OK, so this is tough! And not for any good reason either. But thanks to the Blueseum for giving me the lists of players to try and sort through to come up with this team. Originally I wrote down a list of names, and put question marks next to 8 of them. I then got to the end of the decade, and figured out that I was still four players short - so all the question marks got included!
So the challenge over Christmas is... considering the games that were played between 2000 and 2009, name your Carlton team of the decade (ie Braddles winning a flag in 1995 doesn't count toward his form in this time period). Initially, I tried to leave out players who had only played for two years or less, but in the end this got too hard - and I had to end up including both Judd and Kreuzer (Gibbs is also underdone, but his three years were probably better than many other options). I also did my best to leave out players who were coming to the end of their careers, but Ratts was All Australian in 2000 and 2001. The last spot on the bench was an extreme raffle. In the end I gave it to Jordan Bannister because he was there longer than most (yep - that's how tough it was getting!)
BondiBlue... don't get too upset by the fact I picked French in the ruck - there weren't many other options! Oh, and for an indication of how tough things have been, just look at the half forward line
B: Camporeale Thornton Carrazzo
HB: McKay (C) Waite Houlihan
C: Simpson Murphy Stevens
HF: Fisher Whitnall Wiggins
F: Lappin Fevola Betts
Foll: French Koutoufides Judd (VC)
Inter: Gibbs Kreuzer Ratten Silvagni
So scroll the Blueseum and see if you can come up with better!
Tough times.
