Phillips gives very little once the ruck work is done, Casboult gives much more outside actual tap work.

We desperately need a stable list, but have too many players not quite good enough.

We should go to the draft again this year and forget going for fringe players from other clubs in specific age groups.

_________________
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

lets face it every trade we have done with gws have been a flop poor trading

David King back on 18 April stated, "The biggest problem the AFL has got is that it takes 6 or 7 years to rebuild. It's a whole cycle if you're going through primary school. It's too long....It's the biggest issue Gil McLauchlin?" has got right now"

And it's true.

You look at all the matches this weekend - boring, one-sided.
You look at the NRL - a far inferior code in terms of quality of play and action - but it has something the AFL doesn't have - many unpredictable & close matches.

It is time to do away with the draft or reform it or somehow assist cellar dwellers. The draft is doing nothing to even up teams. Neither is free agency. One solution - maybe there is a super draft with access going to the bottom 3 clubs only. They get access to SANFL, WAFL listed players aged 20-25...something that changes it up...or just delete the draft all together. It isn't working.

Even if Carlton does well at the draft this year, the other clubs pick the eyes out of the Blues best more experienced players, and the cycle continues for at least 6 years. It is too long.

Geelong has two prime Carlton players who should still be at the club but wanted easy wins somewhere else. Would be nice to stick it up the arrogant Cats, but it is highly unlikely unless Carlton can find someone who can kick 5 or more goals. That looks almost impossible with a young side "rebuilding"..."give it time" "do your penance first". The same old tired message that we will have to hear for the next 3 years at least.

one of those one-sided games was the last placed lions smashing the never leaving finals hawks...bet you never saw that one coming

and id be doing cartwheels for two years ...

Yeah, that is a fair counter-argument... but I think the general point remains. Brisbane, GC, Carlton may surprise every so often but the season isn’t even half over and we know these 3 teams barring something unforeseen like a meteor or the players getting bitten by a radioactive spider, won’t get anywhere near finals.

Contrast that to the NRL, which has seen Manly, with only a few wins knock off Melbourne & some other top team I can’t remember the name of in consecutive weeks.

The NRL doesn’t have a draft. Could the AFL learn something?
How did Hawthorn win 3 flags in a row? Did it have anything to do with Tasy arrangement. Does the NRL give a state to any NRL teams like this?

Just asking questions, as the system only benefits a few.

Broncos

it's 100% true.

the AFL has screwed the pooch with their uneven playing field. some clubs get boosts to be better and stay better, while some don't. the most short sighted of them all was bringing in not one, but two expansion clubs so soon after one another. the talent pool is too thin across this many teams.

crowds in brisbane, GC, west sydney and tasmania are a joke.

rebuilding through the draft is too long. after expansion, it just may be impossible as the rich get richer.

AFL could do a few things.
do away with 2 clubs, those players enter a player draft and are redistributed.
do away with the salary cap, and go all english premier league where only the strong survive
eliminate bonuses for teams like Swans, hawks etc where they have financial gains over other clubs

I still think the draft has value. it works well in the NFL, and the NFL has a constant turnover of teams shifting from good to elite back to ordinary all within a few seasons.

Jon Ralph wrote a good article today.
He goes on to say that Carlton needs to go fishing for a free agent to help the young players. He brings up many points that we have raised here.
Says it makes it pointless to have let go players such as Gibbs for draft picks if we have to give up draft picks to replace him so free agency is the only way to go.
Also raises the point that we need to finish the year strongly so a player can see there is a future, and want to come the our club just as Judd did.
You would think he has been reading TC.

Agree with that and free agency but also wouldn't mind a Richmond run with injuries

Have got little continuity at all this year

Docherty in pre-season was diabolical obviously but haven't seen Byrne for weeks
Murphy for half our matchs
Marchbank and Kennedy rarely injury free
Charlie and Kreuz missing a couple
ASOS whilst not great better than OShea
Lang just back on the park now
Levi multiple weeks
Pickett not at all
With our list little needs to go wrong with injuries for us to be in trouble

add Williamson to that + Weitering and Cunningham for a couple.
Hopefully the club is reviewing this because it can't all be bad luck.

yes agree with those 2 doof and whilst he annoys me invariably when he falls over and makes egregious errors after playing for more than 5 years - Rowe wasn't available early either

The first half of this year has undoubtedly been a complete disaster.

Hopefully we have a near full list after the bye so we can reset the year to get a good look at the list at seasons end.

A clean canvas after the swans game

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/05/21/ ... e-in-2020/

fair article and not sure I agree with all the names in the 22 as I would imagine/hope we would add some more quality via 2nd and 3rd round picks in this years draft
and also via free agency acquisitions


Whateley is a cauliflower by the way

that's recently become VERY clear

Interesting read.

I would disagree on their summation of Lamb and Wright.

Lamb has mongrel, and Wright sets up goals. Both have enough runs on the board to persevere with. I hope they are still around in 2020... There aren’t many present day Carlton players I admire, but I do with these two. I could be wrong thoughForm needs to keep improving.. maybe they won’t improve? Who knows.

I agree with your points. However, I think the draft is a massive con for teams in the cellar. 6-7 years of pain, one small incremental step at a time.

If it was basketball, one good new player can make a difference as there are only 7 players or whatever. In AFL there are 22 players, so one teenager per year isn’t going to fix anything.

NFL you get a good quarterback and from there you can’t go down the gurgler. The game centres around one player more than AFL.

I do agree that the AFL copies pretty much everything the NFL does...and for the AFL to admit the draft has not worked is a good first step. Give trading concessions to clubs that win under 5 games or does that build more inequalities?

Not sure, but I can tell you not one single game on the weekend coming up interests me. They all look one-sided. There might be one or two good games out of 8.

I have to say it again. As I am really am a broken record, but Hawthorn getting Tasmania as a state to own is one of the most pathetically stupid decisions the AFL has ever made. This enlarged the inequalities in the system.
Well done on the 2008 flag, before the largess really flowed, but the other 3... cough, cough.

Midfielders who win their own ball...

More like Dow and Fisher.

Don't use early picks on players who struggled to win contested possession at junior level.

_________________
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

We've been down the bottom way too long and we're all sick of it. I get that.

Realistically though this is not going to change quickly and building through the draft is our best option.
Generally the best teams have a large number of players who have played a lot games together under the same coach. That takes time.

As far as the complaints about the draft are concerned - what else are you proposing? The priority pick system was designed to further help perennially poor performers, but then that got abused via tanking. Free agency was theoretically meant to help, (if you believed the AFL spin, which I didn't), but it's actually just helped the strong teams stay strong.

If we really want to see things swap about faster with respect to team success that only way I can think of is to follow the approach that the 20/20 cricket is heading down - i.e. at the end of each season the players all go back into a pool and each team bids for what they want. I would not like to see that.