SPS, Fisher, Williamson and a tall in Macreadie. Macreadie exceeded expectation and played some games but can be expected to be prime in 2020-2021. SPS, Williamson and Fisher especially developed a little early but can be expected to be strong in 2019 onwards. Marchbank and Pickett arrive as quality age bracket players who have not arrived/peaked yet. Again more of a replacement period. Tuohy traded out.
2017 - Bryce Gibbs goes out for young draftees and Lang who has been injured, Kennedy who has not impacted and Lobbe come in. Kennedy should come into impacting games this year or the next as should Lang. Focus was primarily on midfield and then on long term replacements. Dow and O'Brien as midfielders who should be impacting in 2020-2021 whereas DeKoning is more Kreuzer's replacement around 2021-2022. White delisted.
2018 - A year where we start to really get that balance between replacing players and building up our list. Murphy, Kreuzer, Thomas, Casboult, Simpson and Rowe are the players we will soon have to replace and we will be hoping that draftees from previous seasons can step up into their roles at the same level or better. This is also the first year that free agents become an option as some of them are now in our age bracket. From here on I think we will be heavily focused on midfielders and midfield/forwards with pace. We need to fill our boots with players who can run kick play on the ball and kick goals and apply pressure up forward. Still we need to be aware that these youngsters will take 2-4 years to really impact.
2019 - This will be a season of building, we will hope that we are satisfied the replacement period is behind us as those replacements should be best 22 or pushing strongly in the VFL. We will likely be heavily into Smaller players who will hit their peak by 2022 and free agents
2020 - This is when the slower developing players we first drafted in 2015 when SOS and Bolton arrived start to really hit their straps and make it as AFL footballers thenm and the smaller players we drafted in 2016. Finals may or may not be on the cards yet but improvement will be leaps and bounds ahead of where it has been. There will still likely be some player replacement happening as Murphy (32), Kreuzer (30), Jones (29), Thomas (32), Casboult (30), Simpson (35), Curnow (32) and Rowe (32). These players will need to be replaced and added on top of by now regardless of whether they are still playing. If we get good service from our older players we might have a pretty decent season.
This is a big year for our development IMO, especially if we do well with free agency and smart trading etc. There will be a lot of talented youth maturing and we may be lucky enough to get plenty out of quality veterans. Cohesion and stability should be strong in the side and we should have a good balance of youth and mature players.
B: Marchbank (2019) Jones Byrne (2018)
HB: Docherty Weitering (2020) Williamson (2020)
C: ??? Cripps (2018) O'Brien
HF: SPS Curnow (2020) Murphy
F: Silvagni (2019) McKay (2020) Thomas
OB: Kreuzer Dow (2020) Fisher (2019)
IC: Kennedy (2019) Lang (2016) Pickett (2017/injuries) Curnow
2021 - We have 8 really good players to find between now and then. A Wingman and 3 really good forwards, one a medium sizer and two smaller types who have really good forward pressure. Plus we need 4 utilities who can rotate in the midfield and flanks. That could come from what we already have but we will have to find this talent. By this stage I expect us to be a strong team playing finals or at least pushing for finals.
Between what we already have developing, the 3 first and second round picks we have, Father sons, good leter picks plus being in a good position for free agency we should be able to find something.
Just going on maturing of AFL players for where they really start to impact at AFL level. Talls are about 4-5 years. Inside mids are about 4 years and the rest are about 3 for full maturity.
This is where we need to be to be really strong and those question marks have to be really good players.
B: Marchbank (2019) Jones (mature) Byrne (2018)
HB: Docherty (mature) Weitering (2020) Williamson (2020)
C: ??? (Wing) Cripps (2018) O'Brien (2020)
HF: SPS (2019) Curnow (2020) ??? (Half Forward)
F: ??? (Mid Forward) McKay (2020) ??? (Small Forward)
OB: DeKoning (2021-2022) Dow (2020) Fisher (2019)
IC: ??? ??? ??? ??? (Mids and utilities)
EM: Kennedy (2019) Silvagni (2019) Lang (2016) Plowman (2016-2017) Macreadie (2021) Cuningham (2018) Pickett (2017/injuries) Mullett (Mature) Schumacher (2020-2021)
Older players:
Murphy (33), Kreuzer (31), Jones (30), Thomas (33), Casboult (31), Simpson (36), Curnow (33) and Rowe (33). It's likely some may still be around but I get the feeling not that likely. If I had to guess I would say that perhaps Murphy, Ed Curnow and Jones may still be around. Murphy possibly as a small forward and Curnow possibly as a rotation player playing defence or on the ball. Jones at 30 is still young enough for a full back.
So we need to wait. It's a long journey, get the expectations up for 2020 and lets hope that we have good luck, draft well and do well with free agency. We're doing the best we can, no coach or game plan is going to get us winning games, we just have to build a side where the players in it are of the quality and age where they can have an impact. As you can see we have some time to go just yet.