Carlton - How did they get to here?

[The J Dog]

In 2011 Carlton lost a semi-final to West Coast in Perth by 3 points. From that team, coached by Brett Ratten, only Marc Murphy (then 24) and Kade Simpson (27) played last night.

Their team that day included the now retired Chris Judd (then 28), Andrew Carrazzo (27), Michael Jamison (25), Heath Scotland (31) and Andrew Walker (25) but also Eddie Betts (then 24), Jeff Garlett (22), Mitch Robinson (22), Zach Tuohy (21), Lachie Henderson (21) and Chris Yarran (20) who moved on to other clubs. Bryce Gibbs (22) and Matthew Kreuzer (22) missed the match.

Since 2011

Trades in – Rating 4/10

Traded in Sam Docherty ahead of 2014 (for pick #33).
Traded in Andrejs Everitt (in effect for Shaun Hampson).
Traded in a host of GWS players ahead of 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons including Jed Lamb, Andrew Phillips, Lachie Plowman, Caleb Marchbank, Jarrod Pickett and Matthew Kennedy.
Gave up a pick #7 and #10, received a pick #17, #19 and #33.
Traded in Liam Jones for pick #46 ahead of 2015.

Trades out – Rating 3/10

Traded out Jeff Garlett in effect for pick #60 ahead of 2015.
Traded out Troy Menzel (former pick #11) for #33 and Sam Kerridge ahead of 2016.
Traded out Lachie Henderson for pick #17 and Chris Yarran for #23 ahead of 2016.
Traded out Zach Tuohy for Billie Smedts ahead of 2017.

Free agency – Rating 1/10

Signed Dale Thomas as a free agent ahead of 2014.
Lost Eddie Betts as free agent ahead of 2014.

Drafts –Rating 4/10

From 2011 Sam Rowe played last night.
From 2012 Nick Graham and Levi Casboult were not selected last night. Zach Tuohy is now at Geelong.
From 2013 Patrick Cripps and Ed Curnow played. Nick Holman is now at the Gold Coast.
2014 was a write-off.

High-end talent from recent years - 2015’s Jacob Weitering (#1), Charlie Curnow (#12) and Harry McKay (#10), 2016’s Sam Petrevski-Seton (#6) and Zac Fisher (#27), and 2017’s Paddy Dow (Pick #3) and Lochie O’Brien (#10) still needs time to mature.

 

[Bojangles17]

One word , incompetence

 

[Shaz2012]

OP. Good summary. I love that you waited for you guys to be up and about before posting you looked good today. Future looks bright.

Take away the entire GWS trading and the picture you painted doesn’t look as bad. Hope they learned one lesson. If Geelong come knocking for anymore of their players, sign them up for 5 years immediately.

Clearly Bolton and the whole coaching setup has failed. They probably aren’t as far away as they look. You guys looked pretty bad not too long ago. Bring in Fagan and Noble and things turned around pretty quickly for you.

 

[yyou]

At the moment Carlton invoke memories of a Talking Heads song, but hopefully they cull some of the "dead wood" & continue to add talent to a small, but talented core

 

[The J Dog]

OP. Good summary. I love that you waited for you guys to be up and about before posting you looked good today. Future looks bright.

Take away the entire GWS trading and the picture you painted doesn’t look as bad. Hope they learned one lesson. If Geelong come knocking for anymore of their players, sign them up for 5 years immediately.

Clearly Bolton and the whole coaching setup has failed. They probably aren’t as far away as they look. You guys looked pretty bad not too long ago. Bring in Fagan and Noble and things turned around pretty quickly for you.

I think it shows that as Paul Roos says drafts alone aren’t enough to build a good side. You need to bring in good free agents. Gold Coast would be a case in point too and St Kilda. Meanwhile Geelong Hawthorn Collingwood Richmond Swans Essendon Adelaide Port Freo West Coast Melbourne North all do rebuild or maintain using free agency very effectively.

 

[The Inbetweener]

I think it shows that as Paul Roos says drafts alone aren’t enough to build a good side. You need to bring in good free agents. Gold Coast would be a case in point too and St Kilda. Meanwhile Geelong Hawthorn Collingwood Richmond Swans Essendon Adelaide Port Freo West Coast Melbourne North all do rebuild or maintain using free agency very effectively.

Great OP but I’m not sure you can include Melbourne in that group. It’s taken them 3 rebuilds to get to this point and even now they haven’t made finals yet

 

[The J Dog]

Good point. Their failures before Roos revolved around tanking for draft picks. Now they are coming good they have brought in mature free agents. Admittedly they lost Howe the other way. They’re a long way in front of Carlton.

 

[newblueo]

garlett.waite.betts
robo.henderson'.grigg
holman.gowers.touhy
jacobs.kennedy.cripps
curow.murphy.gibbs

pick 7 we gifted to gws an buckley at gws

handy team that. drafting works. if you keep them

 

[Cleric]

Poor player development, poor list mangement decisions, and picking two coaches in a row that were duds, while sacking the better one before them.

 

[SickQwon]

2008-2014 drafts.

/thread

 

[Orange Agent]

The development is really bad, the examples of Weitering and McKay don't make a lot of sense what they are trying do with them. Holman and Gowers make you question some of the delisted players and whether it was the players ability or the clubs failures. Rhys Palmer questioning the clubs culture has been ridiculed by Blues supporters but the fact is he was at 3 clubs over a number of years with different coaching setups, I take his opinion as being fairly accurate on the heart of the clubs problems.

 

[Teagueeee15]

Traded Zack Tuohy for Billie Smedts? That is being so disingenuous.

The complete Tuohy trade from a Carlton perspective was Tuohy and our 2017 second rounder out, for Marchbank, Pickett and GWS future second rounder coming back. That GWS pick was swapped with later Hawthorn selections that helped pick up Williamson. There was also later picks swapped between Carlton, GWS and Geelong.

Gave up a pick 7 and 10 and got back 17, 19 and 33 - can you plain this to me? Disingenuous again I see.

Why is only half of the Menzal trade included in the OP? Disingenuous again.

Anders Everitt traded practically for Shaun Hampson? Err no, Shaun Hampson was practically traded for Sam Docherty (one pick difference in our favour)

Why isn’t the pick swap with the Dogs to get the Charlie Curnow pick mentioned? Oops guess you missed that one?

 

[PAFC_1870]

garlett.waite.betts
robo.henderson'.grigg
holman.gowers.touhy
jacobs.kennedy.cripps
curow.murphy.gibbs

pick 7 we gifted to gws an buckley at gws

handy team that. drafting works. if you keep them

You don't get to keep all the quality you lost and still get the quality you picked up...

 

[tigerwill]

Traded Zack Tuohy for Billie Smedts? That is being so disingenuous.

The complete Tuohy trade from a Carlton perspective was Tuohy and our 2017 second rounder out, for Marchbank, Pickett and GWS future second rounder coming back. That GWS pick was swapped with later Hawthorn selections that helped pick up Williamson. There was also later picks swapped between Carlton, GWS and Geelong.

Gave up a pick 7 and 10 and got back 17, 19 and 33 - can you plain this to me? Disingenuous again I see.

Why is only half of the Menzal trade included in the OP? Disingenuous again.

Anders Everitt traded practically for Shaun Hampson? Err no, Shaun Hampson was practically traded for Sam Docherty (one pick difference in our favour)

Why isn’t the pick swap with the Dogs to get the Charlie Curnow pick mentioned? Oops guess you missed that one?

Talk about being disingenuous.
You got pick 32 from Richmond for Hampson. You traded that pick for Everett and pick 39, which became Cameron Giles.
Saying in effect you gave up Hampson for Docherty is crap to make it look like you got something special out of the trade.
Docherty had zilch to do with trading Hampson. Pick 33 (Docherty) .was already yours.

 

[1970crow]

Traded Zack Tuohy for Billie Smedts? That is being so disingenuous.

The complete Tuohy trade from a Carlton perspective was Tuohy and our 2017 second rounder out, for Marchbank, Pickett and GWS future second rounder coming back. That GWS pick was swapped with later Hawthorn selections that helped pick up Williamson. There was also later picks swapped between Carlton, GWS and Geelong.

Gave up a pick 7 and 10 and got back 17, 19 and 33 - can you plain this to me? Disingenuous again I see.

Why is only half of the Menzal trade included in the OP? Disingenuous again.

Anders Everitt traded practically for Shaun Hampson? Err no, Shaun Hampson was practically traded for Sam Docherty (one pick difference in our favour)

Why isn’t the pick swap with the Dogs to get the Charlie Curnow pick mentioned? Oops guess you missed that one?

What else was involved in the Menzek trade? Not that it really matters, was nothing wrong with it from your end.

 

[The J Dog]

Traded Zack Tuohy for Billie Smedts? That is being so disingenuous.

The complete Tuohy trade from a Carlton perspective was Tuohy and our 2017 second rounder out, for Marchbank, Pickett and GWS future second rounder coming back. That GWS pick was swapped with later Hawthorn selections that helped pick up Williamson. There was also later picks swapped between Carlton, GWS and Geelong.

Gave up a pick 7 and 10 and got back 17, 19 and 33 - can you plain this to me? Disingenuous again I see.

Why is only half of the Menzal trade included in the OP? Disingenuous again.

Anders Everitt traded practically for Shaun Hampson? Err no, Shaun Hampson was practically traded for Sam Docherty (one pick difference in our favour)

Why isn’t the pick swap with the Dogs to get the Charlie Curnow pick mentioned? Oops guess you missed that one?

So are you agreeing with me that lack of free agent pick ups is the problem or do you think it’s something else?

 

[iBeng]

Almost feels like charity now, us giving Carlton Doc for pick 33. Worth a top 10 pick based on his output at Carlton, not including this year of course.

 

[Bronze]

Numerous disastrous drafts, poor trades, zero player development, incompetent board and president and of course Malthouse.

 

[Hawk Dork]

They havent adapted well to the introduction of the salary cap

 

[Malifice]

After the salary cap stuff we were on our knees (quite literally). Players were taking pay cuts, the list was a shambles, we nearly had to hand the keys back. The culture was toxic; it was a mess.

We finished low for a few years, and brought in the 3 number 1's (Gibbs, Murphy and Kruezer) and traded for Judd... and thought we were done. The reality was our depth (our bottom 8) were rubbish. On the back of a list with some genuine top end talent (Judd, Betts, Fevola, Simpson, Murphy, Gibbs, Kruezer, Carazzo, Walker, Jamison, Waite), but some absolute potatoes in the bottom end we rose back into the 8, and made the aforementioned Semi final (our best H&A finish was 5th).

We had a bad season with injuries, the club formed the view that we were under-performing under Ratten, overvalued the list we had and sacked him, replacing him with Malthouse.

It was during this same period (2007-2014 - the Ratten and Malthouse years) that we compounded the above problem by butchering 8 drafts in a row. Failed 1st rounders (no longer in the AFL) over that time include Bootsma, Watson, Boekhoest, Yarran, Menzel and Lucas. Additionally we traded 2 more 1st rounders out for 'handshakes' McLean and Jacksh (also no longer in the AFL). Our only 1st round 'hits' in those 8 years was Cripps and Kruezer (9 x 1st round draft picks for a total return of 2 good players).

Our 2nd, 3rd and later picks fared no better. To the stage that (at present) we have 5 players on our list (Kruezer, Cripps, Casboult, Graham, E Curnow) from the 2007-2014 drafts. Out of a total of over 60 ND, PSD and Rookie draft picks used, we found 5 AFL quality players (and Graham and Casboult are a little lucky that they're playing for us as they likely would have been delisted by anyone else by now).

Compounding all of that shithouse recruiting was losing players of the caliber of Betts (free agency, no compo due to Thomas), Waite (free agency, no compo because the AFL are dickheads), Fevola, Robinson and Garlett (traded for disciplinary reasons), Kennedy (traded for Judd), Sam Jacobs and Grigg (walked out on the club) and others.

The long and short of it was we found ourselves halfway through the 2015 season with Murphy, Gibbs, Kruezer and Simpson (average age 28) and a young 20 year old Patrick Cripps, surrounded by doughnuts. There was no up and coming talent (or established players) in the side that should have been found during the 2007-2014 drafts.

We were in a huge hole, and about to drop off the edge of an even bigger cliff.

Accordingly the decision was made to 'reset' the list. A line was drawn at the 20 y/o and younger age bracket (Cripps/ Docherty and younger) and a plan was implemented to go heavily to the draft for 3 years and try and build the nucleus of a side for the future. Older players were to be traded out (for extra early picks) or retained to enable us to play the kids we draft, without them getting smashed every week.

Henderson, Tuohy, Bell, Yarran, Gibbs were all traded out (for the net return of an extra 4 x 1st rounders, and a couple of seconds), We went heavily to the draft and picked up C Curnow, Weitering, Fisher, Dow, SPS, O'Brien, McKay, Silvagni, Macreadie, Cuningham and others.

We supplemented this drafting by luring wantaway talented best 22 types from GWS for cheap, often taking 'salary dumps' (multiple players, or Palmer) in order to get better draft deals (we free up salary cap space for GWS by taking on their contracts; in return we get access to the players we did want and view as best 22 players like Marchbank, Plowman, Pickett and Kennedy for cheap).

Knowing we needed to get in mature bodies, we grabbed 'free' senior players from elsewhere to provide some older and harder players to protect the kids. O'shea, Shaw, Mullet, ASOS and Lobbe all cost nothing (PSD, token picks in the 90's, delisted F/A).

All in all in 3 hectic years we have made over 43 list changes. It wasnt a rebuilding of the list; we razed the joint to the ground and started from scratch.

This year, the loss of Gibbs last year, and Docherty before the season started has hurt. Its been compounded by the worst injury run in the AFL (we were again 2 down on the bench last weekend, with Fisher and Jones ruled out for the season after the match). Add to that we are fielding young sides, propped up by C graders, and you're witnessing the inevitable.

Out starting 8 midfield the last few weeks has been (Cripps, Murphy [when not injured] and E Curnow) plus Dow, Fisher, SPS, Polson (all 1st or 2nd year players) and Kennedy (in his third year). Its not a midfield, it's a creche.

We're on record as stating that after the 3 years of investing in the draft, we are going to be moving to a more balanced list management strategy, looking at free agents and trades in conjunction with drafting. We're really short on quality players in the 23-28 age bracket. Due to the year we've just had, we're likely to hit the draft hard again this year, and move our search for free agents and trades to next year.

Next year we'll have the benefit of a massive war chest of salary cap space, that's been banked for years now. We'll also be up for trading 1sts and future 1sts to get the job done (when you're a struggling team, you have to overpay to get the players you want). The success of our reset will come down to the success of our recruiting over the past 3 years, the ability of the players we drafted to develop, and our ability to lure 2-3 A grade players via free agency and trades over the next 2-3 years.

I expect another year of shizen next year, and a bottom 4 finish. We should (if everything goes to plan) start to rise the following year, and hopefully be back in finals contention in 2021 or thereabouts.

TL;DR - Yes we're s**t, but what other option did we realistically have considering the position we were in at the start of season 2015?

 

[Tbonefreo]

After the salary cap stuff we were on our knees (quite literally). Players were taking pay cuts, the list was a shambles, we nearly had to hand the keys back. The culture was toxic; it was a mess.

We finished low for a few years, and brought in the 3 number 1's (Gibbs, Murphy and Kruezer) and traded for Judd... and thought we were done. The reality was our depth (our bottom 8) were rubbish. On the back of a list with some genuine top end talent (Judd, Betts, Fevola, Simpson, Murphy, Gibbs, Kruezer, Carazzo, Walker, Jamison, Waite), but some absolute potatoes in the bottom end we rose back into the 8, and made the aforementioned Semi final (our best H&A finish was 5th).

We had a bad season with injuries, the club formed the view that we were under-performing under Ratten, overvalued the list we had and sacked him, replacing him with Malthouse.

It was during this same period (2007-2014 - the Ratten and Malthouse years) that we compounded the above problem by butchering 8 drafts in a row. Failed 1st rounders (no longer in the AFL) over that time include Bootsma, Watson, Boekhoest, Yarran, Menzel and Lucas. Additionally we traded 2 more 1st rounders out for 'handshakes' McLean and Jacksh (also no longer in the AFL). Our only 1st round 'hits' in those 8 years was Cripps and Kruezer (9 x 1st round draft picks for a total return of 2 good players).

Our 2nd, 3rd and later picks fared no better. To the stage that (at present) we have 5 players on our list (Kruezer, Cripps, Casboult, Graham, E Curnow) from the 2007-2014 drafts. Out of a total of over 60 ND, PSD and Rookie draft picks used, we found 5 AFL quality players (and Graham and Casboult are a little lucky that they're playing for us as they likely would have been delisted by anyone else by now).

Compounding all of that shithouse recruiting was losing players of the caliber of Betts (free agency, no compo due to Thomas), Waite (free agency, no compo because the AFL are dickheads), Fevola, Robinson and Garlett (traded for disciplinary reasons), Kennedy (traded for Judd), Sam Jacobs and Grigg (walked out on the club) and others.

The long and short of it was we found ourselves halfway through the 2015 season with Murphy, Gibbs, Kruezer and Simpson (average age 28) and a young 20 year old Patrick Cripps, surrounded by doughnuts. There was no up and coming talent (or established players) in the side that should have been found during the 2007-2014 drafts.

We were in a huge hole, and about to drop off the edge of an even bigger cliff.

Accordingly the decision was made to 'reset' the list. A line was drawn at the 20 y/o and younger age bracket (Cripps/ Docherty and younger) and a plan was implemented to go heavily to the draft for 3 years and try and build the nucleus of a side for the future. Older players were to be traded out (for extra early picks) or retained to enable us to play the kids we draft, without them getting smashed every week.

Henderson, Tuohy, Bell, Yarran, Gibbs were all traded out (for the net return of an extra 4 x 1st rounders, and a couple of seconds), We went heavily to the draft and picked up C Curnow, Weitering, Fisher, Dow, SPS, O'Brien, McKay, Silvagni, Macreadie, Cuningham and others.

We supplemented this drafting by luring wantaway talented best 22 types from GWS for cheap, often taking 'salary dumps' (multiple players, or Palmer) in order to get better draft deals (we free up salary cap space for GWS by taking on their contracts; in return we get access to the players we did want and view as best 22 players like Marchbank, Plowman, Pickett and Kennedy for cheap).

Knowing we needed to get in mature bodies, we grabbed 'free' senior players from elsewhere to provide some older and harder players to protect the kids. O'shea, Shaw, Mullet, ASOS and Lobbe all cost nothing (PSD, token picks in the 90's, delisted F/A).

All in all in 3 hectic years we have made over 43 list changes. It wasnt a rebuilding of the list; we razed the joint to the ground and started from scratch.

This year, the loss of Gibbs last year, and Docherty before the season started has hurt. Its been compounded by the worst injury run in the AFL (we were again 2 down on the bench last weekend, with Fisher and Jones ruled out for the season after the match). Add to that we are fielding young sides, propped up by C graders, and you're witnessing the inevitable.

Out starting 8 midfield the last few weeks has been (Cripps, Murphy [when not injured] and E Curnow) plus Dow, Fisher, SPS, Polson (all 1st or 2nd year players) and Kennedy (in his third year). Its not a midfield, it's a creche.

We're on record as stating that after the 3 years of investing in the draft, we are going to be moving to a more balanced list management strategy, looking at free agents and trades in conjunction with drafting. We're really short on quality players in the 23-28 age bracket. Due to the year we've just had, we're likely to hit the draft hard again this year, and move our search for free agents and trades to next year.

Next year we'll have the benefit of a massive war chest of salary cap space, that's been banked for years now. We'll also be up for trading 1sts and future 1sts to get the job done (when you're a struggling team, you have to overpay to get the players you want). The success of our reset will come down to the success of our recruiting over the past 3 years, the ability of the players we drafted to develop, and our ability to lure 2-3 A grade players via free agency and trades over the next 2-3 years.

I expect another year of shizen next year, and a bottom 4 finish. We should (if everything goes to plan) start to rise the following year, and hopefully be back in finals contention in 2021 or thereabouts.

TL;DR - Yes we're s**t, but what other option did we realistically have considering the position we were in at the start of season 2015?

Did you write all that 25mins ago?

If you did I am seriously impressed.

 

[Monkey King]

1. Appalling draft returns from 2008-2014. This is what’s hurt the club most.

2. Panicked in 2012 and sacked Ratten. Carlton had a rotten year with injury and just missed the finals.

3. Replaced Ratten with Malthouse. His time at Carlton was a disaster.

4. Lost guys like Garlett, Betts, Robinson, Waite all for nothing - well Daisy Thomas. Same same.

5. Cycled through 43 players over the last 3 years and hit the draft hard.

6. Left with a nice handful of young talent but massive gaps in depth, structure and age profile.

7. Injuries this year have exposed those gaps in ways a full list may not have.

 

[Faz 2000]

After the salary cap stuff we were on our knees (quite literally). Players were taking pay cuts, the list was a shambles, we nearly had to hand the keys back. The culture was toxic; it was a mess.

Etc etc etc

Thankyou. It's not a good news story and it's not pretty reading. It does not make me think everything will be OK.

This is, however, THE TRUTH.

This is as good a summary of the hows and whys of Carlton being BY FAR the worst side in the competition right now, and the worst side seen in decades. It takes a decade to get this bad, and Carlton has done it. Likewise, the decision to DO something about it has exacerbated the pain *in the short term* with a view to fixing it in the long haul. Will it work? Who knows. But it IS the approach, and we're paying for it NOW on the hope of it being better in years to come.

Great great explanation. Should be stickied somewhere for every knob jockey who blunders in and says "CaHLton R no gud!!111". No kidding. We know we're no good. You should try being a fan for a few decades and watching it unfold before your eyes! At least we're trying to do something different to improve it now.

 

[footyfan1978]

In 2011 Carlton lost a semi-final to West Coast in Perth by 3 points. From that team, coached by Brett Ratten, only Marc Murphy (then 24) and Kade Simpson (27) played last night.

Their team that day included the now retired Chris Judd (then 28), Andrew Carrazzo (27), Michael Jamison (25), Heath Scotland (31) and Andrew Walker (25) but also Eddie Betts (then 24), Jeff Garlett (22), Mitch Robinson (22), Zach Tuohy (21), Lachie Henderson (21) and Chris Yarran (20) who moved on to other clubs. Bryce Gibbs (22) and Matthew Kreuzer (22) missed the match.

You failed your research at first hurdle of reading it.
Waite, Gibbs and Kruezer all missed that semi-final.
How you missed Waite, * knows but s**t bloody research it is.

Could not be bothered reading rest as if you stuff up something that obvious do not hold out much hope for rest of post.

 

[Juice0103]

Sos inherited the worst list in the afl and has gotten some future stars of the afl