Many words have been written about Carlton in recent months – with no shortage of them on The Roar. Much debate has been about whether the Blues can eke out enough wins to finish above the WADA-decimated Essendon Bombers and avoid consecutive wooden spoons.
The Bombers’ woes seem temporary, but the two clubs have more in common in 2016 than being favourites to finish in the bottom four.
While new Essendon coach John Worsfold tries to find the balance between giving his young players the best opportunity to develop and preventing them from being beaten down by the AFL grind, the Blues have their own development concerns.
Despite being in the early stages of a rebuild, Carlton have 17 players on their list in the prime age of 25-30 – tied with West Coast and Port Adelaide for the most in the league.
If you expand that to all players older than 25, the Blues’ veterans number 18, equal fourth with Hawthorn and Port Adelaide, and behind only West Coast (19), North Melbourne (20) and Fremantle (21) – with the exception of the Blues, all of those teams have premiership aspirations.
In the best 22 presented in Cam Rose’s preview, only six players are younger than 23 – and among them are 22-year-olds Sam Kerridge and Blaine Boekhorst, both of whom have a lot to prove.
It’s one thing for Marc Murphy, Kade Simpson, Bryce Gibbs and Matthew Kreuzer to play every week, but when you throw in Andrew Walker, Dale Thomas (a shadow of the player Carlton thought they were recruiting), Michael Jamison, Zach Tuohy, Sam Rowe, Matthew Wright, Levi Casboult and Ed Curnow, there aren’t many spots left for youngsters to get a feel for the big time.
What’s worse, in a twisted sort of way, is that those veteran players aren’t bad. They’re not good enough to make Carlton good, but from the full-back line to the half-forward line, it looks somewhat competitive, and most of those players will be hard to keep out of the best 22.
Like Worsfold, new Carlton coach Brendon Bolton and his match committee must find the right balance between fielding a competitive team and giving young players senior opportunities.
The natural attrition of the season will no doubt do some of Bolton’s difficult work for him, but if they’re serious about rebuilding properly, and aren’t trying to take shortcuts, then a lot of those 25-30-year-olds will be playing for the Northern Blues this year.
Finding the right development balance will be further complicated by a group of unproven 20-25-year-olds who have been brought in from other clubs – mostly Greater Western Sydney.
Carlton face monumental list turnover in coming seasons, and they need to find out if Jason Tutt (24), Andrew Phillips (24), Daniel Gorringe (23), Jed Lamb (23), Mark Whiley (23), Kerridge (22), Liam Sumner, Lachie Plowman (21) and Kristian Jaksch (21) will be part of that turnover or part of the club’s next finals campaign.
The Blues are coming from a hell of a long way back. They finished last year dead last in both points for and points against and lost ten games by ten goals or more. But with Bolton on board, and what looks like a more modern gameplan, Carlton could look very different this season in more ways than just the players on the park.
Smart Carlton people know they’re in for a difficult time for the foreseeable future. What will make that easier will be seeing the development of youngsters, one or more of their recycled recruits becoming good players, and causing a few upsets along the way – playing an exciting style of footy wouldn’t hurt either.
It’s easy to dismiss the value of high draft picks by pointing to the great players around the AFL who have been taken with selections outside the top ten, but the fact is, it’s easier to find stars at the top of the draft.
Ideally, 2016 will see the Blues pump games into young players who represent the future, improve enough to win six to eight games and cut the number of blowouts without rising out of the bottom four.
The list needs to get younger, but hopefully the Carlton Football Club has matured enough to see the bigger picture.
Macca
Guest
Hal - "Carlton’s are becoming tragic" My point is your tense is wrong. The blues made errors in the past but have put in numerous steps to rectify that and there has clearly been a change in strategy. On Tutt your are right the blues did pick him up - as a delisted free agent - the price you pay for something effects how its value is assessed. Was Tutt worth pick 31 - no, was Tutt worth picking up for free - possibly. It is the same for the 4 players from GWS - were they worth trading Menzel for - probably not - was it worth trading Menzel for 4 players from GWS, Kerridge and an upgrade to the 2016 first round pick we got from Geelong - probably. As for tragic - if you look at the names Hawthorn recruited in 2005 & 2006 you will see they essentially blew 6 picks inside 33 (or pretty much the first 2 rounds) in 2 years, yet 2 years later they were premiers. It just shows that if you can nail multiple high draft picks in 1 year (like the hawks did in 2004) on top of a couple of handy young players already on the list and those picks are a good mix of midfielders and KPP's you can wear a couple of wash out years and still be successful. The blues have a couple of good young players in Cripps and Docherty (to name a couple) and have gone big in this years draft and got some quality KPP's - will they replicate Hawthorns success? Time will tell but at least the strategy looks sound.
hal
Guest
Macca: Objectively speaking you are right as all clubs make mistakes but Carlton's are becoming tragic. Everett and Cripps are, of course, success stories. The irony is you mention Tutt and the bulldogs, but look who picked him up. That being said good news for all us Richmond haters; the tigers are being decimated by injury. I would love to see Carlton cause the upset of the year by knocking them over in the season opener. What could be more satisfying than a club coming off an unsuccessful threepeat of elimination final losses, losing to Carlton come round 1.
The Original Buzz
Roar Rookie
Hal, the positive on Cachia is that he played really well for Norwood in the SANFL and is back there now. I haven't been able to get to the practice matches but will get to the season games. He did well in the practice matches and hopefully the AFL might have improved him a bit. Useless trivia for you, Carlton's current Norwood Connection: Neil Craig played for and coached Norwood, Gorringe also played for them.
Macca
Guest
No one is saying that Mattyb - all I am saying is that it is easy to look through clubs draft and trading history and point to mistakes that were made - even Hawthorn who have 4 premierships in 8 years made a number of fairly large errors just over a decade ago when their period of dominance was about to begin. I mean even the great Bulldogs have had their misses - was Christian Howard really worth pick 15 in 2009 or Jason Tutt pick 31? Was the 2011 draft of Smith 17, Talia 39 and Pearce 49 the best value with your first 3 picks? Was the trade of Griffin a good deal for the dogs?
mattyb
Guest
Carlton have been tragically unlucky. With near flawless trading,drafting and player retention,with a backroom bursting with intelligent,morally grounded geniuses,there long standing position as an AFL laughing stock does appear tragically unfair.
Macca
Guest
also the Hawks traded Josh Kennedy and Ben McGlynn to Sydney in exchange for picks 39 (Sam Grimley), 46 (Ben Stratton) and 70 (Matt Suckling, who got a rookie promotion). Given Suckling would have been promoted with or without the pick they got from the Swans (the hawks would have had a pick after 70) you would have to count this trade as a mistake form the hawks as well.
Macca
Guest
Hal - As an example that everyone makes draft mistakes here some of the players the Hawks picked up either side of their famous 2004 draft 2003 - 25 Harry Miller 2005 - 6 Beau Dowler, 18 Max Bailey, 22 Beau Muston 2006 - 6 Mitch Thorp, 24 Brent Renouf 33 Jarryd Morton 40 Josh Kennedy - who they traded after just 13 games
Macca
Guest
Hal - you point to the mistakes (which every team has) but ignore the successes - getting Cripps at 13, Nick Graham was 50 something, they picked up Docherty and Everitt by trading picks in the 30's just to name a few. You complain about the letting Betts & Garlett go but you don't mention what Carlton got them for. Also you mention the blues "gave up draft picks" for Jacksh and Whiley when in fact the blues gave up pick 7 for Jaksch, Whiley & pick 19 (Boekhorst) - that isn't giving up "draft picks" just sliding down the order - was it a good trade? It is impossible to tell after just one season but Whiley and Boekhorst are showing improvement. As for Cachia I think you are over blowing his ability, he hardly set the world on fire and Whiley is a year younger, 4cm taller and 3 kg heavier. On Tomlinson - yes the blues did want him but getting these 4 players was their priority - which is why they only tried to deal for Tomlinson after getting this trade sorted. As for Bell he was one of the many players the blues have found through the rooie draft and sadly the lost him due to his fathers illness - he would be an example of success not failure. But regardless of any mistakes the blues have made in trading historically that was under a very different recruiting team. And even if getting these 4 players from GWS is a mistake what has it cost them? if they all end up to be duds the blues essentially swapped Menzel for Kerridge - it looks like only 1 of those players will be playing AFL in round 1.
hal
Guest
Carlton were really after Tomlinson but they could not secure the trade. GWS were quite happy to move the other four on. I remain skeptical about their ability and I do not trust Carlton when it comes to trades (too many disasters: Garlett to Melbourne for a crappy pick, Grigg for Collins, letting Betts go, trading away draft picks to secure Jaksch and Wiley, etc etc... I have listed their mistakes on other posts), recruiting (Bootsma instead of Daniel Tallia, who grew up barracking for Carlton. Carlton have had one of the worst defenses in the league, and they over looked a ready made defender for some skinny kid, who was a Napoleon Dynamite wannabe, who was more interested in taking nude selfies than playing football.), and drafting (Matthew Watson, a man with the turning circle of a Sherman tank, as well as the over looking of Nathan Vardy, another Carlton supporter who actually wanted to play for Carlton and was gob smacked when most teams hunted him but Carlton ignored him. This is a fact as Vardy is on record when it comes to this. It was revealed on an SEN interview). Carlton went after Jaksch because he played well against them in 2014. This is the same illogic as the chasing down of Mark Athorn in 1992, because he too played well against Carlton. I am suprised Carlton didn't chase Wade Skipper, as he played his best ever game against Carlton, when Hawthorn flogged them by over 50 points on a sunday after noon at the MCG. So many players have played their best games against Carlton over the years, and it doesn't mean they are good. They brought in Wiley because they wanted a hard tackler. If they kept Cachia, who had a lot of promise they would not have needed Wiley. All this, the except for the Mark Athorn purchase in 1991, has happened under Mr Magoo"s (McKay) watch. Surely Macca you can understand my skepticism? Too many woeful mistakes. Yes all clubs make mistakes, but Carlton have made far too many. I could have mentioned Tom Bell, but his circumstances meant he had to go home. Brisbane have secured a handy player.
hal
Guest
Macca: I agree with you about Kerridge. I think he was a good pick up. Like I said about the others, I hope I am proved wrong.
Macca
Guest
Samantha - At the end of last year Dylan Addison Retired, Tim Golds & Sam Schulz were delisted with Hampton, Bugg, Lamb, Plowman, Phillips, Sumner, Townsend & Treloar traded. The Giants picked up Johnson and Simpson from the cats and drafted 6 players including 2 rookies. Is it really probable that all 4 players Carlton picked up would have been delisted had they not been treaded to the blues?
Samantha
Roar Rookie
Do you have any evidence to the contrary that those aren't the 4 that would have been delisted?
Macca
Guest
Slane are you suggesting that had Carlton not traded for these players all 4 of them would have been delisted? That they in fact were the 4 players the Giants wanted least?
Slane
Guest
Col, the 4 former GWS players get called rejects because GWS clearly didn't place any value on them and were happy to be rid of them in order to cut their list down. Miles is also a GWS reject. The GWS list manager really made a blue when he delisted that kid.
Macca
Guest
Col - Or Like Bruce or Miles - or like Crisp was the steak knives in the Beams deal from the Lions. I don't think they will all work out but they don't have to for the deal to be worth it.
Col from Brissie
Guest
Macca, Buzz, it amuses me how people refer to the GWS recruits as 'rejects'. They were not rejected by GWS, they were traded, much the same as was Tom Boyd and Adam Treloar, yet people do not refer to them as rejects. I think we will see an improvement this year that will probably not equate to more wins but being more competitive. 2017 should see that improvement earn more wins and 2018 will see us in the top 10 - 12 and 2019 see us competing in finals.
Macca
Guest
Buzz - I was thinking over the weekend about how everyone thinks it will be at least 5 years for the blues to get back into finals but when you look back at 2005 you can see it might not take that long. In 2005 the blues finished last with just 4 wins and had a list that makes our current one seem strong. We didn't have the likes of Murphy, Gibbs and Kreuzer around to help establish the young players coming in, we didn't have a Cripps standing in the middle at 194cm, we had just come off severe draft sanctions and we were broke with terrible facilities. At the 2005 draft we got Murphy at 1, Kennedy at 4 and Bower at 20 compared with this year getting Weitering at 1, McKay at 8, Curnow at 11 and Cunningham at 23. Over 2006 & 2007 we managed 7 wins in total before 10 wins in 2008 before returning to finals in 2009. I am not predicting we will be a force in 2017 or even 2018 but if we could take just 4 years to return to finals from the depths of 2005 I am confident we can do it in under 5 from where we are starting now.
The Original Buzz
Guest
I didn't see the Essendon game, Macca, hopefully I will during the week. It would be truly awesome if all the GWS boys were regulars through the season and so far, none of them seem to be duds. The whole team seems to be working hard and they only need to gel to win games. I don't think the rebuild will take 5 years as some are saying, I give it three full seasons to make the eight (end of 2018 they will be very close if not in the eight).
Macca
Guest
Buzz - See Sumner rejoined full training this week and looked a lot slimmer than when he got to the club - I think he and Plowman will be the pick of the GWS players. Lamb is an interesting one for me - I thought he was going to be an outside ball winner but looks like he has been used more as a defensive forward - he managed 6 tackles against the bombers which at least means he is working hard.
The Original Buzz
Guest
That is a fair thread of comments there. PaulD, you can add Matthew Primus to the list of failed favourite sons. Hal, friendly tip - If you argue with Macca, use facts and stats (I guess you may know this already). Opinion based on fact is good too when debating the finer points. My opinion on Jack Silvagni (I have nicknamed him GOS - Grandson of Serge) is that he was recruited partly as a draw-card for the membership and partly because he shows promise of becoming as good as his predecessors. On the other recruits, Phillips is showing some good form, Kerridge has proven himself so far and word is Lamb is looking the goods and could be a consistent contributor. (Haven't seen Lamb play yet though). To me, that is a win so far and I would think from that, SOS has done ok. Looks like it will be a while before we see how good McKay is. He is out for around 12 weeks with a stress reaction to the lower back.