Robert Walls stop being Devisive

[Michael Jezz]

Robert Walls article on Feb 10, laying the blame for Carlton's poisition at the feet of Denis Pagan is not in the interests of the club. He blames the clubs position on recruiting players from other clubs at the end of 2003.
He neglects to say that most of the 11 players were traded for Carlton hacks that were worse and that we won most of those trades. He also fails to mention

1. We had draft penalties that year

2. We did not give away high draft picks

3. We recruited Walker and Scotland with our first 2 picks in the draft

4. It is doubtful that picking 11 untried kids at pick 60Plus would have done better

5. The club has recruited youth in 2003, 2005 and 2006. apart from a few speculative late picks.

6. There was no mention in the article of the club turning away from the draft in from 1995 to 2001 apart from 2000.

7. He has also developed Fevola, Houlihan, Scotland and S O'hailpin better than anyone has expected and turned the likes of Carazzo into a handy footballer

Why the day after the best news Carlton has had for 5 years do you start to scarp and divide? Let the club heal Robert. Give Denis a chance. He has his faults but he has never had the players. Give him his two years in a stable, united environment

 

[elgranto]

because like kevin bartlett, he holds a grudge for a decision against him for something that was his fault.... over 15 years ago!

 

[AlecDuncan]

Robert Walls article on Feb 10, laying the blame for Carlton's poisition at the feet of Denis Pagan is not in the interests of the club. He blames the clubs position on recruiting players from other clubs at the end of 2003.

Spot on. Every time I see a Carlton article by Walls I know it's going to have some really dumb statements in it, and this one doesn't disappoint.

 

[bendigoblues]

hi guys, just signed up after being a long time reader of this site

I agree that Walls is very critical of Carlton at times, but the wonder of journalism is that you can look back and be critical. I think Dennis has been great developing some players, but not enough younger players. I agree in full that a youth policy should have been looked at a lot earlier than getting some players like mick martyn etc, but again hindsight is a wonderfull thing. My real big critic of dennis is more in his stubberness in wanting to do all things his way, the match committee should have forced some young blood through the ranks a little more, a long kicking game plan is not good with young bodies, true, but neither is kicking the ball long to old, discarded players, something we are fast changing.

Our focus then and now should have been on building a team, rather than filling gaps with players other teams never wanted. Hopefully Pratt's reign shuts all negative medi from ex carlton players, and focuses attention on a tightknit team.

Hopefully it will leave all the negative rubbish to be written by caroline wilson. god knows she has very little else to do other than rubbish teams like us!

 

[gandaal]

because like kevin bartlett, he holds a grudge for a decision against him for something that was his fault.... over 15 years ago!

Nah I don't think so. Walls loves the club, which is why he talks about it so much. Commentators have a right to be critical of our coaching when we've won two wooden spoons in a row.

 

[linchpin]

It must have been a slow news week!

Wallsy wrote the same article 12 months ago!

Yawn!

 

[AndSmithMustScore]

Walls is entitled to his opinion.

And in part he is correct.

Recruiting all those recycled players was a bad move because all it did was try and put off the fact we needed to bottom out and start a youth led rebulding process.

If we hadn't taken that option we would have most likely finished lower on the ladder and had better young players to chose from.

Addded to that less dead wood floating around on the list for the next few years as we took on some contracts that we didn't need.

In all some of their decisions granted while being hamgstrung by draft penatlies probably weren't the best in hindsight.

 

[BlueYoss]

Recruiting all those recycled players was a bad move because all it did was try and put off the fact we needed to bottom out and start a youth led rebulding process.

Carlton did need to bottom out and start a rebuilding process based around promising youth and the 2003 recycling of players did stave off that bottoming out for a year.

So essentially, if we had accepted this position then, we would have had pole position in the 2004 and 2005 drafts (as Hawthorn did).

As it were, we had pole position in the 2005 and 2006 drafts, so we need to weigh up which was the better draft to be better positiond for, 2004 or 2006?

Obviously this can't be known for some time yet, but something tells me the 'super draft' of 2006 will beat the 2004 draft hands down -and most of us have much more faith in Carlton's young up and coming spine of KPP's and midfielders than those of Hawthorn, mainly coming from the 2004 and 2005 drafts.

Am I suggesting that the powers that be at Carlton were aware of the calibre of talent heading into the superdraft of 2006 back in 2003 when they recylced all those discarded players?

Of course not!!

But let us Carlton fans at least acknowledge and appreciate that in these past few dark years, along with all the ****, there was still one stroke of miraculous luck that did go our way

 

[jj1978]

Nothing better than reading a Walls'y article whilst doing number 2's.

If you don't like what he's written, makes for great toilet paper and think of the benefits to the environment (recycling).

 

[AndSmithMustScore]

Carlton did need to bottom out and start a rebuilding process based around promising youth and the 2003 recycling of players did stave off that bottoming out for a year.

So essentially, if we had accepted this position then, we would have had pole position in the 2004 and 2005 drafts (as Hawthorn did).

As it were, we had pole position in the 2005 and 2006 drafts, so we need to weigh up which was the better draft to be better positiond for, 2004 or 2006?

Obviously this can't be known for some time yet, but something tells me the 'super draft' of 2006 will beat the 2004 draft hands down -and most of us have much more faith in Carlton's young up and coming spine of KPP's and midfielders than those of Hawthorn, mainly coming from the 2004 and 2005 drafts.

Am I suggesting that the powers that be at Carlton were aware of the calibre of talent heading into the superdraft of 2006 back in 2003 when they recylced all those discarded players?

Of course not!!

But let us Carlton fans at least acknowledge and appreciate that in these past few dark years, along with all the ****, there was still one stroke of miraculous luck that did go our way

We still would have been average even if we had bottomed out that year earlier, we'd just have a few extra classy young players.

 

[btdg]

I agree with the OP on this one. We can't blame Pagan for our current situation - most of the damage was done long before he got to the club.

When we hired him, we knew what we were getting. We knew he was a guy who inflates the egos of his stars and bruises his weaker players. Some stars warm to that (Fevola, Carey), others don't (McKernan). Some lesser players get the most out of themselves under him (Archer, Scotland), others don't. We knew he like to play senior players, and like to recruit guys who had failed in other circumstances (often due to attitude problems), but who had the talent to be turned around.

Was he a good fit for us? Probably not. Our stars were too undisciplined to pull the undisciplined recruits into line as Carey, Martyn and Archer did with guys like Pike and Pickett at North. And he was picking up troubled guys from other teams at a time when we needed youth.

On the other hand, the recycling project wasn't as big a failure as its made out to be. We simply had no option - sure, there's an occasional gem picked after pick 60 in the draft, but there's no point using 6 or 7 late picks. Plus, he boosted us up to 10th, which is drastically under-rated. Lets say we don't get that 10th, but instead pick up young draftees from lower than pick 60 for those 2 years. Chances are we finish bottom 2, and that would mean 5 consecutive bottom 2 finishes. As is, the 10th was a break for supporters where we were actually competitive for a bit. Did ok by me...

 

[HBF]

I have defended Pagan quite a bit around here, mainly becuase we really haven't had the cattle for him to produce the results that he has wanted to.

I think he can now say he does have the cattle, albeit young cattle. I really think he will need to produce some good results this year, or he could be in very real danger of not coaching the club past 2007.

 

[Johnny_3]

Robert Walls article on Feb 10, laying the blame for Carlton's poisition at the feet of Denis Pagan is not in the interests of the club. He blames the clubs position on recruiting players from other clubs at the end of 2003.
He neglects to say that most of the 11 players were traded for Carlton hacks that were worse and that we won most of those trades. He also fails to mention

1. We had draft penalties that year

2. We did not give away high draft picks

3. We recruited Walker and Scotland with our first 2 picks in the draft

4. It is doubtful that picking 11 untried kids at pick 60Plus would have done better

5. The club has recruited youth in 2003, 2005 and 2006. apart from a few speculative late picks.

6. There was no mention in the article of the club turning away from the draft in from 1995 to 2001 apart from 2000.

7. He has also developed Fevola, Houlihan, Scotland and S O'hailpin better than anyone has expected and turned the likes of Carazzo into a handy footballer

Why the day after the best news Carlton has had for 5 years do you start to scarp and divide? Let the club heal Robert. Give Denis a chance. He has his faults but he has never had the players. Give him his two years in a stable, united environment

I guess we wanted a coach who would lead us past the sh1t.
But in fact we got a chairride up via the draft system. Without pagan we would be similar team to that of richmond/north.

Middle to low finishes with no hope until the bottom out.

All in all i was estatic when we got him, last 2 years wanted him gone, but i guess in the long run it will benefit the team.

 

[princess park]

With all you arm chair experts making your decisions purely on what you read in the "crap media papers no wonder we've had some problems.
Lets get away from the "they should have.........
Lets start today and make no more reference to the past.