I would like to congratulate the Carlton Football Club on a vastly improved football season.
I believe our rise up the ladder is due to the improvement in our younger players like; Murphy, Gibbs, Grigg, Bower and Jamison. Also exciting debut seasons to; Kreuzer, Browne and Armfield along with the steady progress of Austin and Anderson, has Carlton Supporters excited about the future.

I believe as the Carlton Football Club goes forward, we should continue to use our 1st Round Draft Pick to recruit the best available young footballer in the country. This is to ensure our long term success near the top of the A.F.L ladder, once we make the finals. I believe we should not trade our 1st Round Draft pick for Daniel Kerr, or any player over the age of 21. I would rather use this pick for a young, future 10 year player for the Carlton Football Club.
Hawthorn are a great example on how to use the National Draft to your advantage. Since 2004, they have continuously used their 1st Round Draft pick in the National Draft, to recruit the best available young talent in the country. They have refused to give up their 1st round draft pick to another club, to recruit an established player for a quick fix. This method is now paying dividends. Players such as Roughead, Franklin, Ellis, Dowler, Thorp, Birchall, Lewis and Rioli ( all 1st round draft picks since 2004 ) give Hawthorn excitement and great hope for many years to come.

With the new Gold Coast team entering the competition in 2011 and gaining the majority of 1st Round Draft picks in the 2010 National Draft, the 2008 and 2009 National Draft and Trade period are crucial to the Carlton Football Club, for future long term success. We need to take advantage and top up our list with as many young talented footballer’s as possible.

In this year’s Trade period and National Draft, my preference is to keep our 1st round draft pick ( No. 6 overall) for the National Draft, to recruit the best available youngster in the country.
However as I believe we need a Centre Half Forward since the departure of Josh Kennedy, we should only trade Pick 6 for a future Centre Half Forward that is under 21 and was taken as a Top 10 draft pick, at their respective clubs. Players such as Scott Gumbleton (Ess), Ben Reid (Coll) or Josh Kennedy (WCE) would fit this criteria. This would ensure we have a young gun 10 year Centre Half Forward at the Carlton Football Club, just like Hawthorn have Lance Franklin.

I believe it was evident that Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs struggled in their respective finals matches, as they didn’t have the key forwards to finish of the work of their midfielders. This is also evident at Carlton because besides Fevola 99 Goals, our next best Goalkicker had kicked between 20-30 goals.

In the next 2 years, I believe we need to trade some of our own players to other clubs, in order to improve our list. We need to offload players that either have; poor skills, are injury prone or may need a fresh start elsewhere, due to a lack of opportunity or poor output at the Carlton Football Club.
I believe besides a young Centre Half Forward, we need a young Ruckman, a young Key Defender and a young medium-sized forward. Below I have provided examples of trades I would be looking at doing this year:

Trade 1: Keep Pick 6, but only trade for either; Gumbleton (ESS), Reid (COLL) or Kennedy (WCE).
Trade 2: Andrew Walker to North Melbourne for Daniel Wells.
Trade 3: Pick 24 and Brad Fisher to WCE for Ben McKinley.
Other Players to chase: Robert Warnock (Frem), David Mundy (Frem), Patrick Veszpremi (Syd), Chris Knights (Ade), Beau Dowler (Haw), Mitch Thorp (Haw) or Draft picks from other clubs.
Players to offload: In addition to the players already mentioned above, any of; Russell, Bentick, S.O’Hailpin, Hampson, Hartlett, Bannister, Thornton, Houlihan, Wiggins, Pfeiffer, Edwards, Hadley, Ackland, Blackwell, Benjamin, A.O’Hailpin, Jackson, Saddington and Carrazzo.

So following the Hawthorne model, we should not have got Judd last year. We should have Kept pick 3?

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when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Feelgood Hit of the Winter - GHRP-2, GHRP-6, CJC-1295, AOD-9604, Humanofort and Hexarelin

Hawthorn got lucky dealing with Freo who were idiots.

Kerr is only 25, I'd give up pick 6 for someone of his ability, it's his off field issues that concern me more.

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Between our dreams and actions lies this world

Please no....

if we need a young ruckman, why the hell do you have Hampson in your 'players to offload' list?

And don't say it's because he hasn't shown anything. Young ruckmen rarely do.

The 2009 draft, like all drafts is important, however I believe this year's draft is the last uncompromised one, which means the 2009 draft will be hard to extract value from.

Nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the draft.

Last year was different as:

1) We had 2 top 10 picks, therefore to trade pick 3 for Judd was o.k, as we still got the best youngster in the country (Kreuzer)

2) Last year we needed a true leader following the retirement of Kouta, therefore Judd became captain.

FFS!!



Might as well give up Judd for Kerr with that logic.

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Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. ~Ludwig Börne

I wouldn't trade Pick 6 for Reid.




Doubt Nth would be keen on that.




Would Fisher want to move to Perth? Player has to agree to a trade and he just re-signed with Carlton so find it hard to believe that would work.

One last thing, last year we didn't know that the Gold Coast were going to get most of the first round draft picks in the 2010 draft. So it is important in the 2008 & 2009 draft to top up with more quality youngsters.

I think we need a quality extractor. Judd has to do all the hard yakka in close because Stevens is not a tough inside player. We need to be able to free Judd up on the outside more, like how the Cats free up Ablett Jnr and Nth free up Harvey. If Harris is available, I would be very interested in him.

I also think we need at least 1 young forward for the future. However, we also need a ready-to-go ruck, so maybe what you do is chase Warnock. If you can get him, then you shift Kreuzer and Cloke forward, so along with Waite hey presto there's your 3 forwards for the future.

I was agreeing with you to an extent until I saw your trade suggestions.

For instance, why wouldn't we trade pick 6 for pick 11(?) plus Kossie if Stkilda wanted too.

Luke Livingston!

walker >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wells

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Hampson is in my offload list as I don't think he has the footy smarts to be a good ruckman. This is not his fault as he is from a soccer background, so drafting him was a gamble. If you watch him closely, he seems to not be able to read the play around the ground and position himself in the right spot. His disposal is not the best either. His timing seems to be out of wack, when he is jumping up in the ruck. I don't think he has improved since his debut last year, hence the reason why Cloke and Kreuzer shared most of the ruck duties this year. I believe Kreuzer's debut season produced better results than Hampson's 2 seasons.

This is why I have Warnock as a player to chase and Hampson to offload.

Flower the "Hawthorn model" FFS, I'm sick of hearing about it!! Who gives a flying flower what they did, let's just concentrate on doing our own thing. There is no guarantee that following some "model" is going to work out for you exactly like it has for anyone else. There are too many variables in football for it to be black and white.

For instance would we be here discussing this if Richmond were smart enough to take Franklin and/or Roughead instead of Tambling? Or if Freo were smart enough not to sell their souls for Croad, only to have him return to Hawthorn for sweet FA a couple of years later? What would've happened if Franklin had oestitis pubis or suffered a major injury in the last year or two? It's just not that simple unfortunately.

We have a young nucleus of a great team that will go places. We really don't have any player age issues to worry about like Hawthorn did back then. Recruit well and we will be right up there within 2 years. (and I'm not talking about getting Kerr either )

You really lost me with that Walker for Wells trade too.

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"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

Because Kossi has a poor history with injuries, he is 26 going on 27 years of age. Therefore we would only get about 4-5 years out of him instead of 10 years from a younger recruit.

Also Kossi doesn't stand up in big games (e.g against Geelong in the final) on a consistent basis. I also don't think he has lived up to expectations throuout his career. He has even had St.kilda supporters and media experts calling for him to be traded.

Good to see that despite everything you have said, at least you have patience with the players developing

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"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

I think you left out a few too many greater than signs.

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The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect
So hard to earn, so easily burned
In the fullness of time
A garden to nurture and protect

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