Our midfield will be good when you don't see Kerridge and Ed Curnows names listed

I think Ed's good when he's tagging a midfield gun from the opposition. Not so good when he's not.

You want them to play secretly?

If Cuningham, SPS and Fisher can contribute at senior level this year (and the little preseason hints we're getting suggest that's a possibility).

Along with the addition of Palmer, who should be a solid contributor.

And beside the senior core of Murphy, Cripps, Gibbs and Curnow.

And I'd still expect Kerridge to roll through there as well.

Obviously we've still got a way to go. But it already looks deeper and stronger than 2016.

But will LOB be ready? Will Cuningham show improvement? And will Charlie have much midfield impact?

Our midfield will be good when you don't see Kerridge and Ed Curnows names listed

Who is LOB?

Lochie O’Brien


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Are you embarrassed?

Nah.

ANALYSIS: It's all about Patrick Cripps. The Blues are the third-best centre clearance team in the competition this season, mainly on the back of Cripps' excellence. He has attended 464 centre bounces this year, clearly the most of anyone at the Blues. The impact of Zac Fisher has been particularly surprising, with the youngster recording a positive clearance differential of 9.6 per cent. It's the best of anyone at Carlton with more than 100 centre bounce attendances this season. Of the seven Carlton players to attend more than 100 centre bounces this year, four are 21 years of age or younger.

I was clearly wrong about Palmer. And Kerridge finished the year alright, but was reasonably disappointing.

I like the future midfield talent we're building, but trying to work out if we can hold our ground this year with the loss of Gibbs. Hopefully we'll get some good footy out of Kennedy and Lang. I'm confident we'll continue to see improvement from SPS and Fisher. And even though he's a young body, I'd expect to see a fair bit of Dow (given he's a clearance beast). But will LOB be ready? Will Cuningham show improvement? And will Charlie have much midfield impact?

I suspect he's not the most talented player in the draft pool, but I'm become increasingly convinced that we'll be taking Sam Walsh with our first pick in this year's draft. I think his all-round package of elite character, leadership, athleticism and output will won the day.

Pretty exciting to think of a core future midfield built around the elite talent and character of Cripps, Dow and Walsh. And if we can add another 2 through draft/trade into our midfield mix (Shiel? O'Halloran?), I think we're finally on our way. Not that we'll be ready to match it with the hardened, mature midfields. But at least we'll well and truly have the necessary building blocks for 2020-2021.

3 core midfielders
Cripps
Dow
Walsh

secondary midfielders
Shiel?
SPS
Fisher
Kennedy

others in the mix/rotation
O'Brien
Docherty?
Lang
Ed
Murphy
our 2nd pick
Cuningham