Relatively speaking for his thinking capacity it might well be. Give him benefit of the doubt.
Play Nice The 'all things Carlton' mega-thread
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Relatively speaking for his thinking capacity it might well be. Give him benefit of the doubt.
Carlton are doing a full rebuild which you rarely see. Usually rebuild means 5-10 players. Not 20 or 30 odd.
There's no point complaining about it and throwing blame and about who deserves what. That's not relevant. Things are where they are and things need to be fixed.
Clean out was needed. Carlton had a terrible culture and a lot of that resided in some of Carlton's better players. While a lot of players who Carlton got rid of were good players, they were not players you could retain and change the culture or players you would want bringing in a heap of youth.
Carlton's bad culture comes from a massive gap in leadership and a club under resourced and cash strapped in the early 2000s. Carlton copped massive fines for salary cap breaches but it was also a club that lost leadership without any coming through. Poor drafting in the late 90's and early 2000s saw a club without leadership and without good draft picks and without money. The club fell behind in terms of quality staff, facilities, players and leadership.
Ratten took on a side that had a lot of early picks but a very under resourced football department and zero leadership. A culture that was shot to pieces. Players going out, getting into trouble, lazy, soft, one way running and poor fitness standards. A football team made up of nobodies. And those players matured accordingly. Getting Judd was not enough.
Malthouse came to Carlton because there was some talent there and he thought he could get things right, change the culture but the players couldn't change and in the end he lost them. Some of the players harboring the problems were exposed and left but without a list manager and proper footy department, left for nothing.
SOS and Bolton came in to a team that had some good older players, not real strong leaders and Cripps. A list of very ordinary players, poor player salaries, not much leadership and a pretty bare football department.
A lot of criticism goes to Carlton for drafting in opposition rejects but do the maths. Carlton had just 5 or 6 good players on the list when SOS/Bolton got there and no young ones apart from Cripps coming through. They had very few players to trade and lacked players in the early and early prime age group. They had to go young but not to the point where they were forced to play young players or gift them games and not to the point where there was no maturity or leadership around them.
The AFL had got rid of priority picks, at least for what they were and picks are now 18 picks apart, not 16, plus there is free agency to contend with. Outside of those 6 players, everyone else had to go and that decision has only been proven right.
Now you get 5 selections in the draft, the talent usually runs out around the pick 60 or 70 mark (4th round) and likelihood of those players being any good diminishes. Of those players drafted, 30 odd are probably any good and the rest don't make it. Not all players you get make it. Carlton needed 35 or so players but also needed to fix immediate problems so ready to go rejects came in alongside draftees. Some are good, some are gone. Lets not forget draftees take 3-5 years before they are much good. Lets not forget SOS and Bolton have been there for just 3 years.
Carlton have not cleaned everyone out at once but they have done it as quick as they could. Older players in their prime leaving for draftees.
Carlton's long term plan is all about getting a best 22+ to all mature at the same time so older mature gun players have been off limits to Carlton until now.
Carlton know winning is not the result of rebuilding as they are and that losing will be the symptom for some time and they are doing it this way because they want to build a team that can challenge for the premiership, not sit around the middle of the ladder. So quick fix was always off the cards. Going backwards however was a likely outcome, not guaranteed but likely.
I don't doubt this will work and Carlton will be a good team but a young team with one superstar and a few older and well past it players doesn't deliver much. Not with a lot of injuries and losing one of your best players.
Now the priority pick is interesting. Carlton never said they were never going to apply for a priority pick. Go out there and find a quote from a Carlton official declaring that the club will not apply for a priority pick. You won't find one. Don't believe me? Well you're a victim of sensationalist journalism. Carlton didn't want to discuss or allude to a PP being in their plans during the season (at the time probably wasn't in discussion) and some journalists took very vague interpretations of that and made that statement on the clubs behalf. You could call it fake news if you like. Don't worry, we all read the headlines and skimmed the articles and fell for it too on the Carlton board. Truth is Carlton were keeping their cards close to their chest until the time was right.
Carlton and poor teams alike probably don't need a priority pick but it does help. Resources have been taken away from bottom clubs of recent times (early PP, picks spread further apart, free agency, less mature aged talent) and things are more in favor of clubs with established and strong lists (FA and players forced to ealy trades via FA). I don't mind seeing some resources handed to really struggling clubs. It's not like handing a PP to club like Carlton is handing them a premiership. Ideally they trade that pick for mature aged talent that makes an immediate impact. That works. Why take resources away from struggling clubs? Why not give something back?
It's not about rewarding clubs for being bad or about forcing clubs to get their act together, Carlton now has its act together. It's doing most things right and giving clubs the resources to get back up in an acceptable time frame. Carlton is now a well run and well resourced club, but it takes time before you can build a good footy side from near scratch. It's about fairly resourcing clubs and identifying those clubs who have a lot of work to do. More work to do than most and resourcing them and giving them a fair opportunity to challenge for a flag as with all clubs.
The it's their fault, they put themselves there things is so irrelevant. OK, that's true, they are there, they are down the bottom. Now what? Leave them there for years? Sure, that's real good for the game...
Carlton had other reasons to be down the bottom, a lot of the best 22 was out.
Gibbs was just about Carlton's best player and forced to be traded because he was about to be a FA and wanted out.
Kennedy was recruited but was often injured, McKay came good but it took most of the season, Jones missed with injuries and had some really poor form, Docherty who was All Australian missed the entire season, Murphy missed a lot of the season, Lang was recruited but got injured in the preseason and missed a lot of football, Plowman missed a lot of the second half of the season, Marchbank missed most of the season, Weitering had a lot of injuries and played with them, Fisher missed a lot of the second half of the season, Macreadie missed the entire season, Cuningham missed most of the season, Pickett missed most of the season, Williamson missed the entire season, Byrne missed most of the season. Alex Silvagni missed the entire season.
Most of those players are best 22 or arguably best 22 or at least better up and coming youngsters. Probably an injury list you could get away with a bit if you were a strong and established list but you only have to see with Adelaide just how few crucial players it takes before you fall from grace quite significantly.
Again, a lot of people criticise some of the mature age players Carlton recruited and it's true, some aren't much good, but that's not the point. They were meant to be VFL players who played 5-10 games and no more. Support the culture of the club and support the young players and aide their development. But many did play a lot more. Can't blame the players or their recruiting for that, it's just how it worked out and it was good that we didn't have second rate teenagers running around instead or things would have been a lot worse.
I just don't get why people don't get this. Who else are we meant to recruit? An 18 year old who can't play let alone play AFL or a mature aged player who brings maturity, leadership, AFL capable and has as much chance of turning into a good player as an 18 year old in the 5th round if not more. The last thing you want is a list full of youth. Got to keep the list balanced and the environment good and these poor quality AFL guys do contribute to that. They do lead, train hard and uphold values. Not only that but they make the total player payments. Carlton have a heap of mature aged recruits who aren't much good on one year contracts, most are out of contract this year, ready to be delisted and open the cap wide open. Can't do that with 18 year olds.
A lot of reasons why Carlton are where they are and why they have done what they have done, it's not a very usual thing. Winning in the short term is irrelevant. Nothing will get in the way of the long term goal.
There's no point complaining about it and throwing blame and about who deserves what. That's not relevant. Things are where they are and things need to be fixed.
Clean out was needed. Carlton had a terrible culture and a lot of that resided in some of Carlton's better players. While a lot of players who Carlton got rid of were good players, they were not players you could retain and change the culture or players you would want bringing in a heap of youth.
Carlton's bad culture comes from a massive gap in leadership and a club under resourced and cash strapped in the early 2000s. Carlton copped massive fines for salary cap breaches but it was also a club that lost leadership without any coming through. Poor drafting in the late 90's and early 2000s saw a club without leadership and without good draft picks and without money. The club fell behind in terms of quality staff, facilities, players and leadership.
Ratten took on a side that had a lot of early picks but a very under resourced football department and zero leadership. A culture that was shot to pieces. Players going out, getting into trouble, lazy, soft, one way running and poor fitness standards. A football team made up of nobodies. And those players matured accordingly. Getting Judd was not enough.
Malthouse came to Carlton because there was some talent there and he thought he could get things right, change the culture but the players couldn't change and in the end he lost them. Some of the players harboring the problems were exposed and left but without a list manager and proper footy department, left for nothing.
SOS and Bolton came in to a team that had some good older players, not real strong leaders and Cripps. A list of very ordinary players, poor player salaries, not much leadership and a pretty bare football department.
A lot of criticism goes to Carlton for drafting in opposition rejects but do the maths. Carlton had just 5 or 6 good players on the list when SOS/Bolton got there and no young ones apart from Cripps coming through. They had very few players to trade and lacked players in the early and early prime age group. They had to go young but not to the point where they were forced to play young players or gift them games and not to the point where there was no maturity or leadership around them.
The AFL had got rid of priority picks, at least for what they were and picks are now 18 picks apart, not 16, plus there is free agency to contend with. Outside of those 6 players, everyone else had to go and that decision has only been proven right.
Now you get 5 selections in the draft, the talent usually runs out around the pick 60 or 70 mark (4th round) and likelihood of those players being any good diminishes. Of those players drafted, 30 odd are probably any good and the rest don't make it. Not all players you get make it. Carlton needed 35 or so players but also needed to fix immediate problems so ready to go rejects came in alongside draftees. Some are good, some are gone. Lets not forget draftees take 3-5 years before they are much good. Lets not forget SOS and Bolton have been there for just 3 years.
Carlton have not cleaned everyone out at once but they have done it as quick as they could. Older players in their prime leaving for draftees.
Carlton's long term plan is all about getting a best 22+ to all mature at the same time so older mature gun players have been off limits to Carlton until now.
Carlton know winning is not the result of rebuilding as they are and that losing will be the symptom for some time and they are doing it this way because they want to build a team that can challenge for the premiership, not sit around the middle of the ladder. So quick fix was always off the cards. Going backwards however was a likely outcome, not guaranteed but likely.
I don't doubt this will work and Carlton will be a good team but a young team with one superstar and a few older and well past it players doesn't deliver much. Not with a lot of injuries and losing one of your best players.
Now the priority pick is interesting. Carlton never said they were never going to apply for a priority pick. Go out there and find a quote from a Carlton official declaring that the club will not apply for a priority pick. You won't find one. Don't believe me? Well you're a victim of sensationalist journalism. Carlton didn't want to discuss or allude to a PP being in their plans during the season (at the time probably wasn't in discussion) and some journalists took very vague interpretations of that and made that statement on the clubs behalf. You could call it fake news if you like. Don't worry, we all read the headlines and skimmed the articles and fell for it too on the Carlton board. Truth is Carlton were keeping their cards close to their chest until the time was right.
Carlton and poor teams alike probably don't need a priority pick but it does help. Resources have been taken away from bottom clubs of recent times (early PP, picks spread further apart, free agency, less mature aged talent) and things are more in favor of clubs with established and strong lists (FA and players forced to ealy trades via FA). I don't mind seeing some resources handed to really struggling clubs. It's not like handing a PP to club like Carlton is handing them a premiership. Ideally they trade that pick for mature aged talent that makes an immediate impact. That works. Why take resources away from struggling clubs? Why not give something back?
It's not about rewarding clubs for being bad or about forcing clubs to get their act together, Carlton now has its act together. It's doing most things right and giving clubs the resources to get back up in an acceptable time frame. Carlton is now a well run and well resourced club, but it takes time before you can build a good footy side from near scratch. It's about fairly resourcing clubs and identifying those clubs who have a lot of work to do. More work to do than most and resourcing them and giving them a fair opportunity to challenge for a flag as with all clubs.
The it's their fault, they put themselves there things is so irrelevant. OK, that's true, they are there, they are down the bottom. Now what? Leave them there for years? Sure, that's real good for the game...
Carlton had other reasons to be down the bottom, a lot of the best 22 was out.
Gibbs was just about Carlton's best player and forced to be traded because he was about to be a FA and wanted out.
Kennedy was recruited but was often injured, McKay came good but it took most of the season, Jones missed with injuries and had some really poor form, Docherty who was All Australian missed the entire season, Murphy missed a lot of the season, Lang was recruited but got injured in the preseason and missed a lot of football, Plowman missed a lot of the second half of the season, Marchbank missed most of the season, Weitering had a lot of injuries and played with them, Fisher missed a lot of the second half of the season, Macreadie missed the entire season, Cuningham missed most of the season, Pickett missed most of the season, Williamson missed the entire season, Byrne missed most of the season. Alex Silvagni missed the entire season.
Most of those players are best 22 or arguably best 22 or at least better up and coming youngsters. Probably an injury list you could get away with a bit if you were a strong and established list but you only have to see with Adelaide just how few crucial players it takes before you fall from grace quite significantly.
Again, a lot of people criticise some of the mature age players Carlton recruited and it's true, some aren't much good, but that's not the point. They were meant to be VFL players who played 5-10 games and no more. Support the culture of the club and support the young players and aide their development. But many did play a lot more. Can't blame the players or their recruiting for that, it's just how it worked out and it was good that we didn't have second rate teenagers running around instead or things would have been a lot worse.
I just don't get why people don't get this. Who else are we meant to recruit? An 18 year old who can't play let alone play AFL or a mature aged player who brings maturity, leadership, AFL capable and has as much chance of turning into a good player as an 18 year old in the 5th round if not more. The last thing you want is a list full of youth. Got to keep the list balanced and the environment good and these poor quality AFL guys do contribute to that. They do lead, train hard and uphold values. Not only that but they make the total player payments. Carlton have a heap of mature aged recruits who aren't much good on one year contracts, most are out of contract this year, ready to be delisted and open the cap wide open. Can't do that with 18 year olds.
A lot of reasons why Carlton are where they are and why they have done what they have done, it's not a very usual thing. Winning in the short term is irrelevant. Nothing will get in the way of the long term goal.
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I do find it extremely hilarious when opposition fans try to tell us we would have been better off building around Murphy, Gibbs, Menzel etc back in 2015.
2015 was the worst Carlton season I’ve watched. This year was pretty close but performances from Cripps, Curnow and a few others kept me interested. 2015 was disgraceful. We were a regular Friday night embarrassment. We were getting spanked in multiple games while we played useless footballers with absolutely no use going forward. Our young talents were Tom Bell, Sam Docherty, Patrick Cripps and Troy Menzel.
Back in 2015 that very list was getting absolutely shitcanned on this very website. And now some on here want to pretend that list had something and was worth topping up with senior players. What a joke.
Like others have said maybe the rebuild doesn’t work out as planned or we end up with a few issues because of lack of senior talent, but I’d take this option over that 2015 crap any day of the week.
2015 was the worst Carlton season I’ve watched. This year was pretty close but performances from Cripps, Curnow and a few others kept me interested. 2015 was disgraceful. We were a regular Friday night embarrassment. We were getting spanked in multiple games while we played useless footballers with absolutely no use going forward. Our young talents were Tom Bell, Sam Docherty, Patrick Cripps and Troy Menzel.
Back in 2015 that very list was getting absolutely shitcanned on this very website. And now some on here want to pretend that list had something and was worth topping up with senior players. What a joke.
Like others have said maybe the rebuild doesn’t work out as planned or we end up with a few issues because of lack of senior talent, but I’d take this option over that 2015 crap any day of the week.
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You are wrong. Most of those types, are not pretending. They are actually that dumb when they post such stuff. That lack of knowledge of most is actually real.
tigers99
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Carlton won 1 less game than Richmond in 2016 and now one is defending a premiership and the other finished with their worst season in over 100 years.
Saying how bad things have been at Carlton is simply just talk. You dont need to clear 30 players out to fix an apparent bad culture.
Carlton now have list barely competitive which will clearly effect the development of young talent. The "play youth" only has been debunked it simply doesn't work.
SOS imo has 100% bought in maybe 1 gun in Curnow. The rest are just potential. That is pretty poor since he begun.
Please dont throw SPS, Dow, Marchbank, Plowman ect into this convo because they are far from guns and or proven talent.
Saying how bad things have been at Carlton is simply just talk. You dont need to clear 30 players out to fix an apparent bad culture.
Carlton now have list barely competitive which will clearly effect the development of young talent. The "play youth" only has been debunked it simply doesn't work.
SOS imo has 100% bought in maybe 1 gun in Curnow. The rest are just potential. That is pretty poor since he begun.
Please dont throw SPS, Dow, Marchbank, Plowman ect into this convo because they are far from guns and or proven talent.
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I don't think any Carlton supporters have ever said these guys are proven talent. They're in their 1st and 2nd years of senior football, and we've only seen glimpses, but if we're looking at players who are going to be be part of a competitive team these guys have largely shown with the right development they'll at an absolute minimum become decent footballers.
We're just rattling off young talent the same way Melbourne supporters were talking up Hogan, Petracca, Brayshaw and Oliver in their first few years of league footy. Hopefully things crystallise from there, and we've got every right to be excited about what someone like Paddy Dow will bring with a few more pre-seasons and AFL games under his belt. It'd be a pretty bleak experience as a Carlton supporter if we weren't.
I wouldn't put Plowman in the same category either. He's been in the system 6 years and is a base-level, dependable AFL player. I'm not a massive fan, and I think he's got a few serious limitations, but he's a good player to have around as we're building and he might surprise in a better team.
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2005-2006 were the worst for me. Multiple thrashings, and just a shocking list with virtually no young talent and a heap of past-it, recycled players sitting idle on our list.
2015 I could stomach because we saw the emergence of Cripps and Docherty, and had a few decent wins at the end which gave us some sort of hope the club wasn't in as bad a state as we thought.
2016-2017 we played some decent team oriented footy and got good seasons out of the likes of Murphy, Gibbs and Kreuzer and had good wins against some strong teams.
This year was shitty, but the little glimpses from McKay, Curnow, Dow and even O'Brien made it almost bearable.
Don't want to experience another 2 win season as long I live though.
I was fairly young in 2005-2006. 2015 was so bad for me because I was really following footy more closely by that stage and my mates and I revolved our weekends during footy season around games. By the end of that season I basically lost interest completely.
Incredibly simplistic way to look at things. Richmond were making the finals in consecutive seasons, Hardwick's gameplan stunk in 2016 and you guys had injuries that ruined your season. The two clubs weren't even remotely in the same position. Richmond had growth to come from the likes of Martin, Rance, Cotchin, Astbury etc and you really hit on some lesser known players like Castagna etc. Then you get Nankervis, Prestia and Caddy who have all been great gets.
Carlton had a bare bones list, there was no more growth to come from the likes of Gibbs, Murphy and Simpson. We didn't have a forward like Jack Riewoldt to build around, our defence didn't have someone like Rance to build around.
Carlton did not clear out their list because of culture issue either. They cleared it out because the list stunk. As pointed out by Malifice, they whiffed terribly on every draft from 2009 onwards before Silvagni got there. When you whiff on drafts and can only attract Dale Thomas as a free agent, where is the talent coming from?
You say SOS has done poorly because Dow etc are only potential. How many top draft picks actually turn out to be guns from day one? You would have seen with Richmond that it can take time. Martin and Rance were not the players they are today after one or two seasons.
Carlton winning 7 games and 6 games in 2016 and 2017 has really made people overrate where they were at. The moment we traded Gibbs last year I had serious concerns about how we'd fare his season. We weren't totally dependant on Gibbs, but he was big ball winner who was instrumental in many of our 13 wins over those 2 years. We weren't able to get any replacement and the likes of Fisher, Dow etc aren't good enough yet. And this season was also disastrous injury wise. We were seriously up against it to get near 6 or 7 wins.
JohnnyFontane90
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I thought you were going somewhere with that first sentence and then your post sort of shriveled up a bit like my......well it shriveled up.
you don't need to clear out 30 players to fix a bad culture, you need clear out 30 players when you have 30 average players and absolutely no young talent coming through to make the side better in the foreseeable future. This was caused by the missed drafts of 08-14 which i'm sure has been well documented in this thread.
of course all the recent draftees of the last 3 years aren't proven guns. the reason for that is that they were drafted in the last 3 years. In his 3rd year alex rance was dropped, played forward, played on ball and didn't play in a single win. That kind of sounds a bit like weitering doesn't it? if they didn't go for this full reset then probably casboult would still be the best forward on the team. They might have Henderson and tuohy still running around but there would be nowhere near as much young talent and we're probably be 14th this year.
Surely they've got something better to do than troll on multiple BigFooty accounts.
How sad.
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Why thank you Sherlock?
And you saying about how bad you think things are now isn't? Moving on 30 or more players wasn't only to tackle a cultural issue, but most of those players simply weren't up to it. And some of those that were wanted out. Pretty simple.
Uh wrong! The list isn't the major problem and it can be competitive. Ever considered the adversities it's had to face? Injuries? Excessive Exposure? A negative and foggy game style?
So if they aren't a gun that can threaten the competition in years to come, then they are merely fighters for a spot on the list?
I'm pretty sure we can say Dow is safe after his first year, having to do more work than what was required in the shallowest of midfields ever seen to date. Dominated contested work compared to the rest of the latest draft crop (bar probably Kelly).
McKay has also pretty much cemented his place. As has Fisher before have his leg broken from a trip.
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Knew it. Said it from the beginning. Obvious troll is obvious.
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It takes time. Injuries permitting this time next year we will know where we stand.
Marchbank and Pickett will be at the age where if they are not high level AFL players they never probably will be. If Pickett is still not best 22 he will probably be delisted.
Kennedy, Curnow, McKay, Weitering, Cuningham, SOJ will no longer be just kids so feel free to s**t can them all you like if they aren't up to it.
We will also know exactly where Plowman, Bryne and I guess Lang stand. This season we we're probably just too young and injured to learn much at all about our list. Really besides for Curnow and Fisher it was just a wasted year.
Seriously, why would anyone bother?
There have been many posters share their two bobs worth but if it's not highly optimistic about the direction in which Carlton are heading they are either nuffies or trolls and have no idea what they are talking about.
Good luck improving on your two win and 59% season in 2019 and beyond.
It was too long and covered multiple topics to bother responding too.
The biggest flaw in the thinking is that other teams aren’t also drastically changing their list.
Look at the Geelong, Sydney or Hawks teams of 2015 and see how many players are still playing in 2018...all those clubs have dramatically turned over their list, farewelled champions yet have traded and recruited smartly to again be challenging with completely changed lists.
Carlton haven’t recruited smartly at all...evidence being plenty of the players recruited already delisted again.
He did nail one thing though, winning is irrelevant for Carlton under the SOS/Bolton regime.
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With the advantage that they're top table teams, so they find it easy to recruit talented players.
Look at the difficulties teams on the bottom of the ladder have at attracting free agents or talented players. Us, the Saints, the Suns etc.
Bugger off.
It’s a yet to be proven media myth this “rebuild on the run” theory.
There isn’t a team that has won the premiership recently that has done this.
Sydney’s premierships in 2005 and 2012 being the closest.
It’s as proven as Carlton’s rebuild from the ground up theory.
Those teams are already up the top and just replace players of around equal quality. The current system allows that. You do that as a top side, you have a few blips but generally that means the list quality remains the same. A lot of the time they replace these players with more mature aged players, either ones who have been developing on their list away from followers eyes or with ones straight from other clubs.
Carlton started at the bottom, if you just go out and replace players with equal quality you remain down the bottom. For Carlton's list to grow they need to replace them with better players and in a lot of scenarios they are but they are undeveloped youngsters and cheap short term replacements from other clubs.
Carlton have 20 to 30 players which need to be replaced with young (so they meet the time frame) players of equal or better quality and a lot of those brought in need to be replaced with ones of better quality as the system allows.
A top side has 5-10 "rebuilding" players to replace of equal quality of a more mature age group.
Massive difference. There's no point Carlton going out and bringing in top end talent that wont be around when the young players have finished developing. Most of the time you can't because top end talent wants to go to top clubs anyway.
