When I was growing up in the 1980s, listening to iconic bands like Fleetwood Mac, Air Supply, Chicago, Reo Speedwagon and all the other soft-rock bands that rocked my boat, Carlton was the most powerful football club in the VFL.
Hawthorn had more on-field success – winning four flags to three – but the Blues held more sway and influence, and certainly had a much bigger supporter base than the Hawks.
They played chequebook footy better than most in the heady days of the ’80s, raiding Western Australia and South Australia, and nabbing greats like Stephan Kernahan, Craig Bradley, Ken Hunter, Peter Boustow and Peter Motley, who might have been the best of them all if not for that tragic car accident.
They expected to win or at least contend for flags every year under the bombastic presidency of the outspoken John Elliott.
But times changed, and Carlton refused to conform.
The salary cap came in, along with the national draft, as the AFL became determined to make the competition an even playing field with every team getting a chance of achieving the ultimate.
The league put the building blocks in place to ensure the same clubs – Carlton, Hawthorn, Essendon and Collingwood – didn’t dominate. But you can only lead a horse to water.
Clubs that have spent many years down the bottom, like Melbourne, didn’t take advantage of recruiting, while Carlton just expected that success would continue to flow like the good old days. It hasn’t, and it now seems they have gone to the dictionary and discovered the word ‘rebuild’, which had previously not been allowed to be uttered in the halls of Royal Parade and Princes Park.
It seemed the rebuild would happen last year, when they had a horrible start dropping their first four. But then came two wins in a row and the club got excited that they were back and on the march to having a good season. It obviously didn’t eventuate.
Mick Malthouse has been a successful coach for a long time, and is sett to break the record for the most games coached in Round 5 against Collingwood, but has he got a long rebuild in him? It’s hard to know how many years it will take for the Blues to have regular success again.
Their new president, Mark LoGiudice (whom I sat next to at school many years ago), is a passionate man but faces a difficult job running a club that not only demands but expects success. Just hoping to be competitive is a foreign concept to Carlton, but it might have to be a common theme as their list is one of the worst in the league and after a disappointing 2014, they continued with their quick-fix recruiting policy.
That strategy has had many more misses than hits for them over the years, as evidenced by securing Dale Thomas on free agency from Collingwood after he was coming off a bad injury.
Then there was the addition of Bulldog pair Liam Jones and Jason Tutt. Even though we have only just started the season, Jones has no second effort, which plagued him at the Dogs, and Tutt couldn’t hold down a regular spot at a bottom team and has already been dropped by the Blues.
They were part of two very poor drafts for the Dogs in 2008 and 2009, but the last few years they have got it right, with players from the 2010 to 2013 vintages all integral members of a young side showing good signs so far in 2015.
The Blues could learn from the Dogs. Gee, that wouldn’t have been said often over the years!
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