What does success look like for Carlton in 2016?

Carlton’s rise was the yin to Fremantle’s falling yang as far as surprising storylines which emerged in the first half of the 2016 AFL season. With ten games remaining, what constitutes ‘success’ for the Blues?

Like the Dockers’ fall from grace, anyone who said they saw Carlton winning six of their first 12 games in 2016 is straight-up lying.

Carlton fans, at least those that frequent The Roar, were quietly confident that the side would run up half a dozen victories over the course of the full year. Others were openly debating whether this team would be able to beat Essendon twice and avoid a second straight wooden spoon.

My view on this team coming into the year was crystal clear: should Carlton tank?

They didn’t need to, because the list was such that they were set to end the year near the bottom of the ladder no matter what they did. It was the natural question for an entity so in need of an overhaul that Subiaco Oval looks mint by comparison.

Here we are though, and after 12 weeks the Blues have been as close to a solitary game outside of the top eight. The gulf between them and the Adelaide Crows is a gaping chasm with its own gravity, but qualitatively, that’s something.

What’s happened at Princes Park? The rebuild of the list described as the furthest from a premiership in living memory by Champion Data is, suddenly, not as cooked as we thought. The defence is much improved, and the Blues are conceding three fewer goals a game than in 2015.

The stars are playing like stars, and the scrubs have been given the tools to be adequate.

New coach Brendon Bolton gets a lot of credit here, for turning around a club culture characterised by individualism and a superiority complex that would have members of the Melbourne media set embarrassed. An illuminating take from Craig Little, long-suffering Carlton fan, says it well.

It’s great, but let’s get one thing straight at the outset: Carlton have not taken the path typical of teams with middling playing stocks. The Blues have been the elder team in all but two of their games. For all of the list turnover, 71 per cent of games played at Carlton this year have been played by guys that suited up last year.

Carlton’s 6-6 start doesn’t, or shouldn’t, change the long game. We’ve said it all year and I’ll say it again – the AFL is entering a new era of rampant on-field equality, where half the competition can be considered in with a genuine shot at the flag on a yearly basis. As it stands, Carlton’s list profile remains a hurdle to joining that group.

Setting solid foundations
The Blues were diabolical on defence last year, conceding 107 points per game with a Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) of -24.1. Indeed, Carlton made their opponents look like the West Coast Eagles, who had an Offensive Efficiency Rating of +22.8, on offence week in, week out. The road to high scores was paved with navy blue tarmac.

Carlton were consistently beaten on the outside, winning the uncontested possession count just seven times in their 22 games – the fewest of all bar the Gold Coast Suns, who failed to win it once.

The Blues conceded 13.4 marks inside 50 per game, the most in the league, and allowed their opponents the space to kick on them 14 more times per game on average – third worst in the league. Carlton were also the worst team in the league in laying tackles – sticking just 56.6 per game.

These numbers all point to a team that was easy to play against, and that’s what Carlton were. By the time the final third of last year rolled around, and the short-term sentiment boost from an interim coach faded, Carlton were an insipid rabble.

How quickly this has all turned.

So far this season, the Blues have conceded 89 points per game, and have turned their DER from negative to slightly positive (+2.1 through 12 games) in the process. The Blues have turned in the best defensive report card of a team outside of the eight – an unthinkable outcome six months ago.

Their method is clear and comes in equal parts from the Book of Bolton and old fashioned coaching manuals everywhere: zone defence, better ball movement, and intensity.

Carlton have won the outside battle in six out of 12 games – and broken even on another – having won five of the past six counts. They’re conceding two fewer marks inside 50 per game, a mark which still puts them above average, but no longer the worst. Their kicking differential has turned around markedly to +9.9 per game, ranked sixth in the league, as they force opponents sideways and into handballs (their kick-to-handball ratio against is also ranked sixth after being 15th last year).

The Blues average just 61.4 turnovers per game, the fewest in the league, and in stark contrast to the reputations of much of their playing list. They’re protecting the ball when they have it, and working hard to get back when they don’t.

Carlton possess the ball by four minutes and 20-odd seconds more than their opponents on average – ranked fifth in the league this year behind the top-eight locks of the Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney and North Melbourne through 12 games.

Interestingly, the eye test on Carlton’s added intensity isn’t coming through on the stats sheet. The Blues are planting around 63 opposition players in the turf each week, which is up on last year, but is still the fewest in the league. This is likely a measurement issue, as tackles are only recorded if the tackler stops the ball handler. A better measure would be pressure acts, but, you know, #freethestats and all that.

The full suite of the New Carlton was on display against the Cats in Round 10. The Blues controlled the ball for seven and a half minutes more than Geelong – who are second on time in possession differential for the full year – yet laid 11 more tackles and had 13 more pressure acts. The Cats won the outside battle by 17, but it was all handballs, with the Blues kicking 15 more times. It was a win built on effort and intensity and commitment, and it took a lot out of the players.

The routs have stopped, which recent AFL history shows is the key cornerstone to building a new footballing house. Melbourne was a perennial cataclysm on defence in 2012, conceding 122 points per game; Paul Roos comes along and bam, the number drops to 88 a year later.

Carlton’s problems were not as systemic as Melbourne’s, and so the turnaround has not been as stark. But the direction is instructive: coaching and system matters more than we think, and Carlton are learning this in 2016. I’m learning it, too.

It is emerging that this is Carlton’s off-field reset season. Bolton is reshaping the culture and direction of the club, using the football program as the exemplar. Through this lens, the decision to play the older guys makes more sense – standards start at the top, and stopping the routs would have proven more challenging with a team full of 21-year-olds. Does this complicate matters? Perhaps, but it is one of many aspects at Carlton that needed to be fixed.

Scoring problems
Coaching can only get you so far though, and this is the fact of life for Carlton forward of the ball. The Blues have improved down back, but their attacking potency remains stuck at a solid C-.

A line-up headed by Levi Casboult and Andrejs Everitt will evidently only get you so far, no matter the manner of victories in time of possession or through the middle of the ground. The Blues have five players that have kicked ten goals or more after 12 games, with Everitt’s 14 the largest tally of the bunch. This is despite Carlton sitting pretty in sixth place on the marks inside 50 ladder after 12 games, and getting the ball inside their attacking zone 51 times a game (the 2016 average is 52.5).

Carlton are creating opportunities for their forwards. Their forwards are not able to capitalise on those opportunities.

The Blues sit 17th on my OER for 2016, with a lowly rating of -17.1 trailing the offensive tyre fire of Essendon (-36.5, which is going to set a new record). Carlton have converted just 39 per cent of their inside 50 thrusts into scores this season, the lowest in the league, and are converting those successful attempts to goals at a below average rate.

Personnel is clearly the issue here. Coaching and tactics can make up for where talent may be lacking down back, while a clarity of purpose and emphasis on hard work has improved Carlton’s midfield. But Carlton add weight to the notion that scoring requires talent over scheme, more than any other area on the field.

Stars and scrubs
Which is where the long game, the reality of where the Blues are at, should hit home. Yes, Carlton have outperformed expectations, and the list situation is perhaps not as dire as first thought. But there is still plenty of work to be done to move this group from bottom to top.

Recall the stat from the first part of this article: Carlton have gone to market as the oldest team in their head-to-head match-up in all bar two of their games this year. They are winning with this team, but at what cost?

This season, just a third of the total games played spots available at Carlton – 264 through 12 games – have been filled by players aged 23 or younger, ranked 12th in the League. The teams ranked below Carlton are all in the top eight and pushing for a flag, except Richmond, who were pushing for a flag.

So, what’s the deal?

Part of it is injuries, with three of Carlton’s four newly minted prospects hampered in their preparations by injury at various points this season. Some of it is forced – the Blues have the seventh-oldest list in the competition. Some of it is choice, which is where things get a little murky.

Bryce Gibbs is as good as we knew he could be as a football collective, and played himself into my mid-year All-Australian team. Gibbs has been unleashed as an old-school centreman, linking up the good work of his half-back line through the middle of the ground and helping prop up his team’s woeful attacking set (he’s equal second on the Blues’ goal-kicking list).

Matthew Kreuzer and Marc Murphy are playing like very good players, as is Dale Thomas, who has the added motivation of being called a colossal failure by segments of the punditry. Kreuzer seems to be relishing a more confined role as a primary ruckman, although the days of being able to play a guy that averages 20 hit outs, ten disposals and less than half a goal a game are numbered. Notwithstanding, the players that are supposed to be the best players, evidently, are the best players.

There have been some revelations, though.

Sam Docherty has taken a leap in a new role as a rebounding defender, while Kade Simpson and his skinny legs have been renewed by Bolton’s defensive mechanisms. One of the duo will likely make the All-Australian squad at what is becoming a critical, and stacked, position in the current AFL.

Patrick Cripps has continued to grow – both literally and figuratively – and looks set to become Carlton’s equivalent of Sydney’s Josh Kennedy. 2016 Brownlow Medalist Sam Kerridge hasn’t recaptured his pre-season, world-beating best, but has performed adequately as a midfielder to suggest he’s an AFL player.

The GWS players that followed their old boss over have been OK, but look like the kind of guys you’d ideally have kicking around the fringes of the team.

Then there’s Jacob Weitering, who has the Blues sorted at fullback for the next 15 years. The 2016 Rising Star race is crowded, with more than half a dozen high-quality youngsters with genuine claims on the crown. But we know the voting panel has a penchant for elite key position talent – 80 per cent of the panel are former big guys – so it’s in play.

But elsewhere, Carlton are relying on the same players that looked destined for long careers in the VFL for much of last year. The systems of Bolton have compensated for the dearth of blue-chip talent available at the Blues; it hasn’t turned coal into diamonds.

Substantial, systemic change is still required before this team can grow and join the rapidly swelling top rank of the AFL.

What is success?
So, what constitutes success for Carlton in the second half of the season? A push to the finals? A slip down the ladder? More games into the youngsters? Persistence with the mature bodies? The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

With ten games to go, eight points and 40-off percentage points is a gulf too large for the Blues to make the eight, barring a spectacular collapse by one of the current finalists. Even then, Carlton are playing at a level in keeping with a team with a 4-8 record, not 6-6.

One would expect to see more of Carlton’s younger brigade given opportunities. Jack Silvagni is available for selection according to AFL.com.au‘s injury reporting database, while David Cunningham and Harry McKay continue to battle injury. Jacob Weitering should play out the rest of the year, and guys like Dillon Viojo-Rainbow and Kristian Jaksch should be given opportunities to show what they’ve got against AFL-level opposition.

Equally, the Blues may consider the standard-setting phase of their development requires some additional time to mature. There has to come a time, though, that the likes of Sam Rowe, Dennis Armfield, Simon White, Ed Curnow and Matthew Wright are put under pressure from an emerging group of younger players.

Herein lies the problem. That time probably won’t be this year – the young talent cupboard remains bare.

The heads of all of the decision makers must still firmly focus on the challenges which existed at the start of this season. Because for all of the good progress that has been made, much work still needs to be done.