This is the third of 19 articles looking at the meta-results for both team and players, as collected from ELO-Following Football’s wide range of sources.
Today, the Carlton Blues.
The team finished 16th with a home-and-away record of just six wins and 16 losses, with a percentage of 78.
Were not good. It felt like the club was going to take a step back in order to try to take several forward in the future.
The average placement of the Blues on the predicted ladder by the 55-plus prognosticators we examined was right where they started – in 16th place, above North Melbourne and Gold Coast.
Cam Rose and Ryan Buckland each had them 17th, while our crowd predictor (and Following Football itself) kept them at 16th.
The only forecast above 14th was from Adelaide Docker and, if you ask how those predictions are made, you’ll probably be either disappointed or amused.
Coming into the season, the players who were considered to be in the top 50 in the league by the AFLPA or The Roar included just two men: Patrick Cripps (top 30) and Marc Murphy.
With their heads in their hands, so to speak. Yet, to their credit, their membership was still applauding them after their last home game this past season, even though they ended at 2-20, in dead-last place with their second wooden spoon in four years. Their percentage fell below sixty for the first time in a long time, ending at 59.29.
Three years since the last Carlton spoon; they’ve acquired three others this century (in 2002, 2005, and 2006).
It’s been six years since their last appearance in finals, a gift from the AFL punitive arm when they ruled Essendon out of the 2013 finals for you-know-what and gave ninth-placed Carlton the chance to upset Richmond. There’s some perfect Tiger Trivia: not only are they the perennial ninth-place team, but they’re the only club to lose to a ninth-place team in finals!
Patrick Cripps of the Blues celebrates a goal. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
It’s been eight seasons since the Blues legitimately made finals, if you want to be pedantic; placing fifth in 2010 and losing, ironically, to eighth-place Essendon.
It’s been 23 years since Carlton’s last title, in 1995, although they still have the highest number of titles in AFL/VFL history, amassing ten of them since WW2.
It’s been 117 years since Carlton last won only two games in a season (or scored below this year’s 59 percentage mark), which has happened just twice in its history: in the initial VFL season ever, 1897, when they went 2-12 (beating winless St Kilda twice) and amassed a 51.0% percentage; and 1901, when they managed to go 2-15 with a percentage of just 46.99. No Carlton team had ever lost 20 games before this year.
According to our patented “ELO-Following Football” rating system, the team started the season in fifteenth, at 37.5. 50 is average, and the ratings ranged from the Suns at 17.6 to the Tigers at 77.8.
By the time they reached 0-7, they’d dropped into the low 20s – good for temperature but not for ELO-FF ratings. They bobbed there most of the season, above Gold Coast, but out of touch with all other teams, until they hit a stretch in R17-20 when, excepting their win over the Suns in R19, they lost badly, much worse than their already-meagre rating would have suggested, and fell to the single digits
Their final debacle, a 165-61 rout at home to the Crows, knocked their final ELO-FF rating to (brace yourself) 0.1 – that’s not a misprint. Zero-point-one. It’s not the lowest in history (Brisbane once had a negative score) but you can see it from there.
The other rating systems said the same thing: the main three we use for comparison (The Arc, FMI, and Wooden Finger) all started the Blues somewhere near 15th place as well; US Footy had them in 12th.
But by mid-season, and certainly at the end of August, they all had Carlton either last or slightly above Gold Coast, with both teams completely out of touch with the rest of the league.
Final record: 2-20: their wins were in Round 8 (91-78, hosting Essendon at the MCG) and Round 19 (79-44 against Gold Coast at Metricon).
Betting Line expectations: 1-21. (That one was a 14.5-point favorite hosting Gold Coast in Round 2. They lost by 34.)
ELO-Following Football forecasts: 2-20 (R13 v Freo, a 57-point defeat, and Round 2, described above).
AFL.com.au game predictions: 5-17.
The Roar predictions: 1-20-1, with an individual tally of votes reaching 13 up and 108 down. (Round 2 was the expected win; Round 13 the 3-3 split.)
“Pick-A-Winner” predictions: 2-20.
The Age forecasters: Also 2-20, with the twelve punters totalling 47 and 229. (Those two winning games were supposed to be Round 2 and Round 13.)
BetEasy “CrowdBet” percentages: only favored the Blues once – 88% picked them in Round 2.
Our own game-by-game predictions pegged them at 3-19.
What a horror year it was. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Round 8 would be the obvious candidate, getting off the schneid with their first win and seeming to put a dagger in Essendon’s season (and, at 2-6, that might indeed have simply been more than the Dons could recuperate from).
Trailing by a point after a pair of Bomber goals started the fourth quarter off, Carlton found it within themselves to smite their opponents with three straight goals across six minutes of playing time, kicked by Sam Petrevski-Seton, Jed Lamb, and Sam Kerridge, to put them up seventeen and beyond Essendon’s reach.
Round 4 was where (for me) it seemed clear that this would not just be a mediocre season for Carlton – it might turn out to be legendarily bad. They lost to North Melbourne, a team expected to share the cellar with them, and they lost big.
116-30, outscored 18 goals to four, and losing Marc Murphy to injury for what ended up being close to half the season.
If you cut the requirement to “a quarter they would like to forget”, then you can’t go past the fourth quarter of Round 20 against GWS, the end of a 105-point rout at (then-)Etihad that created so many injuries on the Giants’ side that they willingly played that last quarter down one and even two men – and still stretched their lead.
The Blues were unable to quell the GWS offence or score on their backline, even with a two-man advantage. The announcers sounded like they were about to leave their posts in disgust, and it’s hard to blame them.
“Cripps, etcetera.”
1. Patrick Cripps – 475 points (fifth overall) (Like you were expecting someone else here?)
Best & Fairest finish: first, for the second straight year. Received 20 Brownlow votes, good for fourth overall.
Last year’s position: fifth (118th overall), and third in 2016.
Notable games: Four dominant games (in R6, 14, 17, and 19), and three prominent games (R1, 5, and 23). All-Australian midfielder, Top 22 ELO-FF and First Team midfield.
2. Kade Simpson – 209 points (52nd overall)
Best & Fairest finish: second. Received six Brownlow votes, also second on the club.
Last year’s position: seventh (131st overall)
Notable games: One dominant game (R22) and two prominent games (R1 and R15).
Kade Simpson. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
3. Charlie Curnow – 159 points (72nd overall)
Best & Fairest finish: equal third. Received three Brownlow votes, fourth most on the team.
Last year’s position: eleventh.
Notable games: Two dominant games (in R1 and R19).
4. Ed Curnow – 104 points (111th overall)
Best & Fairest finish: equal third, of course! Received four Brownlow votes, third most of any Carlton player.
Last year’s position: thirteenth.
Notable games: One dominant game, in R8.
5. Marc Murphy – 68 points (192nd overall)
Best & Fairest finish: equal ninth. Earned two Brownlow votes, fifth most on the Blues this year.
Last year’s position: third (35th overall), and seventh in 2016.
Notable games: One notable game, in R19.
6. Dale Thomas – 58 points (221st overall)
Best & Fairest finish: fifth
Last year’s position: eighteenth.
Notable games: none.
7. Matthew Kreuzer – 53 points (232nd overall)
Best & Fairest finish: out of the top ten.
Last year’s position: second (27th overall)
Notable games: none.
8. Harry McKay – 41 points (278th overall)
Best & Fairest finish: out of the top ten
Last year’s position: 36th.
Notable games: none.
Carlton’s best and brightest. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
9. Zac Fisher – 39 points (287th overall)
Best & Fairest finish: seventh
Last year’s position: 23rd.
Notable games: none.
10. Paddy Dow – 38 points (292nd overall)
Best & Fairest finish: club rookie of the year
Last year’s position: n/a
Notable games: none.
Carlton had three top 100 players and five top 200 players in the 2018 ELO-FF meta-rankings. Averages would be 5½ and 11, respectively.
Honourable mentions
Liam Jones – 11th (37 points), sixth in Best & Fairest voting.
Sam Rowe – 13th (34 points), eighth in Best & Fairest voting.
Matthew Wright – 14th (30 points), equal ninth in Best & Fairest voting.
In: Alex Fasolo, Mitch McGovern, Nic Newman, Will Setterfield.
Gone: Their desperation – unless they start out 0-7 again in 2019.
Current list of draft picks: 1 (probably Sam Walsh, who should play on day one next year), 69, 71, and 77 (probably wasted picks who will never make the AFL).
Backs: Docherty, Jones, Marchbank, Newman, Plowman, Rowe, Simpson, Weitering.
Midfielders: Cripps, E.Curnow, Dow, Fisher, Graham, Kennedy, Kerridge, Murphy, O’Brien, Thomas.
Rucks: Kreuzer, Lobbe.
Forwards: Casboult, C. Curnow, Fasolo, Garlett, Lamb, Lang, McGovern, McKay, Petrevski-Seton, Pickett, Polson, Setterfield, Silvagni
We started this recap by saying the general consensus was that the Blues would be taking a step back this season in order to make progress forward starting next year. Well, after taking a Mason Cox-sized step backwards this season, all hands are expecting Mr. Bolton et al to produce something constructive in 2019 that makes the faithful able to put 2-20 behind them.
They don’t need to make finals yet, but another wooden spoon would destroy everything that management’s said over the past few years.
With Mitch McGovern, Sam Walsh, and contributions from Alex Fasolo, Nic Newman and Will Setterfield, in addition to the continued heroics of Patrick Cripps, the efforts of the Curnows, Kade Simpson and Matthew Kreuzer and Dale Thomas, and the progress from Jacob Weitering and Paddy Dow and Sam Petreveski-Seton – there is hope in old Carlton-town.
Now, if they could find something to replace their 19th-century “fight” song, that might help matters too.
We see the Blues climbing out of the basement next year – back to six wins or so, in 16th place, before making further advancements in 2020 and beyond. If they aren’t competing for a finals berth by 2021, they need new management at all levels.
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