In hindsight getting rid of Ratts was the wrong idea for a few reasons. Mainly because they gave Mick free reign which couldn't happen at the Pies. We also lost a lot of good assistant coaches replaced by yes men.

I would hope that couldn't happen again. Trigg has been doing a good job, no messiahs and no quick fixes. Get a team working well together, and progress from there. The key is the board and footy department holding their nerve

The biggest on field issue arguably is this losing mentality/culture call it what you like.

We need to eradicate this the quickest way possible. A tough task indeed.

Having said that Sydney had a shitful culture for many many years. Geelong were handbaggers for an enternity. Freo was well a shipping port.

How they turned it around only God knows. We need a little help a little divine intervention!

@adam Chatfield agree
The key is the board..holding their nerve AND know what they are doing ...to date they have failed on both issues

Get the right people in charge and be a bit ruthless, like Freo in turfing Harvey for a better option

Why do you bother responding when you don't respond to the the actual post?

GWS did not want these players, not even on the rookie list... if they did, we wouldn't have them!!!

How many games did the 4 play in 2015?

It's why they kept Tomlinson, because he was wanted by GWS (by some at GWS, not everyone)!!

But even he was gettable...

GWS achieved their goals when dealing with us, clearly we didn't achieve our goals in our negotiations with GWS!!

Did you think about that?

Henderson a loss. No
Yarran a loss. No. Cant have players with issues who decide when to play
Menzel. No. Injuries, fitness application
Bell. Yes.
Garlett, Waite, Robinson. Suddenly were going to be the difference. Each part of the problem
Betts. Yes

No, he didn't!!!!

We had 3 picks in the first 21 after the Bell trade...

We then traded 3 players drafted in the first round, and ended up with cast-offs from GWS, and Kerridge (who was un-contracted),
and 4 picks in the first 21!

Look at what other clubs did during the same period!

We could have done so much better during the trading period!

That should have led to more, and better selections in the draft!

Everyone is happy we are embracing the draft like never before, and that's great!

But just because we are now doing what everyone else has been doing for years, it doesn't mean we weren't mediocre!!

But we were winning and playing finals, Jim. That's my point. Since Ratten we have gone into a rapid, downwards spiral. Neither you nor I know what might have been had he stayed.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Rusty, you never change.

Rusty, you never change.

Everybody is a loss
Just because we can't get a must together doesnt mean they're not a loss.
If you can't galvanize a list that you have to play football you won't galvanize the next one too

It's not the players its the system
I only have reservations for Yarran.. For her chose the wrong club!

Geelong Adelaide will sort theirs out

BTW I love Yarran and hope he can break out!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The only problem with that observation is that at least one of the GWS "cast-offs" was also a first round selection, and quite high in the first round, at that. Let's at least use the same logic for other teams as we do for ourselves. For instance, for a rebuilding club, where is Lachie Plowman found wanting in comparison to Lachie Henderson? Having said that, I think we are still over-doing the mature age thing by one or two players a year. I'd would much rather have taken the chance on someone like Mabior Chol or Gach noyan, as an extra draftee or rookie, than some equally speculative cast-off tall with a bit of 'baggage'.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

He might very well been a first round selection but GWS didn't want him and we did GWS a favour by taking him off their hands.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Yes I will! When the club changes
How do you expect smart people to change when the club is bottom with four spoons in fifteen years and starting at five in sixteen?
That's not bad one every three. It's very st kilda like.
Including two in a row after this year bring a distinct probability.
Are you proud?

Loll

Sounds like you are. The kinds of noises YOURE putting out!

Mediocrity is accepted now it seems!
Can't complain against mediocrity must embrace it!

Right padre?

Correct?

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Plowman will be an excellent get! ( BTW)

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Fine years is patient.. That's how long it takes to turn a list over
Twenty one years of patience is actually somebody that's dead already
Rattens last year we were incredibly crap
His other years we won one elimination final and didn't manage more than three in a row

That's actually hardly a galvanized football club
But it's not rattens fault. He was never ready to be a senior club coach in the afl. He hadn't done an apprenticeship for it and was gifted the job by a crony Carlton board culture.
In the end the players with the typical Carlton crony culture has enough of him. In typical Carlton board culture the board went out to sound out the best coach they could.
Half the board wanted Mick half wanted roos.. The mathiesons including mark wanted Mick the Pratt's wanted the ex swans golden boy roos. Roos rejected all advances and he has been found out equally wanting at Melbourne anyway

Basically crap coaches kill everything.
Both of these coaches were successful till they landed ( only after massive money) at a crap club. Clubs they wouldn't have gone to otherwise!

It's simple!
That Pratt phase was massive to our recovery.. We had the momentum and inertia. The league hadn't yet become anywhere near as professional as it is now....
But we fluffed it with some massive poor choices
-Ratts became senior coach. Totally out of his depth. Was paranoid.. Pointed fingers at players.. Conditioning chief etc
-Sticks because president. Stayed fur seven odd years . the most laughable choice for president in the history of afl. He was unanimously voted in as president each time. Including three times by the current president who speaks about previous admins with a snake I mean scapegoating tone
-Below that swann was drafted in as CEO and kept on rolling his contact over three times or was it four?
-Judd came in and sorted out all of our players giving up hive salary cap space and costing the farm. ( we love our Messiah complex) judd allowed us to take our eyes off the ball.. On the end we killed him too!
-Recruitment and development were poor! List management was totally non existent
- football manager we brought in icke but he couldn't work wetter rattan so he was shot and replaced by the comfortably clueless McKay!
- membership had not been harvested anywhere near what it should have. Hard work was substituted by crappy jingoism.. The whole club was being rotted out by lazy, opulent, misguided self entitlement delusional cronyism.
It didn't make any real inroads into the debt which is still a massive cross the club still bares. And it's blowing out to the point that in afl football terms were now again insolvent.
By rights the afl is supposed to place is into administration which it's hesitant to do for obvious reasons. ( just another afl house rule that isn't really a rule like everything in this sport today) but it can't be far away. The board has been asked to tip in to keep the clubs head above water. Done tipping in more than others of course..
Which is a scary proposition for anybody wanting to come in on a challenge.
They will have to personally fund a massive shortfall and not just mend it.


We're still doing the most laughable things imaginable by any supposedly professional organization.

This thing will not turn around.. As a matter of fact it's going to snowball the other way.. It's already this massive snowball that this board has vomited down our throats.

Three clubs are central to this club.
Elliots
Pratt's
Mathiesons

The more this club slides the more it stays on the control of these three.. They don't always work together but they're the holders of the clubs power base.
Others are drafted in or out.

They have shored up their interests over the years to the exclusion of outsiders beautifully.
They have given much more thought in making sure power can't be vested into anybody else than turning the club around.
The money they have paid on the drip has been the debt many times over and yet they won't pay that money in one hit and wipe off five.
They won't do that because they know if the club is financially out of the woods they're unsafe.

In the meantime the club keeps slipping into oblivion which it can never truly recover from

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

i'm not a very patient person by design, but i'm willing to ride this thing out. i mean i have to ride it out. i'm a one club person, there's no other choice for me. watching my son follow the cats has been hard to take ... but i can't blame the kid.

but imo, there's a massive difference to being patient and to being tolerant.

i'm totally intolerant of this board as it's currently made up and ran. they've given us nothing but crap and failure for 16 years, and yet they're still all basically here. If i gave a crap effort and delivered nothing but failure in my job for 16 days, i'd be out on my arse. and this is where my intolerance for them burns.


i'm not convinced bolton is going to pan out any different to ratten. i mean bolton has the exact same framework to operate in. in my mind i can't fathom how bolton can be any more effective over the duration when it's the same people higher up running the joint?

... like synners said. lets see what's happening by round 12 where if we've fallen off the wagon and everyone in here and outside wearing the navy blue are reduced to apes.


what then?

The usual people will run around screaming I'm a teapot?

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"I will rejoice in their anguish, delight in their failure and revel in our success"

We are Carlton, @#$%&! the rest !!!!!!

Synbad will come back for a long overdue I told you so!

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dane's trolling again