- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Toughness, skill and discipline are the characteristics that AFL players have to demonstrate. Coaches must exude wisdom, strategy and leadership to be successful in the AFL.
But supporters need none of these virtues. Most of us aren’t particularly disciplined or tough, and we’re certainly not wise – just check out the Nuffies Facebook Page.
The two virtues that fans – and as an extension, club boards – are required to exhibit are loyalty and patience.
Ask Brett Ratten, who despite taking Carlton from 10 wins in 2008 to 15 wins in 2011 was sacked by the board following a dispiriting loss to Gold Coast in Round 22, 2012.
Maybe if the board and the fans had demonstrated some patience there would’ve been success on the horizon for that Carlton team.
Ratten went on to become a premiership-winning assistant coach at Hawthorn, while Carlton had the likes of Eddie Betts, Zach Touhy, Lachie Henderson, Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs, Jeff Garlett and Matthew Kreuzer. Not bad.
Somewhere, in some alternate dimension, the board and the fans were patient and gave Ratten a one or two-year contract extension like Richmond did with Damien Hardwick.
In that alternate dimension, Carlton would have 17 premierships and I would finally have seen a Blues flag – the world would be a beautiful place.
But this is the real world. In reality, Ratten’s succeeding coach Mick Malthouse and his head of recruiting, Shane Rogers, massacred that list until it became the worst group of players in the competition.
At least Rogers drafted Patrick Cripps. They can never take that away from him.
However, those two years out of three in Mick Malthouse’s reign, 2014 and 2015, were dark, dark years for Carlton supporters. Horrible years. Scarring years.
The point is – it is vital that the mistake that was made with Ratten is not replicated with Bolton.
Some people might say that the plight of the Carlton Football Club in those depressing years is not too dissimilar to their situation now. But these people don’t understand what Carlton are trying to achieve and the process they are undertaking.
The process of taking a young coach and giving him a clean slate. Then, going to the draft and recruiting young players and playing them and giving them senior experience that they probably don’t deserve. A genuine rebuild.
Will it work? Who knows, we’ll find out in two or three years. But this process cannot be terminated prematurely due to media and fan hysteria as was the case with Ratten.
There isn’t genuine pressure on Brendon Bolton or the board yet – and there shouldn’t be. If Carlton finishes 18th, it’s disappointing because a winning culture should be a priority – but it’s not a disaster.
Currently, Carlton have Tom Williamson, Jarrod Pickett, Marc Murphy, Caleb Marchbank and Sam Docherty out of their best 22. If they’re 0-8 in a month, that’ll be really disheartening, but even then extreme panic will not be warranted.
Media-manufactured pressure should remain entirely irrelevant to the Carlton players, coaches, board members and fans. We must learn from the past.
I think the majority of blues supporters are learning. They recognise that they’ve got to display that essential virtue… patience.
This is a process and we must trust it.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.