Prediction Where will Carlton finish in 2019?

[gbatman]

Why Carlton will improve
New players:
Stocker, Walsh, McGovern, Setterfield and Fasolo will all make an impact.

Returning players:
Murphy, Kennedy, Marchbank are all best 22 and didn't play much and were never fit in 2018. Williamson didn't play at all and is best 18. Fisher missed a lot, also best 18. Cuningham, Pickett and Polson missed a lot and are on the borderline.

Improved players:
Silvagni, Dow, O'Brien, Petrevski-Seton, Kennedy, McKay, DeKoning, Schumacher, Weitering, Macreadie, Cuningham, Polson, Curnow, Williamson, Setterfield etc have had three years or less in the AFL system and will be adding another year. Most players on good lists only really start entering the AFL full time in their 3rd to 4th season.

For mine, rebuilding from the 2015 draft meant that those draftees were due to come on in 3-5 years time after that. This is the general development time frame of AFL players. Apart from the freaks.

Older but fitter
Murphy, Lang, Garlett, Fasolo and Thomas seem to be fitter than usual at this stage. Murphy has never looked better, Thomas has never looked fit since being at Carlton but currently does. Fasolo is in great nick and when he's going is a good player.

Fitness
Andrew Russell will do what he has always done. Going from no high performance person to one of the best names in the game will be significant.

Why Carlton won't improve
Injuries. Docherty is in Carlton's best couple of players and will probably miss the season. After winning 6 games in 2017 and showing real promis, Carlton's 2018 season was decimated by injuries. Carlton have recruited a lot of players who have an injury history, loads of talent but were cheap due to injuries. Doing their preseason in the park then moving onto a surface at Princes park which was freshly laid with no high performance person probably had a lot to do with things going wrong. Chances that this happens again are reasonably high although improvement is expected and apart from Docherty the list is in good shape.

A lot has been said about development and coaching but I don't buy into that at all. Bolton was able to take control of Hawthorn and nothing changed and in his first few seasons at Carlton the system looked good. I think they played how they did last year was because they were getting beaten in the fundamental areas and were trying very hard to stop teams getting away. Player development in terms of fitness has been an issue but moves have been made to rectify this.

My way of thinking is put a line through 2018, just too much going wrong to make judgement. you remove Gibbs, Docherty and Murphy (3 of the top 4) from a side that wins 6 games plus a number of good up and coming youngsters then it's going to be lucky to win any games. Remove 3 of the top 4 from any side and they drop away significantly, Adelaide being a prime example. 2018 was bad, a lot went wrong, I think if things go right then an improvement on 2017 is not unrealistic. But it's an if.

Age. Carlton are still on the young side or the old side. There will be a lot of guys in the side who have not reached that 3-5 year mark where players really take off. There will be a handful of players over 30 who are of that age where players usually slow down a little. The prime aged in between players will be higher but still there will be a good few on either side. There will be more players coming into age than going out of age so this should remain an area of improvement.

 

[mopsy]

Has anyone done a count of Carlton players that were at any point drafted in the first round or traded for a first round pick?
Feels like it would be near a full 22 by now

They have 24 on their list who were originally taken in the first round.

Doesnt logic suggest you are giving yourself the best chance of finding players by taking so many first round players yet they are heavily criticised for it.

Ask yourselves your club decides to have a total cleanout, apart from a handful. The chosen path is you are going to rebuild with youth. Is this not the way to go especially if it is youth orientated?.Get your hands on as many original 1st rounders as you can.

 

[Donstuie]

This thread in a nutshell

Opposition supporter: Carlton are s**t
Carlton supporter: No they’re not, and here’s a detailed explanation as to why
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters getting all defensive wasting all their time trying to justify why they’re so s**t. The fact is Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...
Carlton supporter: Given you insist on not debating like an adult I’m going to call you a troll.
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters are so defensive and thin-skinned, calling anyone who disagrees with them trolls. Carlton are s**t.


Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 

[ManOfClay]

This thread in a nutshell

Opposition supporter: Carlton are s**t
Carlton supporter: No they’re not, and here’s a detailed explanation as to why
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters getting all defensive wasting all their time trying to justify why they’re so s**t. The fact is Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...
Carlton supporter: Given you insist on not debating like an adult I’m going to call you a troll.
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters are so defensive and thin-skinned, calling anyone who disagrees with them trolls. Carlton are s**t.


Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Says you. Most don’t read it like that at all


Opposition supporter: Carlton were pretty bad, we are going to need to see a lot more from them before we can predict any sort of rise.

Carlton supporters: begone troll. We had injuries last year and we won’t again, plus all our players are going to improve at a faster rate than any other team.

Opposition supporter: there’s been no real evidence to suggest that is on the cards at the moment. It’s been almost three years since you’ve scored 100 points in a game, you won two games last year, neither all that convincingly and you have an unproven coach.

Carlton supporter: you are a troll and jealous of all the talent we have

 

[LoungeLizard]

This thread in a nutshell

Opposition supporter: Carlton are s**t
Carlton supporter: No they’re not, and here’s a detailed explanation as to why
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters getting all defensive wasting all their time trying to justify why they’re so s**t. The fact is Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...
Carlton supporter: Given you insist on not debating like an adult I’m going to call you a troll.
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters are so defensive and thin-skinned, calling anyone who disagrees with them trolls. Carlton are s**t.


Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

What a fantastic post, this explains exactly to the point why Carlton will rise up the ladder, you have convinced me.

 

[TooBlue14]

Question 1: No, I’m not saying that the hit rate will be as low again. There appear to be some posters reeling off a list of names and implying that they all will make it. I was just pointing out that there are no guarantees. Odds are a handful will make it and a handful won’t. I understand that they’re young and will develop but it’s hard to rate a list that went 2-20 too highly at this stage.

Question 2: I think it’s a similar situation because after drafting Kruezer it was again a young list with a bunch of very talented junior players (spearheaded by the Gibbs, Murphy and Kreuzer trio) that hadn’t yet proven themselves in the AFL. Sure, that list eventually went on to play finals but never seriously threatened for a flag. The list now is similar, a list full of talented junior players yet to prove themselves seriously at AFL level. Young players (first couple of years in system) always get some leeway but eventually (for me at least) they need to start being graded harsher. I don’t think much of Carlton’s list is at that stage yet, and I do think Carlton supporters have reason to be optimistic, but until they reach that stage where they can be marked a little harder and they start passing I’ll find it hard to get too excited for them.

Wrong. Last time it was ONLY Gibbs, Kruezer and Murphy as first round draft picks. Yes they were all pick 1. But every other pick we had was outside the first and none went on with it.

This time:
Weitering
SPS
Dow
Obrien
Walsh
Stocker
Cuningham
McKay
Curnow
Setterfield
Kennedy
Pickett
Marchbank
Garlett
Cripps

And we still have Murphy and Kruezer. Lol.

Plus others
But that is a lot more first round draft picks than Carlton’s last go at building a list.

 

[Ambrosia]

Wrong. Last time it was ONLY Gibbs, Kruezer and Murphy as first round draft picks. Yes they were all pick 1. But every other pick we had was outside the first and none went on with it.

This is obviously factually incorrect.

 

[Gethelred]

In the two games we played last year Freo were younger, more inexperienced and had more 1st year players. Freo won both those games.

Do you think it's possible that age demographics of the B22 isn't the be-all and end-all you're making it out to be?

It's been pointed out - numerous times, in numerous different threads - that average age demographics paint rather an untrue picture when it came to Carlton's teams last year.

Simpson, Murphy, Lamb, Rowe, Wright; when those blokes played, they skewed the statistics sufficiently to make teams like Fremantle, Brisbane and WB all younger on average and having played less games where, if you broke things down properly, you'd find that Carlton played more players under 50 games, and more players under 23 years of age on those days.

I don't necessarily agree with My name geoff though, that we'll automatically improve as some of these kids enter into that middle demographic, but using average age/games statistics when you've got such severe statistical outliers as Simpson and Murphy is a little disingenuous.

 

[Unique Name]

It's been pointed out - numerous times, in numerous different threads - that average age demographics paint rather an untrue picture when it came to Carlton's teams last year.

Simpson, Murphy, Lamb, Rowe, Wright; when those blokes played, they skewed the statistics sufficiently to make teams like Fremantle, Brisbane and WB all younger on average and having played less games where, if you broke things down properly, you'd find that Carlton played more players under 50 games, and more players under 23 years of age on those days.

I don't necessarily agree with My name geoff though, that we'll automatically improve as some of these kids enter into that middle demographic, but using average age/games statistics when you've got such severe statistical outliers as Simpson and Murphy is a little disingenuous.

Hmmm.
Sandi and Mundy have combined for 559 games. Simpson and Murphy combined for 555 games.
So that argument of yours doesn't hold much weight.

Plus I think you'll find in both games Freo played more 1st year players and more players with under 50 games experience.

So according MynameisGeoff's magic demographic formula Carlton should have won both games.

But age demographics are only a small part of it and it's really stupid to bank on team improvement simply because of age brackets.

I think most on the Saints board had that argument at the start of 2018. The bulk of their players were moving into the magic age bracket.... but it didn't translate.

 

[Gethelred]

Hmmm.
Sandi and Mundy have combined for 559 games. Simpson and Murphy combined for 555 games.
So that argument of yours doesn't hold much weight.

Plus I think you'll find in both games Freo played more 1st year players and more players with under 50 games experience.

So according MynameisGeoff's magic demographic formula Carlton should have won both games.

But age demographics are only a small part of it and it's really stupid to bank on team improvement simply because of age brackets.

I think most on the Saints board had that argument at the start of 2018. The bulk of their players were moving into the magic age bracket.... but it didn't translate.

But I wasn't just talking about our game against you, and this is where injuries - in particular, to talented youngsters - get involved. We had months in there where we got older every single game, as the youngsters who would've brought the age down went down and were replaced with older players.

I do agree with you, though, that age demographics are only a single component of list management, and it isn't solely our lack of players in that 22-26 bracket that resulted in this years annus horribilis.

 

[StevoJenkins]

This thread in a nutshell

Opposition supporter: Carlton are s**t
Carlton supporter: No they’re not, and here’s a detailed explanation as to why
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters getting all defensive wasting all their time trying to justify why they’re so s**t. The fact is Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...Carlton are s**t...
Carlton supporter: Given you insist on not debating like an adult I’m going to call you a troll.
Opposition supporter: Carlton supporters are so defensive and thin-skinned, calling anyone who disagrees with them trolls. Carlton are s**t.


Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

You’re a moron who hasn’t red this thread if you got that out of this. There have been multiple attempts from opposition supporters to reason with Carlton fans, with a lot of Carlton fans calling people like myself trolls. Read every post and have a look at how many opposition posters just plainly “trolled”.

Make sure you read the part that has the Carlton supporter post a picture of somebody’s bank account balance for some reason, the Carlton supporters who just kept mentioning other teams that are irrelevant to this topic, the Carlton supporter who claims you have effective depth besides not playing well with injuries this past season and the Carlton guy who thinks mature age players = good (regardless of skill). There was also a Cartlon supporter who said I didn’t know much about footy because of the date my forum account was created.

Yeah mate, it’s all opposition supporters.

 

[My name geoff]

But I wasn't just talking about our game against you, and this is where injuries - in particular, to talented youngsters - get involved. We had months in there where we got older every single game, as the youngsters who would've brought the age down went down and were replaced with older players.

I do agree with you, though, that age demographics are only a single component of list management, and it isn't solely our lack of players in that 22-26 bracket that resulted in this years annus horribilis.

I agree with your summary. Also just to be clear, I’m not implying that this age demographic is the sole reason behind poor performance. But it is a significant factor.

What I do believe is that having more players available in their prime years is very advantageous. Particularly with regards to consistent output. What I have presented is a case which shows that the Blues age demographic durning games will likely be vastly different in 2019 to what it was in 2018. I expect some of the associated problems, particularly with playing 8-9 18, 19, 20 year olds, to be reduced significantly.

Given the quality of some of the players in question, I believe this will lead to a spike in performance

 

[dajesmac]

 

[Tarkyn_24]

The way these predictions threads usually work:

My Team - with off-season recruitment and natural growth and improvement in our young players will improve markedly on last year.

All Other Teams - can't see any change. All other 17 teams will finish in the exact same place or lower.

To be fair we only need West Coast to finish lower

 

[ManOfClay]

Simpson, Murphy, Lamb, Rowe, Wright; when those blokes played, they skewed the statistics sufficiently to make teams like Fremantle, Brisbane and WB all younger on average and having played less games where, if you broke things down properly, you'd find that Carlton played more players under 50 games, and more players under 23 years of age on those days.
.

While you are correct according to the numbers, if you break things down properly as you suggest there wasn’t much of a difference between the two sides. Unless you are thinking only Carlton has outliers or that one more player in a certain age gap makes a huge difference. Anyone breaking things down properly here would deem the differences negligible. So are you doing that, or are you just searching for an excuse?

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=9700#hd

On the day bulldogs beat Carlton in 2018 the Bulldogs played 12 players under 23. Carlton 13.

Carlton played seven players with less than 50 games. Only one more than the Bulldogs. Carlton had one more player in the 50-99 games played range. The only age groups with clear advantages were the 100-149 group which the Bulldogs had five more players in, and the 150 or more age group which Carlton had three more players in.

Overall carlton’s Average age that day was 24 years and 6 months and games played on average was 24 years, 6 months. Compared to the Bulldogs’ 24 years and 2 months and 81 games.


One of these teams won four times as many games as the other in 2018. Yet a few Carlton fans think the side that only won two games with a very similarly placed list is going to magically just improve and be better.

 

[Gethelred]

While you are correct according to the numbers, if you break things down properly as you suggest there wasn’t much of a difference between the two sides. Unless you are thinking only Carlton has outliers or that one more player in a certain age gap makes a huge difference. Anyone breaking things down properly here would deem the differences negligible. So are you doing that, or are you just searching for an excuse?

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=9700#hd

On the day bulldogs beat Carlton in 2018 the Bulldogs played 12 players under 23. Carlton 13.

Carlton played seven players with less than 50 games. Only one more than the Bulldogs. Carlton had one more player in the 50-99 games played range. The only age groups with clear advantages were the 100-149 group which the Bulldogs had five more players in, and the 150 or more age group which Carlton had three more players in.

Overall carlton’s Average age that day was 24 years and 6 months and games played on average was 24 years, 6 months. Compared to the Bulldogs’ 24 years and 2 months and 81 games.


One of these teams won four times as many games as the other in 2018. Yet a few Carlton fans think the side that only won two games with a very similarly placed list is going to magically just improve and be better.

See the next post in that discussion.

Injury made us older and more experienced in successive weeks, over and over, as we were forced to replaced Marchbank for Jones/O'Shea, Docherty/Williamson with Mullett/Lamb. The differences you point out in your post are due to the relative quality in that 100-149 group - midfield, most of whom formed a cornerstone of your premiership in 2016 - compared to ours. But then, you've heard this particular song before, as it has been pointed out to you numerous times across numerous threads by a wide variety of posters. There's a reason why I've called you a troll in the past, mate, given how deliberately forgetful you can be when it suits your argument.

I'm rather tired of hearing the word 'excuse'; whether it's an excuse or a reason depends entirely on whether you're trying to put negative spin on what you're saying.

 

[Gethelred]

Mods, is there any chance of merging this with the 'All things Carlton' megathread?

Seeing as most of this isn't really previewing Carlton's 2019 season, more using 2018 as an opportunity to throw as much mud as possible. Malifice Doss Ant_

 

[Ian Dunross]

True - but that also gives Jacob the opportunity to learn and grow and think he would have learnt alot in 2018 to not play much s**t football and where he can improve in respect to turning things around when things dont go his own way - its hard for a tall kid. Turned 21 last week I think but its fair to say we are expecting a good season from him. The club has given him everything now its up to him.

Is there a consensus on what caused him to dip in 2017? Was it as simple as being played out of position?

The kid is young, he has a solid alibi for inconsistency, but his dip was alarming.

 

[ManOfClay]

See the next post in that discussion.

Injury made us older and more experienced in successive weeks, over and over, as we were forced to replaced Marchbank for Jones/O'Shea, Docherty/Williamson with Mullett/Lamb. The differences you point out in your post are due to the relative quality in that 100-149 group - midfield, most of whom formed a cornerstone of your premiership in 2016 - compared to ours. But then, you've heard this particular song before, as it has been pointed out to you numerous times across numerous threads by a wide variety of posters. There's a reason why I've called you a troll in the past, mate, given how deliberately forgetful you can be when it suits your argument.

I'm rather tired of hearing the word 'excuse'; whether it's an excuse or a reason depends entirely on whether you're trying to put negative spin on what you're saying.

So which is it? Were you actually younger and less experienced or older because you had to be? It seems you can’t decide.

Also are you suggesting if you got to play the largely unproven kids over those afl ready players you’d have been better off?


Moving past that, surely you can agree other teams are young too and likely to improve, and on evidence they are a good chance to do this at a faster rate than Carlton? I mean, one of these really young sides has even won a flag since Carlton last scored 100 points in a game. Teams like Fremantle and Brisbane also have better young established talent.

Carlton’s best hopes of rising up the ladder hinge on other teams falling down dramatically, rather than them simply being better than teams that finished around them in 2018

 

[Stevi_Tigers]

Keep hearing from Carlton supporting mates they have the best rebuild team of all time what’s that based on because it sure as s**t isn’t on results or gameplan

 

[Ian Dunross]

So which is it? Were you actually younger and less experienced or older because you had to be? It seems you can’t decide.

Also are you suggesting if you got to play the largely unproven kids over those afl ready players you’d have been better off?


Moving past that, surely you can agree other teams are young too and likely to improve, and on evidence they are a good chance to do this at a faster rate than Carlton? I mean, one of these really young sides has even won a flag since Carlton last scored 100 points in a game. Teams like Fremantle and Brisbane also have better young established talent.

Carlton’s best hopes of rising up the ladder hinge on other teams falling down dramatically, rather than them simply being better than teams that finished around them in 2018

This is the thing.

Gold Coast are the only bottom team I see regressing next season.

So Carlton need to improve more than a bit to jump up a handful of places.

Possible Richo and Lyon lose the playing group next year and they bottom out, but I wouldn't be banking on that.

 

[Gethelred]

So which is it? Were you actually younger and less experienced or older because you had to be? It seems you can’t decide.

Also are you suggesting if you got to play the largely unproven kids over those afl ready players you’d have been better off?


Moving past that, surely you can agree other teams are young too and likely to improve, and on evidence they are a good chance to do this at a faster rate than Carlton? I mean, one of these really young sides has even won a flag since Carlton last scored 100 points in a game. Teams like Fremantle and Brisbane also have better young established talent.

Carlton’s best hopes of rising up the ladder hinge on other teams falling down dramatically, rather than them simply being better than teams that finished around them in 2018

I absolutely agree that other young sides possess talent and are indeed likely to improve; that's more or less a given.

However, it does not immediately follow that they will do so faster than Carlton will, because improvement is not linear - something else which has been pointed out to you before - and because your arbitrary 100 points thing is stupid, borne of a media obsession with high scoring. Richmond in their premiership years scored over 100 5 times during home and away. In your premiership year, the Bulldogs scored over 100 5 times across the entire season; extrapolate that from the top 8, in which both sides were firmly entrenched for most of the season in 2017 and 17 respectively, into the bottom 4 in terms of list age and quality, and you begin to see how we haven't scored over 100 points, as ridiculous as the concept that 'scoring over 100 points is 100% necessary' is. Both teams played with a defensive mindset, and both with pressure around the ball making clearing the congestion cleanly difficult. We were (before the very well documented injury crisis that crueled our backline) a very defensive team, and our lack of scoring was compensated for by others inability to score against us.

Teams fall every single season, usually because of a combination of injury and a lack of form. I've said this before, but Carlton were sufficiently unlucky that we fell when we were already bottom 4, allowing us to plumb the depths of the AFL in 2018. Next year could and should be very different, and I'm going to be very interested to see how things turn out. There's a huge amount of recency bias in AFL commentary, so I don't begrudge you your pessimism regarding my team, but I rather wish that people would cease regurgitating the same versions and the same arguments over and over again. It makes for excessive reading, and is simple to disprove in a lot of cases.

 

[ManOfClay]

So was Carlton younger and less experienced or playing older players out of necessity? Go back to that. Because it seems you change whenever it suits you

https://coupler.foxsports.com.au/ap...s/news-story/ec1626ea2a37e51263bd10b9084fc31d

 

[Monkey King]

Keep hearing from Carlton supporting mates they have the best rebuild team of all time what’s that based on because it sure as s**t isn’t on results or gameplan

Maybe they just mean the best Carlton rebuild of all-time. Lol.

 

[Stevi_Tigers]

Maybe they just mean the best Carlton rebuild of all-time. Lol.

Thought that as well but nope they said in the afl