I'm not a Pagan fan and you won't find one post of mine saying that I am. But, to blame it just on the coach is narrow minded.

Pagan has to take a fair bit of the blame but not all. I think he's game plan and tactics had as much to do with the problems in development as (if not more) than his positioning of the players. Also he was too eager to drag them after a mistake and didn't use the bench properly.

However, we didn't have the administration fixed up, nor the funds, nor the training and development resources as other clubs had. Leadership programs, a dedicated development coach, etc.

Coupled with that a lacking of quality senior players and it was a recipe for disaster. When Pagan came in, he quickly lost the senior players because they were used to being empowered by previous coaches, part of the decision making process, where as Pagan was old school. He called all the shots. It just wasn't a good fit. Pagan and Carlton were never a good fit.

Good points. I also reckon a few of the senior players were lost because the club had to enforce 20-25% pay cuts on them after 2002.

I think that is right and many forget about that. There is an article linked somewhere in the Blueseum with a number of $1.7M over in 2003 (2004?) if they hadn't made any changes to the playing list at the time.

This is why I think there should be a distinction made between the 2003 trades (Scotland, Harford, Johnson, Clarke and McGrath) and the 2003 draftees (ie Bowyer, Bannister, Mott, Deluca and Kenna).

Was that the article related to the situation where guys like Campo, Red, Kouta etc etc were all going to walk from the club because they were asked to take a pay cut when Collo came in?

There were quite a few articles at the time that followed the saga.

Basically, the team was well over $1M over the salary cap.

AFAIK the leadership group which consisted of about 10(?) players were asked to shoulder the burden of getting the salary cap back to being AFL legal.

It was a farcical situation for the club to be in.

Personally I felt sorry for everyone at the club at the time, the players, the admin and the coaching staff with the mess that was left.

The admin had to somehow negotiate the wages back down below the cap without destroying the list, the players had to somehow give 100% while earning 75% of what they did a year earlier or basically leave and the coaching staff had a leadership group that had just had over $1M taken away from it for 2003 and at the same time took away the input/influence they were accustomed to within the club.

It was horrendous.

That is not even taking into account the draft sanctions.

Pagan's crap, the RS is crap, our players are crap, people who say Pagan is crap are crap.

You might as well give me POtW already.