Its hard to draw a form line through it, because the list in the past was in desperate need of renovation, so it would come as no surprise that many new players were given their debut over the past 4 seasons and the list now is showing much better quality players, more depth and therefore less need for major changes.
Having said that, last year showed more players getting their debut than for quite some time and you could not say that our list at the start of this season was in poor shape. We did have a few key injuries, mostly to our talls, but the list below shows it wasnt new talls getting their breaks, Watson being the only one.
What the list does show is that Ratts isnt affraid to give players their first taste of AFL footy. The list does not include players that debuted for Carlton but had played games at other clubs (Judd, Warnock, Henderson, Collins, Mclean, Laidler and Johnson, Cloke and maybe others since departed that I cant remember) during that time. The list also does not include players that have been delisted since debut (too hard to research) with the exception of Twomey whom I include to show Ratts isnt scared to play new untried at this level (that list would also include Pfeiffer, Bentleigh, Aussie, Jacobs and others I cant remember).
2002 Thornton
2003 Waite, Simmo
2004 Carrots, Tex
2005 Betts, Russell
2006 Murphy, Bower
2007 Gibbs, Hammer, Jamo
2008 Kruze, Ellard, Army
2009 Yazz, Garlett, Joseph, Robbo
2010 White, Lucas, Davies
2011 Watson, Duigan, Curnow, Okeefe, Touhy (Twomey)
So on the basis of this, I would not be at all surprised to see 4 players get to debut in 2012.
(Its also interesting to note that Heyne has more AFL experience than Laidler had last year before his first game in Navy.....just sayin!)