First things first.....................just wanna get a few things out before hand!

#1) I thought i would post this now so that the outcome of tomorrows match, whichever way it goes, has no effect on my feelings.

#2) I know this will piss a few people off, and that's fine. Just keep in mind that i'm not trying to start a shit-fight here. Mearly just speaking out-loud and would like to get other peoples opinion. So please, if your gonna reply with "Of course he is, your a ****head. **** off ******* you **** stupid ******* ****head! ************************" then it obviously means you have no case to argue. Or that your just not that intelligent

& #3) This is in no way meant to disrespect the great Dennis Pagan. I am well aware of his achievments and fully respect him.

Now, with that out of the way..................i wish to ask the question "Is Dennis Pagan the right man for the job.

Right now, Carlton is in a rebuilding stage and from where i'm sitting we have a long way to go before we can start becoming a competitive team and chasing a spot in the 8.

Dennis Pagan has just signed a new contract that will see him coaching Carlton untill the end of the 2007 season (i think?). By that time, Dennis Pagan will be over 60 and i can't see him coaching past then.

Is Carlton in a posistion to be competitive in 2 years time? I don't really think so. For me, we will still be in a rebuilding stage by that time. Does that mean that Dennis will be leaving us whilst we are half way through our re-building phase?
Our list is looked at as the worst in the leauge but i disagree with that to some point. Is our list worse than that of Essendon*? Or Collingwood? Or even Adelaide. I don't think it is.

Stevens...............brilliant midfielder!
Fevola.................Could/has potential to be the #1 forward in the AFL.
Thornton..............best young defender in the leauge Hands down.
Kouta...................#1 in clearances, Top #5 for hard and loose ball gets.
French..................#3 in the AFL for hitouts.
Teauge.................B&F last year and one of the most courageous players in the AFL.
Lappin..................Most teams would love to have him!

Now, look at that list! With the exception of Kouta and Thornton (due to injury) that list, regardless of how good it is, has been quite poor.
Stevens...........................has had almost 20 clangers in past 4 games.
French.............................#3 for tap, but #12 for effective taps.
Lappin.............................Looks confused of late.
Fevola.............................Bad start to year, suspension, but mostly - can blame a lack of decent entries into F50.

To me, this team looks confused. Our game plan is either to easy to read for opposistions or the team doesn't want to play for Dennis.
Droped Marks, missed Tackles, players not maning up, easy uncontested marks in D50,...........these are all things that are comon in footy, but not a dozen times in the one game!

And what's with this in one week out the next crap? Davies, brought back in last week, made a few mistakes sure! But what in the hell is the use of dropping him after just one game? That ain't going to do anything for his confidence apart from destroying whatever is left of it. Bannister, same story. In one week out the other?
Morell? has been consistant for the past 5 games inthe 2's, and would have been very handy last week AND the week before!
DeLuca. Has had less than 10 kicks in the past three games combined! Yet Bryan, who is (IMHO) the most talented ruckman we got, with a thumping left foot, who can play up forward or down back and, much like digby, has been consistant for the past month STILL can't break into the side?????
Setanta, can be played whilst Fisher is on the injury list, yet we don't take the opportunity to give him a shot?

Week in, week out, the players get crapped on and are forced to take 100% of the responsibility! Not fair in my opinion!

When we won the Wizzard Cup, we were playing fast, competitive and running with the ball creating play - FOOTBALL!

We played down the centre!
We sent the ball inside 50 to a forward line of Fevola & Whitnall!
We kicked at goal on the run, sometimes from outside 50!
We manned up!
Our tap work in the ruck was to an advantage!

Now..........................?

We kick to a contest on the wing!
We send the ball inside 50 to a forward line that is too congested.
We not take the risk at kicking at goal from outside 50m, chosing instead to kick to Fev who has three players on him or gets spoiled by his own man in the contest aswell!
We let players roam free (Ablett, Lacuria, Coughlan, ect, ect, ect!)
Our tap workl is pathetic and is never to our advantage.

It may seem like i am just whinging about our problems but in actual fact, i'm trying to point out that, while the players do need to take some responsibity, Dennis is being out-coached week in week out and needs to admit it.

Also, i cannot see us playing finals football anytime soon. We need to rebuild, which takes time, possibly even a good 3 or 4 years! And with Dennis approaching retirement, is he the right man to re-build this team if he is infact only going to be here for just two more years??????

Again, i don't want to start a shitfight! I would just like to hear other peoples opinion on the matter!

I'm not saying that Dennis should not be coaching us.....................i am just asking the question!

Ok - You may now start posting rude and offensive replies! But please, be gentle.....................

Denis is the right choice to coach us, but I've got a feeling we won't see him on the dais lifting a premiership cup for Carlton. We are at least 4 years away from being a competitive finals side and I don't think he has the Sheedy knack of convincing the club he's the right man for 25 years! It will be hard for him to stick with the club when better offers are on the table and whether he can coach well at 60 when Sheedy is younger, but constantly questioned about his future.

The only glaring mistake in judgement that Denis has made for mine is picking up Mick Martyn, but I think we all know that was primarily to help his mate get to 300 games.

There's one element that we should not ignore in terms of getting back up to the ladder, we've had it before and we should be in a position to use it again shortly - $.

The club is back on an even footing, buoyed by solid membership, increased sponsor interest and the Board is fascinated in our 60-70,000 unique readers of the main site every month.

When some of these old contracts run off, we're going to have $ to throw and whilst its not just a simple grab (you have to get the picks), you can really turn peoples heads with $. It will happen. We're working on our spine, and to my mind (Livo Lover) we've got 4 of the blocks. We need a Kouta replacement quickly and some early picks, but I think we're just a few weak links away from being there. When we get that, Pagan can ply his trade.

As Denis always says, what does age have to do with anything? If you can still coach you can still coach. I know the modern trend is the Paul Roose/Alistair Clarkson/John Worsfold recently-retired-players-to coaches philosophy but I don't see Denis' age as an obstacle at all!?!

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

Yes

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

Yes

Whateva coach we got they would be struggling to assemble a decent list with what we had in picks and what we had on the list when he arrived.
Recruiting wise I think he has done a fair job given the circumstances...cant say he hasnt tried to be inventive or think outside the square with some of his picks.....

His match day coaching hasnt been flash IMHO...some hard to fathom matchups and lack of team balance...Team selections have also baffled me at times....

In defense I guess its hard to win a chess game when you only have pawns and the other coaches have all the decent pieces to choose from.
Maybe his assistants are not doing their jobs that well on match days..who knows..

Like I have said before..Carey controlled the player group at North and Pagan had less to worry about...leadership isnt one of our strong points...so he is having to work harder in areas that he didnt have to at North.
I dont think he understood the task ahead of him when he took on the job but then again would any coach including Matthews, Sheedy and the other high profile coaches....
I think we made the right choice for now but I wonder how long the club will cope with bottoming out and rebuilding...past culture would say not that long...I think we need to give him a couple of years and some decent players and then judge him....his record of coaching has probably earned him that right unlike Brittain who was unproven and a high risk....

There are a lot of Denis Pagan fans on this site and I am not one of them. If he fails to motivate this team for one of it's most important games in the clubs history. I might suggest that come the end of 2008 we will be marking the Pagan era at Carlton as one of darkest times for the club

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Let's hear some concrete reasons why.

I have to leave soon so I can't write a post, but I will refute ryan's post with some reasons.

I realise that people are allowed their opinion, but I think it's one that's seriously misinformed.

Sydney, your opinions seem to be misinformed. I mean, are you being serious in saying that Beaumont and Murphy have more talent than Fevola and Houlihan?

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Look Denis has made some glaring matchday mistakes in the coaches box. His match-day coaching has been questioned and probably fairly enough.

But really he can't go out there and play. We have some very good players but there isn't enough talent across the board for us to be successful. Denis can tell them what to do but he can't do it for them. I reckon you could have Norm Smith in the box with Alan Jeans and Ron Barassi and whoever else but it really wouldn't make any significant difference.

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

At least he's won a premiership with us....................a night one!

THats not the right comparison CC, - Beaumont/murphy should be compared to mcgrath/clarke. I know which ones I would have taken

No I dont really think Beaumont and Murphy are better than Fev and Houlihan, but they were no worse that some of the current TRYHARDS that we have playing for us. I dont mind if Denis slashes players from the list but replace them with better ones . Beaumont Murphy and allen and co may have been better on our list than Hartford ,Mott and Clarke.
I like most others were glad when Brittain went but at the moment I have serious doubts about Pagan.
Last Friday what would have been wrong with shifting Houlihan into the middle when he was running hot. Move the one legged Stevens to the forward line and taking Lappin who was contributing nothing and moving him into Houlihans spot on the back line. I dont know wether he is responsible for match day moves but he seems to get it wrong every week. And if he is not have a look at the tapes and find a better match day coach because thats what its all about getting right on the day.
His insistance with palying lance down back to fill a hole just drives me mad. Even during the Wizard cup he moved Lance back for the last 5 minutes of each 1/4 . this is the time where a lot of goals are scored and can really hurt a side. Moving whitnal down back virtualy negated any chance of us scoring junk time goals. There are a lot of other examples I could give as to why I dont like Pagan but give it time you will eventually start to question him just like I am at the moment. For the clubs sake I hope I am wrong

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Nice post Sydney!

Lance is coping a fair bit of shit latley...............possibly even more-so than last year during the 'Trade Lance' era.

I'm telling you, send Lance to a team like the Bulldogs or Hawthorn and you'll get a forward that'll kick 60+ goals a year EASY!

So why the hell send him down back. It has been tried, and Lance has done his best. But it aint gonna win us matches and it ain't gonna do anything for Lance.

Forwards....................Lance, Fev & Betts (and T-Lo as backup)! THAT'S IT!

Hell, over the past couple of weeks i've seen Teauge take a few marks in our F50. I've seen Davies play down back. Hell, i've even seen eddie in defence this year!
That's kinda crap is not going to win us games!

Lance is moved back not only because we lack tall defenders, but he is ineffective as a forward

He is a poor tactician. Been using the same game plan for over a decade that works great if you have a team of guns (North of the 90's).

Since the turn of the millenium flooding has come into football and Pagan's old fashioned bomb it in there method is not effective against the best sides.

I personally think Pagan has flooded the most this year out of all coaches!

Personally I am reserving judgement until we get Livo and Chambers back.
Only then will we have our KPP defenders in place (allowing Lance to go forward) and taking the pressure off our other defenders who are undersized (karl, teague)
Chambers gives us more speed around the ground that we are missing.
With these 2 back fit and firing we may just see a return to Wizard cup form

I agree Ryan with that Ryan and how often do you see the opposition just blindly kick it to CHF around the 50m mark whether anyone is there or not. How often do our opponents score easy goals from easy rebounds from defence because they clear it so easily because they have the numbers.
We play stupid football.