At the risk of coming across as a nervous nellie I've got to say I'm more than a little concerned over a few looming decisions.

1. Captaincy: With Cripps holding off signing on and Murphy putting in less than inspiring leadership from both a physical strength and on field body language intent perspective, and this concern is further reinforced after hearing Murphy talk about how he wants to keep leading this side, I worry Carlton might make the monumental error of not appointing Cripps captain, which IMO should happen very soon. I've been a Blues fan for many a decade and Cripps is as good a leader as I've ever seen. Making him captain is a dead set no brainer. The club should be offering him captaincy NOW. If they don't and he leaves then that'll be a complete disaster.

2. Trading Pick 1 for a number of inferior picks : lots of talk about maybe doing this, as there's a perception we lack depth so need as many picks as we can get. I don't mind trading 1 if we still get a high pick, IMO given the talent in this draft we must have a pick in the top half dozen. If we trade 1 for something outside that range, such as 8, I worry that pick might not get us a topline talent, which IMO is our no. 1 need. While I know there's no guarantee in the draft it nonetheless stands to reason the higher the pick the more chance you have of striking gold and IMO the top six this year are all striking talents (the two SA lads, the two Kings, Walsh and Smith) . If we forfeit the opportunity to get a topline talent it'll be another disaster. Regardless of injuries we are bottom with one win, we clearly need top end talent not B Graders.

3. Trading pick 1 for Shiel : he's a seriously good player and we need his type especially as he is a mid but IMO he is on the wrong side of 25 for our needs. I don't think we should be trading the only trump card we have for a player who potentially only has 5 years left. I'd rather a 23-24 year old high end mid than a 26 year old high end mid which Shiel will be next year. We are a long way off true success. We got Judd when he was 23-24 and he didn't bring us home the bacon though I know he tried. Let's not make the same mistake again with our only off season trump card. (Disclaimer : if the AFL wake up and give us pick 2 as a PP then by all means hand that over for Shiel).

The next 3-6 months loom as very very important for the club and I hope wise heads make good decisions. But I'm worried TBH.

I think it’s much worse than this, I’m worried the club will soon cease to exist. We are irrelevant to the competition in almost every way I imaginable.

Yes Roosy and co traded pick 2 (Josh Kelly) for pick 9 (Salem) and Tyson.

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"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

Murphy has shown loyalty in resigning. Do we not show loyalty in return? What message do we want to send to the squad? If you stick with Carlton, we stick with you? or if something better comes along then bye bye? Cripps may well be future Captain material, and he'll get his chance in due coarse. Until then Murphy should be rewarded for sticking with the club through thick and thin imho.

I don't put much stock into draft selections. There's just too much what ifs and success/disaster stories to make heads or tails of any of it. A quick example: Kane Lambert of Richmond. We had him. Played for the Bullants (his 2013 season was something special) and went to Richmond at pick 46 in the rookie draft. How did we not draft this player? He is a running machine. Look at our engine room today. He is exactly the type of player we desperately need. Yet all things considered, its a gamble we didn't take and Richmond did, which has paid huge dividends to the Tigers.

People say we need talent, the glaring obvious. But I think we need talent at picking talent. If I was in charge this would be my number one concern and I wouldn't rest until we got that talent at all costs. We've picked number 1 draft choices over and over whilst overlooking awesome talent in the process Kane Lambert being one example. What we need imho is the absolute best of the best at picking talent and obtaining for the club. Something I think we've seriously lacked for far far too long imho, and the reason we are in the shithouse position we find ourselves in today.

We are the worst team by 10 goals, and yet people think we have injuries, aside of Doc the rest would barely make any other AFL side and maybe not on merit some senior WAFL, VFL or SANFL sides.
We do not develop players full stop, never have and without radical change, never will.

Bolton is running a happy camp to try and stop a mass exodus to save him and Silvagni from embarrassment. Bolton is so far out of his depth it’s laughable.
By chance overseas I spoke with an opposition coaching staff person he told me certain top sides structure training loads in the lead up to us like having a second Bye, that’s why some of the top teams don’t flog us yet the lower teams do.
I’ll never stop supporting the club (for what might be its final years in this format) but I’ll never support blind undeserved loyalty, to very highly paid, underperforming suits and polos.

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Green Shooter

What a load of tripe. At least half last nights team would get a game at another club.

Dow, SPS, Marchbank, Curnows, O’Brien, Murphy, Cripps, Kennedy, Kreuzer, McKay as a start.

Development I agree with. But that requires a game plan that is simple and clear, with Senior leadership on field to show how it is done.

100%.

Bolts' game plan might look @#$%&! awesome on paper, or when they do drills on Wednesday afternoon at PP, but it gets smashed to bits when the witches hats become men who want to kill you.

I could write a business plan that, on paper, will make me a billionaire, but I still have to get people to buy my product or I'm just another pretender.

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I think Bookie was referring to the injured players, not those that played.

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THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

Very confident that Murphy will not be captain next year.

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THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

Look, I'm not having a go at you, but I'm @#$%&! sick of the Kane Lambert story.

Lambert came to the Northern Bullants through the Northern Knights, played a couple of decent seasons then moved to Williamstown. He was recruited from Williamstown at pick 45 in the 2015 rookie draft at the age of 23. We didn't 'have him' and he wasn't drafted from under our noses. Every team in the league had multiple opportunities to recruit him and every team in the league didn't... until Richmond used a late pick in the rookie draft on him. Good on them, he's turned into a good footballer.

Using Lambert as a cudgel against the management of the club is manifestly unfair.

Correct.

And correct again, at least half of last night's team wouldn't be getting a game elsewhere.

This is a concern but I can't imagine the AFL allowing it to happen.
Even during those dark years following the salary cap breaches we still managed to win more games than we look like winning this year.
Pagan inherited an ageing list and no draft picks and we still won 3 games that first year.
After such a promising pre season, other than Docherty's injury, things were going well.
It all fell apart in round 2 unfortunately.

I love Cripps but if we wants to walk, we'll take 2 first rounders for him. If players only want to stay for the captaincy, see ya later.
Personally, I think too many are underselling his character. He'll see improvement next year and that will be enough for him to sign on.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Right.
Williamson, Plowman, Lang, Wright, Macreadie, Weitering, Cuningham, Byrne , Phillips, Silvagni, Kreuzer etc would barely make some VFL, WAFL or SANFL sides.
We may as well shut this site down. The @#$%&! loonys have taken control.
Losing makes people @#$%&! stupid!!!!!

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I got this from a very reliable source. We have all heard about the issues on the Adelaide camp where players were blind folded and made to listen to the Richmond song
Players were asked to tell home truths and phones were taken away.
Well when we went to the Gold coast it was far worse.
Players were blind folded whilst Bolton sang Kumbiah and Ging gang guly as well as found a peanut.
All the players had their hair dryers taken off them and nail polish and waxing wasn't allowed.
Boy did this not go down well

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Improvement like what was supposed to happen in the back half of this year?

I appreciate your input Blue Vain but couldn’t disagree more on Cripps leaving. Would be nothing short of catastrophic imho.

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We are on our way back...

Now I've seen everything... someone advocating for Marc Murphy to retain the captaincy

Possibly the worst football call I've ever seen!

Bullshit

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!