Opinion The Rebuild Thread

[Kramer1]

I've generally got some sort of take on things, but must admit to benig absolutely bereft at this point in time.

I don't have a long post full of good ideas in me, and that in itself makes me pretty ill-at-ease.

Suspect I am more concerned about off field than on.

 

[blueblooded]

We need to rebuild the culture of the club it starts and finishes there.

Culture in recruiting, development, performance in training, performance in games, administration the whole lot.

It's a big job and it must start now, turnover the list, invest the correct resources in recruitment and take no prisoners on performance and adhering to the game plan whatever it is. Then we'll see some consistency ala Hawks and Cats, until then we'll be shit.

 

[BlueJet]

Looking at where we are at, we have some serious issues, and I need a rant to feel better about the weekend...

The biggest by far is that everyone is looking to point the finger and look elsewhere. It's all about which players to get rid of, whether to sack the coach, which recruiter has to go, whether we should get rid of the board, etc.

The fact is, we are below average in every single aspect of football, and these things are interrelated. The problem is that our club is first and foremost built around its people. If you sack, replace, get rid of them - then you lose the essence of the club. Every time someone gets treated poorly part of our club dies. We've been doing this for 30 years - since we sacked Jesaulenko after he won a premiership as coach - and each time we do, part of us rots away. It began slowly, but right now, the club is a festering corpse, putrid from head to toe, rotting in the filth of its own past misdeeds.

From head to toe, we need a plan of action. It's going to take 15 years to rebuild the club, and we have to acknowledge that now. But with out past, with our resources, with our passion we can do it. Time for everyone to stop looking elsewhere, and start looking at themselves. And that means everyone...

It begins with the supporters. We are arguably the worst group of supporters in the competition. We have no patience in tough times. We demand blood every time we fall behind the competition. We're blindly oblivious to our situation, and blindly arrogant about our past. We need to become patient and supportive. Criticism needs to be forward-looking, not backwards and reactionary. Accept the good with the bad, and accept we're due a hefty dose of the bad - and after 16 premierships, take our medicine and do things the right way.

The players need our support. The question should never be 'who do we delist/trade', but 'how do we make our players better'. As a club, we look at guys like Bootsma/Lucas/Warnock/Watson and see failed high-profile players with deficiencies who aren't good enough. Top teams look at guys like that and see very young men struggling to be the best they can, and seek ways of getting them to a higher level. Could those guys become premiership players? Time and time again, we've seen Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong etc build men out of boys. The emphasis is on teaching them. Hawthorn's kicking is elite, not just because they recruited good kicks, but because they put hours of development into helping the players they had (Mitchell, Sewell, etc) who couldn't kick become proficient. They build Zac Dawson into a competent players, reclaimed Burgoyne/Lake, etc, and so on. We write Warnock's poor kicking down to a character deficiency, but the truth is, skills can be learnt, and character isn't ingrained in 20 year-olds (it reflects much more on the culture they are in than anything else). No-where is this more apparent than with our elite players. Gibbs was in the leadership group before he'd played a single game. No wonder he hasn't progressed in 5 years - he was annointed as the chosen one and given honours he didn't deserve. Now we criticise him for demanding more than we think he's worth in contract disputes, for holding a station above himself, for failing to show heart and courage on the field that we think is due from a leader? We made him that way as a club, and we reap what we sow. Time and time again we've brought in high-profile recruits from elsewhere - from Kernahan/Bradley, to Judd, to Dale Thomas. That's fine when you get someone who deserves it, but when Warnock, Thomas etc are getting high-profile high salaries over existing players who have bled for the club, that's a problem. Judd was fantastic for us for the benefits he brought to others around him, but if we have to throw money around, we have to be a lot more careful about the message it sends to our group.

The same goes for the coach, to some extent. Malthouse has built teams into premiership contenders before, and can do it again. The biggest concern here is that he seems to lack confidence in the players. If the rumours are that he went to the board prior to the season to tell them about the deficiencies on the list, then he should be sacked - not because we're losing, but because his job is to coach the players up and believe in them, not pull them down. If this is true, he's the wrong person for us, because he reinforces every poor aspect of our culture, just when it needs to shift. If Malthouse genuinely believes he can get the most out of our team, that he can develop our players into a premiership list, we should give him our full support. If he thinks we need to turn over half the list, then we have a real problem, because of the impact it has on the playing group. How hard would anyone work for a boss who has made up his mind to sack them in 6 months time, regardless of performance? The best thing that could be said about Ratten was that he backed his players. To my mind, that's the best thing that can be said about any coach. At this point, I'm not confident with that with Malthouse - and filling his press conferences with ego-boosting rubbish about his 7-straight finals appearances, how 'he can't mark the ball' etc doesn't help that. Press conferences should be spent aggressively defending your players (Alistair Clarkson style). God knows there are enough people tearing our players apart and undermining their confidence right now - the coach is the one person whose job it is to build them up.

In terms of the board, recruiting staff, and everyone else behind the scenes - they need to improve, to make innovation and constant gains towards being the best in the league in 15 years time. Right now, we're a joke. Our membership trails everyone in existence - we laugh at the pet membership other teams have, while they rake in cash we're letting go to waste. We've never really focused on this because we've always had a Dick Pratt or a Bruce Mathieson there to bail us out, but cash flow is king and getting the 80,000 members we should have right now would certainly help us out (for one thing, it makes sure we have bigger crowds even when we're struggling - and that support goes a long way to making the players care). Our recruiting is a well-known joke around the league. Our fitness seems shocking, our specialist coaching don't seem to be working. All this is fine - we have to acknowledge this, acknowledge that the people we have doing these jobs are doing their best and are good people, but use it as a starting point. It means we have to look outside, to learn, to grow and build improved practices and actions at a club. Replacing people won't work if the structures, procedures and culture aren't there to support them. We've learnt that over the last decade. People need to be able to take risks and fail spectacularly, and know that the club won't sack them, that supporters will back them regardless.

That's the key point for me. We have to learn from our mistakes and errors, use them as fuel to grow and improve, not write people off as a result. Good clubs stick together and build. Bad clubs get angry, seek blood, then repeat their mistakes all over again. Right now, we're the latter, and its been killing us for two decades now.

So that's my call. Accept it's going to take 15 years to get back to the top, and so in that time-frame, we need to aim for:
- A reconstruction of the culture of the club, and become one that values and respects its people, where ideas and innovation is valued, and where people grow and develop
- Keep every single one of our current players for 15 years, and retain every player who comes after the current group. Not in the seniors, or even on the list, but make them ours. Value them as people. If Bryce Gibbs leaves at the end of the season, thank him for his service, respect his choice, and invite him back every year to the club even after he is gone. Do the same for anyone who is delisted - welcome them, celebrate them, thank them. Invite back past greats and more importantly, past spuds. Where is Cain Ackland now (and couldn't Robert Warnock use the perspective of someone like that?)? Make Carlton football club a place players want to go to (and not just for money/resources).
- Have the best coaching system of any sporting club in the world in 15 years time. Charge Mick Malthouse with creating that prior to his retirement, and if he doesn't want to, replace him with someone who accepts that responsibility. Not someone who wants to win a premiership, but someone who is genuinely interested in putting to gether a coaching system that will be the best anyone has ever seen, and who acknowledges they'll have to think creatively, research and develop that team for 5-10 years.
- Have the best, most innovative and creative recruitment and development system in the world in 15 years time. Recruit players from the USA, from Ireland, from other sports - or don't... Build a list for the short term, the long term, and the medium term, and have a clear plan about this.
- Aim for 200,000 members - the most in the league. Sign up everyone we can - create new membership categories that don't exist. Play games in Darwin, Auckland, New York, Johannesburg if we have to, and sell memberships there. Become the biggest and most powerful AFL team in the world, and be renowned as the most aggressive, most adventurous, most creative thinking club in this respect
- Aim to play finals every year from year 10-15, and from that point forward, but only after the culture is in place to make that sustainable (otherwise we sacrifice short-term gain for long-term pain, as we've found out time and time again). Aim for the playing group to achieve the absolute best they can, regardless of outcome, in every season up until then. If we play our absolute best, take risks, try new things, and grow and develop as a group, and win only 2 games this year, I'll be excited.

As a final point - this involves us all. I'm making a stand right now, to become the best supporter in the league over the next 15 years. Not by going to the games or whatever, but in the attitude I bring. Supporting the players, the coach, etc. Talking us up but being realistic. Appreciating other clubs for the great things they have done, and pushing out club to overtake them. Enjoying the games when we lose as much as when we win - because after all, this is about entertainment.

Fantastic post mate.

 

[rp84]

Agree. Who knows, if we can recruit wisely over the next 2/3 years and secure a couple of quality KPP, get lucky with a couple of Father-Son picks (eg. Silvagni or Bradley) and combine it with half of our current list we might have the basis of a decent list.

It might be wishful thinking but looking back at Geelong and the Hawks of the early to mid 2000's it seems they were able to recruit a core of quality players in a 4-5 year period with good draft picks, smart recruiting and in Geelong's case some great Father-Son pickups with Ablett and Scarlett, that set the teams up nicely.

Thing is father son players cost you good picks if they're any good. In the day, getting ridiculous players in the fourth or fifth round could be a massive advantage

 

[Azul]

Dylan Buckley taken at pick 62, which is basically the 5th round accounting for the GWS concessions that year.

 

[Aphrodite]

Excellent post btdg

 

[Sin City]

I know supporters can get a bit emotive in times like this but just try and steer clear of the "Retire/de-list everyone older than 29, trade everyone over 25" stuff. That's what Melbourne did a few years ago and you're left with no experience, no big bodies to take a battering and no leadership. I'm not saying don't trade or de-list anyone but rebuilds have to be done gradually and sensibly, we have a recruiting manager who has done everything right in the two years he's been in the job and our list management team made some good trades last year. React, but try not to overreact and hopefully we'll keep improving the list each year.

 

[Sublime]

Well said Sin.

Further on this subject, do we really know how underdone our players are? If we've really had that many guys go under the knife in the offseason, how do we know that hasn't affected us more than we would like to think? Lack of effort might also have to do with some guys just not having it in them at this stage. Don't know if there is anything to it, but could go some way to explaining the current position.

 

[Blue and Silver]

Looking at where we are at, we have some serious issues, and I need a rant to feel better about the weekend...

The biggest by far is that everyone is looking to point the finger and look elsewhere. It's all about which players to get rid of, whether to sack the coach, which recruiter has to go, whether we should get rid of the board, etc.

The fact is, we are below average in every single aspect of football, and these things are interrelated. The problem is that our club is first and foremost built around its people. If you sack, replace, get rid of them - then you lose the essence of the club. Every time someone gets treated poorly part of our club dies. We've been doing this for 30 years - since we sacked Jesaulenko after he won a premiership as coach - and each time we do, part of us rots away. It began slowly, but right now, the club is a festering corpse, putrid from head to toe, rotting in the filth of its own past misdeeds.

From head to toe, we need a plan of action. It's going to take 15 years to rebuild the club, and we have to acknowledge that now. But with out past, with our resources, with our passion we can do it. Time for everyone to stop looking elsewhere, and start looking at themselves. And that means everyone...

It begins with the supporters. We are arguably the worst group of supporters in the competition. We have no patience in tough times. We demand blood every time we fall behind the competition. We're blindly oblivious to our situation, and blindly arrogant about our past. We need to become patient and supportive. Criticism needs to be forward-looking, not backwards and reactionary. Accept the good with the bad, and accept we're due a hefty dose of the bad - and after 16 premierships, take our medicine and do things the right way.

The players need our support. The question should never be 'who do we delist/trade', but 'how do we make our players better'. As a club, we look at guys like Bootsma/Lucas/Warnock/Watson and see failed high-profile players with deficiencies who aren't good enough. Top teams look at guys like that and see very young men struggling to be the best they can, and seek ways of getting them to a higher level. Could those guys become premiership players? Time and time again, we've seen Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong etc build men out of boys. The emphasis is on teaching them. Hawthorn's kicking is elite, not just because they recruited good kicks, but because they put hours of development into helping the players they had (Mitchell, Sewell, etc) who couldn't kick become proficient. They build Zac Dawson into a competent players, reclaimed Burgoyne/Lake, etc, and so on. We write Warnock's poor kicking down to a character deficiency, but the truth is, skills can be learnt, and character isn't ingrained in 20 year-olds (it reflects much more on the culture they are in than anything else). No-where is this more apparent than with our elite players. Gibbs was in the leadership group before he'd played a single game. No wonder he hasn't progressed in 5 years - he was annointed as the chosen one and given honours he didn't deserve. Now we criticise him for demanding more than we think he's worth in contract disputes, for holding a station above himself, for failing to show heart and courage on the field that we think is due from a leader? We made him that way as a club, and we reap what we sow. Time and time again we've brought in high-profile recruits from elsewhere - from Kernahan/Bradley, to Judd, to Dale Thomas. That's fine when you get someone who deserves it, but when Warnock, Thomas etc are getting high-profile high salaries over existing players who have bled for the club, that's a problem. Judd was fantastic for us for the benefits he brought to others around him, but if we have to throw money around, we have to be a lot more careful about the message it sends to our group.

The same goes for the coach, to some extent. Malthouse has built teams into premiership contenders before, and can do it again. The biggest concern here is that he seems to lack confidence in the players. If the rumours are that he went to the board prior to the season to tell them about the deficiencies on the list, then he should be sacked - not because we're losing, but because his job is to coach the players up and believe in them, not pull them down. If this is true, he's the wrong person for us, because he reinforces every poor aspect of our culture, just when it needs to shift. If Malthouse genuinely believes he can get the most out of our team, that he can develop our players into a premiership list, we should give him our full support. If he thinks we need to turn over half the list, then we have a real problem, because of the impact it has on the playing group. How hard would anyone work for a boss who has made up his mind to sack them in 6 months time, regardless of performance? The best thing that could be said about Ratten was that he backed his players. To my mind, that's the best thing that can be said about any coach. At this point, I'm not confident with that with Malthouse - and filling his press conferences with ego-boosting rubbish about his 7-straight finals appearances, how 'he can't mark the ball' etc doesn't help that. Press conferences should be spent aggressively defending your players (Alistair Clarkson style). God knows there are enough people tearing our players apart and undermining their confidence right now - the coach is the one person whose job it is to build them up.

In terms of the board, recruiting staff, and everyone else behind the scenes - they need to improve, to make innovation and constant gains towards being the best in the league in 15 years time. Right now, we're a joke. Our membership trails everyone in existence - we laugh at the pet membership other teams have, while they rake in cash we're letting go to waste. We've never really focused on this because we've always had a Dick Pratt or a Bruce Mathieson there to bail us out, but cash flow is king and getting the 80,000 members we should have right now would certainly help us out (for one thing, it makes sure we have bigger crowds even when we're struggling - and that support goes a long way to making the players care). Our recruiting is a well-known joke around the league. Our fitness seems shocking, our specialist coaching don't seem to be working. All this is fine - we have to acknowledge this, acknowledge that the people we have doing these jobs are doing their best and are good people, but use it as a starting point. It means we have to look outside, to learn, to grow and build improved practices and actions at a club. Replacing people won't work if the structures, procedures and culture aren't there to support them. We've learnt that over the last decade. People need to be able to take risks and fail spectacularly, and know that the club won't sack them, that supporters will back them regardless.

That's the key point for me. We have to learn from our mistakes and errors, use them as fuel to grow and improve, not write people off as a result. Good clubs stick together and build. Bad clubs get angry, seek blood, then repeat their mistakes all over again. Right now, we're the latter, and its been killing us for two decades now.

So that's my call. Accept it's going to take 15 years to get back to the top, and so in that time-frame, we need to aim for:
- A reconstruction of the culture of the club, and become one that values and respects its people, where ideas and innovation is valued, and where people grow and develop
- Keep every single one of our current players for 15 years, and retain every player who comes after the current group. Not in the seniors, or even on the list, but make them ours. Value them as people. If Bryce Gibbs leaves at the end of the season, thank him for his service, respect his choice, and invite him back every year to the club even after he is gone. Do the same for anyone who is delisted - welcome them, celebrate them, thank them. Invite back past greats and more importantly, past spuds. Where is Cain Ackland now (and couldn't Robert Warnock use the perspective of someone like that?)? Make Carlton football club a place players want to go to (and not just for money/resources).
- Have the best coaching system of any sporting club in the world in 15 years time. Charge Mick Malthouse with creating that prior to his retirement, and if he doesn't want to, replace him with someone who accepts that responsibility. Not someone who wants to win a premiership, but someone who is genuinely interested in putting to gether a coaching system that will be the best anyone has ever seen, and who acknowledges they'll have to think creatively, research and develop that team for 5-10 years.
- Have the best, most innovative and creative recruitment and development system in the world in 15 years time. Recruit players from the USA, from Ireland, from other sports - or don't... Build a list for the short term, the long term, and the medium term, and have a clear plan about this.
- Aim for 200,000 members - the most in the league. Sign up everyone we can - create new membership categories that don't exist. Play games in Darwin, Auckland, New York, Johannesburg if we have to, and sell memberships there. Become the biggest and most powerful AFL team in the world, and be renowned as the most aggressive, most adventurous, most creative thinking club in this respect
- Aim to play finals every year from year 10-15, and from that point forward, but only after the culture is in place to make that sustainable (otherwise we sacrifice short-term gain for long-term pain, as we've found out time and time again). Aim for the playing group to achieve the absolute best they can, regardless of outcome, in every season up until then. If we play our absolute best, take risks, try new things, and grow and develop as a group, and win only 2 games this year, I'll be excited.

As a final point - this involves us all. I'm making a stand right now, to become the best supporter in the league over the next 15 years. Not by going to the games or whatever, but in the attitude I bring. Supporting the players, the coach, etc. Talking us up but being realistic. Appreciating other clubs for the great things they have done, and pushing out club to overtake them. Enjoying the games when we lose as much as when we win - because after all, this is about entertainment.

This deserves its own thread.

Email that to the club, to Sticks, to Mick, to every carlton supporter out there.

The right message needs to be heard and thi I s it

 

[Old Dark Blues]

This deserves its own thread.

Email that to the club, to Sticks, to Mick, to every carlton supporter out there.

The right message needs to be heard and thi I s it

No its not.

Anyone who thinks its going to take 15 years has rocks in their heads.

Secondly Carlton supporters have been the toughest out of anyone I can think of - we have been through a lot more hell and back than even Melbourne, so pointing the stick at us is beyond absurdity.

The reality is quite simple - the way our club is run is faecical (new word) - start of it, middle of it, end of it.

Yes we need to rebuild, but we shouldn't be in that position, but we are because those at the helm have failed miserably.

There is absolutely, no denying, none what so ever - its the head that is totally rotten.

We need to find a really good forward, and another back and we are good to go.

 

[BM123]

I'll try and keep this brief.

The VFL last year largely showed up a formula where we tried things with players. It was much more cohesive than the regime we had under Ratten.
Watson playing as the third tall, Rowe down back, Casboult with extended ruck periods, Dale on Edwards even after he kicked 4 goals in no time, Temay played forward, Laidler played forward etc etc.
That is to say the the win was not as important as the development.

This is still the case now but many players look as though they're playing without a real urgency.
It's not that they don't care but many are second-guessing themselves or trying to stay within a formula rather than play on instinct.
This alone makes players stop and prop and look for all options rather than opening up the opposition with a flowing movement.
The game plan to be fair, is somewhat harder at this level though, as we have a sprinkling of Northern Blues players who need to mesh with our senior listed players.

All considered, you'd have to say that will take time but it's hard to know when you don't know what the coaches instructions and expectations are.

Very noticeable at senior level where players will rarely play on and our ball movement is probably the slowest in the comp at the moment.

 

[Deep Blue]

Every player who comes here gets truly welcomed, for example Wines didn't want to play for Port when he was first drafted, he supported Carlton as a kid and wanted to play there but in his second year he is living with Wingard (same age) and his younger brother who he is very close too (parents are happy with it) and is now being pranked on Adelaide radio by Cornes (oldest player on the list).
Polec and White also said it's one big family at Alberton I don't know if it can be replicated but even when Port were doing badly players were resigning and wanting to stay in the 'family' and also it doesn't hurt that Hinkley is a kind but stern father figure.

You mean like Malthouse!

 

[Old Dark Blues]

We all see things differently but any organisation that denies itself some home truths by not allowing an objective business/club review has a bad platform to grow from.

I don't think we want a mirror at the club and again that has nothing to do with the past 4 weeks...........it goes back much further.

We should be honest..........to ourselves.......to each other........and ultimately to the most important entity we have...........the club.

Agreed.

The important thing is not to make any decisions when your upset. Don't drive / got to bed mad.

We have been beaten by a crap club, and r*ped by Bombers and have had a TERRIBLE season. However we have some very decent cattle coming through, and our seniors are in a great spot.

I felt quietly confident after last year - now people are claiming its a 15 year rebuild and we have to get rid of everyone and above all its the supporters fault.

I find that reactionary, emotionally driven, lacking clarity, and the worst not weighing up all the options, good and bad, to come to a well considered response.

We need to provide Kernahan with someone to whom he can hand the reigns over, as he has stated. We need to put the ruler over the recruiting and development departments, and then provide increased support, better targeted support, as well as provide a more agile and dynamic environment which can quickly adapt to changes as they occur within the game.

Marc Murphy needs to hand the reigns over to Henderson or someone else who is BIG and TOUGH with a great mental position. Maybe Judd. But Murphy needs to be allowed to play his footy - the captaincy doesn't suit him and its messing with the team.

On top of that - we need to find our solution to up forward. Levi needs to be played there for the rest of the year, lets get Walker on the 50 where he belongs, and Gibbs resting up forward as well. Both of these guys are gun kicks for goal - Gibbs amongst the best in the league. He would be very dangerous.

But we need to find two players - one forward one back. Outside of that we are in fantastic nick.

Our game plan needs to be more accommodating. I can understand the defensive strategy however the last three years have changed - despite what you think Mick - and it is now an highly aggressive (as opposed to defensive) game. Lyon has demonstrated that. We need to use the boundary when it is applicable but also highly combative.


TL;DR

Calm down - we only need a mini-rebuild mainly at management level and replace Murphy and add in two players.

 

[The Flying Doormat]

No its not.

Anyone who thinks its going to take 15 years has rocks in their heads.

Secondly Carlton supporters have been the toughest out of anyone I can think of - we have been through a lot more hell and back than even Melbourne, so pointing the stick at us is beyond absurdity.

The reality is quite simple - the way our club is run is faecical (new word) - start of it, middle of it, end of it.

Yes we need to rebuild, but we shouldn't be in that position, but we are because those at the helm have failed miserably.

There is absolutely, no denying, none what so ever - its the head that is totally rotten.

We need to find a really good forward, and another back and we are good to go.

ODB, your opening and closing statements make sense however references to 'totally rotten' and 'faecical ?' are a bit emotional. You should be saving these remarks for 3rd world tin pot dictatorships and major criminal syndicates (Newscorp etc )

 

[Old Dark Blues]

ODB, your opening and closing statements make sense however references to 'totally rotten' and 'faecical ?' are a bit emotional. You should be saving these remarks for 3rd world tin pot dictatorships and major criminal syndicates (Newscorp etc )

Ironic. True - thanks.

 

[sherb]

Looking at where we are at, we have some serious issues, and I need a rant to feel better about the weekend...

The biggest by far is that everyone is looking to point the finger and look elsewhere. It's all about which players to get rid of, whether to sack the coach, which recruiter has to go, whether we should get rid of the board, etc.

The fact is, we are below average in every single aspect of football, and these things are interrelated. The problem is that our club is first and foremost built around its people. If you sack, replace, get rid of them - then you lose the essence of the club. Every time someone gets treated poorly part of our club dies. We've been doing this for 30 years - since we sacked Jesaulenko after he won a premiership as coach - and each time we do, part of us rots away. It began slowly, but right now, the club is a festering corpse, putrid from head to toe, rotting in the filth of its own past misdeeds.

From head to toe, we need a plan of action. It's going to take 15 years to rebuild the club, and we have to acknowledge that now. But with out past, with our resources, with our passion we can do it. Time for everyone to stop looking elsewhere, and start looking at themselves. And that means everyone...

It begins with the supporters. We are arguably the worst group of supporters in the competition. We have no patience in tough times. We demand blood every time we fall behind the competition. We're blindly oblivious to our situation, and blindly arrogant about our past. We need to become patient and supportive. Criticism needs to be forward-looking, not backwards and reactionary. Accept the good with the bad, and accept we're due a hefty dose of the bad - and after 16 premierships, take our medicine and do things the right way.

The players need our support. The question should never be 'who do we delist/trade', but 'how do we make our players better'. As a club, we look at guys like Bootsma/Lucas/Warnock/Watson and see failed high-profile players with deficiencies who aren't good enough. Top teams look at guys like that and see very young men struggling to be the best they can, and seek ways of getting them to a higher level. Could those guys become premiership players? Time and time again, we've seen Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong etc build men out of boys. The emphasis is on teaching them. Hawthorn's kicking is elite, not just because they recruited good kicks, but because they put hours of development into helping the players they had (Mitchell, Sewell, etc) who couldn't kick become proficient. They build Zac Dawson into a competent players, reclaimed Burgoyne/Lake, etc, and so on. We write Warnock's poor kicking down to a character deficiency, but the truth is, skills can be learnt, and character isn't ingrained in 20 year-olds (it reflects much more on the culture they are in than anything else). No-where is this more apparent than with our elite players. Gibbs was in the leadership group before he'd played a single game. No wonder he hasn't progressed in 5 years - he was annointed as the chosen one and given honours he didn't deserve. Now we criticise him for demanding more than we think he's worth in contract disputes, for holding a station above himself, for failing to show heart and courage on the field that we think is due from a leader? We made him that way as a club, and we reap what we sow. Time and time again we've brought in high-profile recruits from elsewhere - from Kernahan/Bradley, to Judd, to Dale Thomas. That's fine when you get someone who deserves it, but when Warnock, Thomas etc are getting high-profile high salaries over existing players who have bled for the club, that's a problem. Judd was fantastic for us for the benefits he brought to others around him, but if we have to throw money around, we have to be a lot more careful about the message it sends to our group.

The same goes for the coach, to some extent. Malthouse has built teams into premiership contenders before, and can do it again. The biggest concern here is that he seems to lack confidence in the players. If the rumours are that he went to the board prior to the season to tell them about the deficiencies on the list, then he should be sacked - not because we're losing, but because his job is to coach the players up and believe in them, not pull them down. If this is true, he's the wrong person for us, because he reinforces every poor aspect of our culture, just when it needs to shift. If Malthouse genuinely believes he can get the most out of our team, that he can develop our players into a premiership list, we should give him our full support. If he thinks we need to turn over half the list, then we have a real problem, because of the impact it has on the playing group. How hard would anyone work for a boss who has made up his mind to sack them in 6 months time, regardless of performance? The best thing that could be said about Ratten was that he backed his players. To my mind, that's the best thing that can be said about any coach. At this point, I'm not confident with that with Malthouse - and filling his press conferences with ego-boosting rubbish about his 7-straight finals appearances, how 'he can't mark the ball' etc doesn't help that. Press conferences should be spent aggressively defending your players (Alistair Clarkson style). God knows there are enough people tearing our players apart and undermining their confidence right now - the coach is the one person whose job it is to build them up.

In terms of the board, recruiting staff, and everyone else behind the scenes - they need to improve, to make innovation and constant gains towards being the best in the league in 15 years time. Right now, we're a joke. Our membership trails everyone in existence - we laugh at the pet membership other teams have, while they rake in cash we're letting go to waste. We've never really focused on this because we've always had a Dick Pratt or a Bruce Mathieson there to bail us out, but cash flow is king and getting the 80,000 members we should have right now would certainly help us out (for one thing, it makes sure we have bigger crowds even when we're struggling - and that support goes a long way to making the players care). Our recruiting is a well-known joke around the league. Our fitness seems shocking, our specialist coaching don't seem to be working. All this is fine - we have to acknowledge this, acknowledge that the people we have doing these jobs are doing their best and are good people, but use it as a starting point. It means we have to look outside, to learn, to grow and build improved practices and actions at a club. Replacing people won't work if the structures, procedures and culture aren't there to support them. We've learnt that over the last decade. People need to be able to take risks and fail spectacularly, and know that the club won't sack them, that supporters will back them regardless.

That's the key point for me. We have to learn from our mistakes and errors, use them as fuel to grow and improve, not write people off as a result. Good clubs stick together and build. Bad clubs get angry, seek blood, then repeat their mistakes all over again. Right now, we're the latter, and its been killing us for two decades now.

So that's my call. Accept it's going to take 15 years to get back to the top, and so in that time-frame, we need to aim for:
- A reconstruction of the culture of the club, and become one that values and respects its people, where ideas and innovation is valued, and where people grow and develop
- Keep every single one of our current players for 15 years, and retain every player who comes after the current group. Not in the seniors, or even on the list, but make them ours. Value them as people. If Bryce Gibbs leaves at the end of the season, thank him for his service, respect his choice, and invite him back every year to the club even after he is gone. Do the same for anyone who is delisted - welcome them, celebrate them, thank them. Invite back past greats and more importantly, past spuds. Where is Cain Ackland now (and couldn't Robert Warnock use the perspective of someone like that?)? Make Carlton football club a place players want to go to (and not just for money/resources).
- Have the best coaching system of any sporting club in the world in 15 years time. Charge Mick Malthouse with creating that prior to his retirement, and if he doesn't want to, replace him with someone who accepts that responsibility. Not someone who wants to win a premiership, but someone who is genuinely interested in putting to gether a coaching system that will be the best anyone has ever seen, and who acknowledges they'll have to think creatively, research and develop that team for 5-10 years.
- Have the best, most innovative and creative recruitment and development system in the world in 15 years time. Recruit players from the USA, from Ireland, from other sports - or don't... Build a list for the short term, the long term, and the medium term, and have a clear plan about this.
- Aim for 200,000 members - the most in the league. Sign up everyone we can - create new membership categories that don't exist. Play games in Darwin, Auckland, New York, Johannesburg if we have to, and sell memberships there. Become the biggest and most powerful AFL team in the world, and be renowned as the most aggressive, most adventurous, most creative thinking club in this respect
- Aim to play finals every year from year 10-15, and from that point forward, but only after the culture is in place to make that sustainable (otherwise we sacrifice short-term gain for long-term pain, as we've found out time and time again). Aim for the playing group to achieve the absolute best they can, regardless of outcome, in every season up until then. If we play our absolute best, take risks, try new things, and grow and develop as a group, and win only 2 games this year, I'll be excited.

As a final point - this involves us all. I'm making a stand right now, to become the best supporter in the league over the next 15 years. Not by going to the games or whatever, but in the attitude I bring. Supporting the players, the coach, etc. Talking us up but being realistic. Appreciating other clubs for the great things they have done, and pushing out club to overtake them. Enjoying the games when we lose as much as when we win - because after all, this is about entertainment.

Any chance you can put this in a letter/email to the club?

 

[Silvagnis]

Carlton drafts Goddard 12 years too late.

 

[Azul]

"Retire/de-list everyone older than 29, trade everyone over 25" stuff.

Denis Pagan with Ratten, McKay, Hickmott, Manton, Beaumont, Allan, Murphy, McKernan.

 

[fine wines]

No its not.

Anyone who thinks its going to take 15 years has rocks in their heads.

Secondly Carlton supporters have been the toughest out of anyone I can think of - we have been through a lot more hell and back than even Melbourne, so pointing the stick at us is beyond absurdity.

The reality is quite simple - the way our club is run is faecical (new word) - start of it, middle of it, end of it.

Yes we need to rebuild, but we shouldn't be in that position, but we are because those at the helm have failed miserably.

There is absolutely, no denying, none what so ever - its the head that is totally rotten.

We need to find a really good forward, and another back and we are good to go.

It's a good post but I agree that it shouldn't take 15 years more like half that time.

 

[SBYM]

Does anyone else think a football club board should be a broader snapshot of society?

I get the board of a multi-national has to be full of those with business acumen, and I concede that a football club these days is more than just a footy club.

However, wouldn't a more inclusive approach only benefit the club in the long term? Why shouldn't Joe Bloggs the tradie get a run if he's a true Carlton person and someone who has been involved like all of these suit wearing types have?

 

[ODNBlue]

Looking at where we are at, we have some serious issues, and I need a rant to feel better about the weekend...

The biggest by far is that everyone is looking to point the finger and look elsewhere. It's all about which players to get rid of, whether to sack the coach, which recruiter has to go, whether we should get rid of the board, etc.

The fact is, we are below average in every single aspect of football, and these things are interrelated. The problem is that our club is first and foremost built around its people. If you sack, replace, get rid of them - then you lose the essence of the club. Every time someone gets treated poorly part of our club dies. We've been doing this for 30 years - since we sacked Jesaulenko after he won a premiership as coach - and each time we do, part of us rots away. It began slowly, but right now, the club is a festering corpse, putrid from head to toe, rotting in the filth of its own past misdeeds.

From head to toe, we need a plan of action. It's going to take 15 years to rebuild the club, and we have to acknowledge that now. But with out past, with our resources, with our passion we can do it. Time for everyone to stop looking elsewhere, and start looking at themselves. And that means everyone...

It begins with the supporters. We are arguably the worst group of supporters in the competition. We have no patience in tough times. We demand blood every time we fall behind the competition. We're blindly oblivious to our situation, and blindly arrogant about our past. We need to become patient and supportive. Criticism needs to be forward-looking, not backwards and reactionary. Accept the good with the bad, and accept we're due a hefty dose of the bad - and after 16 premierships, take our medicine and do things the right way.

The players need our support. The question should never be 'who do we delist/trade', but 'how do we make our players better'. As a club, we look at guys like Bootsma/Lucas/Warnock/Watson and see failed high-profile players with deficiencies who aren't good enough. Top teams look at guys like that and see very young men struggling to be the best they can, and seek ways of getting them to a higher level. Could those guys become premiership players? Time and time again, we've seen Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong etc build men out of boys. The emphasis is on teaching them. Hawthorn's kicking is elite, not just because they recruited good kicks, but because they put hours of development into helping the players they had (Mitchell, Sewell, etc) who couldn't kick become proficient. They build Zac Dawson into a competent players, reclaimed Burgoyne/Lake, etc, and so on. We write Warnock's poor kicking down to a character deficiency, but the truth is, skills can be learnt, and character isn't ingrained in 20 year-olds (it reflects much more on the culture they are in than anything else). No-where is this more apparent than with our elite players. Gibbs was in the leadership group before he'd played a single game. No wonder he hasn't progressed in 5 years - he was annointed as the chosen one and given honours he didn't deserve. Now we criticise him for demanding more than we think he's worth in contract disputes, for holding a station above himself, for failing to show heart and courage on the field that we think is due from a leader? We made him that way as a club, and we reap what we sow. Time and time again we've brought in high-profile recruits from elsewhere - from Kernahan/Bradley, to Judd, to Dale Thomas. That's fine when you get someone who deserves it, but when Warnock, Thomas etc are getting high-profile high salaries over existing players who have bled for the club, that's a problem. Judd was fantastic for us for the benefits he brought to others around him, but if we have to throw money around, we have to be a lot more careful about the message it sends to our group.

The same goes for the coach, to some extent. Malthouse has built teams into premiership contenders before, and can do it again. The biggest concern here is that he seems to lack confidence in the players. If the rumours are that he went to the board prior to the season to tell them about the deficiencies on the list, then he should be sacked - not because we're losing, but because his job is to coach the players up and believe in them, not pull them down. If this is true, he's the wrong person for us, because he reinforces every poor aspect of our culture, just when it needs to shift. If Malthouse genuinely believes he can get the most out of our team, that he can develop our players into a premiership list, we should give him our full support. If he thinks we need to turn over half the list, then we have a real problem, because of the impact it has on the playing group. How hard would anyone work for a boss who has made up his mind to sack them in 6 months time, regardless of performance? The best thing that could be said about Ratten was that he backed his players. To my mind, that's the best thing that can be said about any coach. At this point, I'm not confident with that with Malthouse - and filling his press conferences with ego-boosting rubbish about his 7-straight finals appearances, how 'he can't mark the ball' etc doesn't help that. Press conferences should be spent aggressively defending your players (Alistair Clarkson style). God knows there are enough people tearing our players apart and undermining their confidence right now - the coach is the one person whose job it is to build them up.

In terms of the board, recruiting staff, and everyone else behind the scenes - they need to improve, to make innovation and constant gains towards being the best in the league in 15 years time. Right now, we're a joke. Our membership trails everyone in existence - we laugh at the pet membership other teams have, while they rake in cash we're letting go to waste. We've never really focused on this because we've always had a Dick Pratt or a Bruce Mathieson there to bail us out, but cash flow is king and getting the 80,000 members we should have right now would certainly help us out (for one thing, it makes sure we have bigger crowds even when we're struggling - and that support goes a long way to making the players care). Our recruiting is a well-known joke around the league. Our fitness seems shocking, our specialist coaching don't seem to be working. All this is fine - we have to acknowledge this, acknowledge that the people we have doing these jobs are doing their best and are good people, but use it as a starting point. It means we have to look outside, to learn, to grow and build improved practices and actions at a club. Replacing people won't work if the structures, procedures and culture aren't there to support them. We've learnt that over the last decade. People need to be able to take risks and fail spectacularly, and know that the club won't sack them, that supporters will back them regardless.

That's the key point for me. We have to learn from our mistakes and errors, use them as fuel to grow and improve, not write people off as a result. Good clubs stick together and build. Bad clubs get angry, seek blood, then repeat their mistakes all over again. Right now, we're the latter, and its been killing us for two decades now.

So that's my call. Accept it's going to take 15 years to get back to the top, and so in that time-frame, we need to aim for:
- A reconstruction of the culture of the club, and become one that values and respects its people, where ideas and innovation is valued, and where people grow and develop
- Keep every single one of our current players for 15 years, and retain every player who comes after the current group. Not in the seniors, or even on the list, but make them ours. Value them as people. If Bryce Gibbs leaves at the end of the season, thank him for his service, respect his choice, and invite him back every year to the club even after he is gone. Do the same for anyone who is delisted - welcome them, celebrate them, thank them. Invite back past greats and more importantly, past spuds. Where is Cain Ackland now (and couldn't Robert Warnock use the perspective of someone like that?)? Make Carlton football club a place players want to go to (and not just for money/resources).
- Have the best coaching system of any sporting club in the world in 15 years time. Charge Mick Malthouse with creating that prior to his retirement, and if he doesn't want to, replace him with someone who accepts that responsibility. Not someone who wants to win a premiership, but someone who is genuinely interested in putting to gether a coaching system that will be the best anyone has ever seen, and who acknowledges they'll have to think creatively, research and develop that team for 5-10 years.
- Have the best, most innovative and creative recruitment and development system in the world in 15 years time. Recruit players from the USA, from Ireland, from other sports - or don't... Build a list for the short term, the long term, and the medium term, and have a clear plan about this.
- Aim for 200,000 members - the most in the league. Sign up everyone we can - create new membership categories that don't exist. Play games in Darwin, Auckland, New York, Johannesburg if we have to, and sell memberships there. Become the biggest and most powerful AFL team in the world, and be renowned as the most aggressive, most adventurous, most creative thinking club in this respect
- Aim to play finals every year from year 10-15, and from that point forward, but only after the culture is in place to make that sustainable (otherwise we sacrifice short-term gain for long-term pain, as we've found out time and time again). Aim for the playing group to achieve the absolute best they can, regardless of outcome, in every season up until then. If we play our absolute best, take risks, try new things, and grow and develop as a group, and win only 2 games this year, I'll be excited.

As a final point - this involves us all. I'm making a stand right now, to become the best supporter in the league over the next 15 years. Not by going to the games or whatever, but in the attitude I bring. Supporting the players, the coach, etc. Talking us up but being realistic. Appreciating other clubs for the great things they have done, and pushing out club to overtake them. Enjoying the games when we lose as much as when we win - because after all, this is about entertainment.

POTY?

 

[LordLucifer]

- they need to improve, to make innovation and constant gains towards being the best in the league in 15 years time.

- Have the best, most innovative and creative recruitment and development system in the world in 15 years time.

If Bryce Gibbs leaves at the end of the season, thank him for his service, respect his choice, and invite him back every year to the club even after he is gone.

There was a lot of commonsense and a general collating of all the thoughts in this thread contained in the long post by BTDG.

However, there are some cracks in the logic that need to be addressed and by some length.

If we have to wait 15-years to be any good at anything, then this club will have gone out of business permanently because there is no way known that the supporter base will hold on for that long. We have been in the wilderness for 18-years already so adding another 15 would make it a 33-year gap between premierships.

Secondly, if Bryce Gibbs is not committed to the club and prefers to take a much bigger pay deal at another club, then bugger him, he deserves nothing more than an acknowledgement of playing for us.

Yet BTDG would like to get all cute & cuddly with him and invite him back to the club in the future.

As Big Jack would say "Pig's Arse" !!!

 

[I AM CARLTON]

Think we need to do whatever we can to get 4 picks in the top 22 picks. Or so.

For example Pick 2 & 20 in draft.

Potentially a compo pick for Gibbs (might as well let him go as we won't be getting a flag for at least 5 years)

Trade anyone else with value Garlett, Kruezer Walker and try to snag another early pick.

If we are rebuilding then we go the whole hog. Anyone over the age of 21 is either delistable or tradeable. That doesn't mean we get rid of them all but if Hawks offer us for Walker we give them him but we keep Simpson or vice versa.

Only players above 21 I would say are untouchable would be Murphy as he is Captain and Henderson, prob keep Yarran also serious talent.

 

[Vic Vinegar]

Only players above 21 I would say are untouchable would be Murphy as he is Captain and Henderson, prob keep Yarran also serious talent.

I'd also suggest that if C.Judd wishes to prolong his career the club will listen.

 

[I AM CARLTON]

I'd also suggest that if C.Judd wishes to prolong his career the club will listen.

Yep totally agree Juddy can play for however long he wishes true champion!