In paper today said Palmer had another year. Jeez I hope not.

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Go Blues

Probably not the best time to post this just after the worst loss for the year but:
Daisy to go even though he has had a reasonable year.
Graham even though he is a soldier. He just can't manage it.
I now hope Casboult goes even though I have been a proponent for keeping him. We are too Casboult centric, a carry over from the 'kick it to Kernahan/Fev game plan.
Boekhorst to stay.
I loved Smedts early in his career. He showed so much but he has not been a shadow of that player for us.
Simmo deserves another season even though his disposal isn't that flash. At least he gets the footy and has a go.

If we don't get all mids in the draft we will not improve. No depth whatsoever in the midfield.

We need to land a huge trade. If we go mids in the draft, maybe a key forward.
We need to recruit a better forward coach. The long kick to a contest and a crowded forward line compared to a clean entry to a leading team mate just doesn't stack up. We saw that tonight. Not just Franklin but several others who found space.

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

Quality mids will fix that. We need players who can lower the eyes and kick it to our advantage inside 50. All year we have had players free in the forward line and we blindly kick it. We just need to build a side with quality players who can kick it. We have none at the moment. SPS seems to be coming on though and uses it well.

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It is not as bad as you are lead to believe.......it is %$#^& worse!!!

Not tonight. His kicking was off like everybody else. I think many of them were trying to play too close to the boundary. We had a lot of OOB frees against and SPS was one of the guilty ones.
Having said that, he usually uses it very well.

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

A lot of players were down tonight. Still think the SPS pick has been great.

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It is not as bad as you are lead to believe.......it is %$#^& worse!!!

Things are looking up.
Trying to forget the last 40 minutes of 2017.
I can't help but see Blue Skies ahead. More than just Green Shoots.

It's that fun time for Carlton fans to look forward to improve the list and improve our ladder position.
Season is over...and this is what's ticking over in my head re Carlton...nothing new, just the course.

Our landscape:

With 7 teenagers and 6 under 22 to develop, suggests the list needs another couple years to contest Top 4.
What is Carltons aim next year?
BB & SOS would say stick to plan for another 22 games to turn the list over a 66 game rebuild.
So, that's 2 more trade seasons 2017 & 18.

We won 6 games and lost 7 in the last Qtr after taking the lead.
Lets say 13 wins next year is not out of the question if we are indeed improving.

If we landed a Big fish would they help us improve another game or 2? 15 gets us into finals?
It is anyone's guess. But we hope we grow that quick.

What we know is we need another preseason or 2 into our Under 23's, and we need to find 3-4 new midfielders.

We can do that from the Draft and Trades. Blue skies.

Round 1 Pick 3 it is. ....NEW STAR MIDFIELDER (Kelly & the like)......Armfield retired
No Round 2 Pick
Round 3 Pick 22 ish......NEW Class MIDFIELDER (Hopper & the like)......Sumner delisted
Round 4 Pick 40 ish......NEW MIDFIELDER (Could be a ready made)..............Jaksch delisted
Round 5 Pick 58 ish......TRADE MIDFIELDER (Balic/ & The like)...........Gorringe delisted
Round 6 Pick 76 ish......TRADE MIDFIELDER (GWS Points for a player?)...........Graham delisted
Round 7 Pick 94 ish......DRAFT Developing Ruck ( or rookie) ......Buckley/ Thomas/ Simpson retires??


Palmer is contracted 2018
Smedts is contracted 2018
White is contracted 2018
Kerridge is contracted 2018
Lamb is contracted 2018
Rowe offered contract 2018

13 players turned over the next 2 years and I think our window will surely open 2019.

No doubt theres a pick or 2 Trades with Casboult & Gibbs. Gibbs would get us a younger Mid.

I'm going to try and forget about thos last 40 minutes of the 2017 season.

Stick to the plan BB and SOS. I'll start to really judge them by the end of next year.
Really keen to see if we land a big fish or 2 over the next 2 drafts, only 14 months away.

I'm really looking forward to 2018.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

bondi is on track. Give the kids time to develop.


Plus draft bigger bodied mids to put around them.


Then the McKays, Curnows, SOJs will get the service to develop a competent forward line.

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"Get ready, Teddy - you're on": Ron Barassi half time 1970 Grand Final

Hope McKay isn't turning into our Scott Gumbleton.
Highly draft pick, key forward, always injured.

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James Hird and Essendon* FC - #FOREVERDRUGCHEATS

How does a round 3 pick come in at 22ish?

And 15 wins this year got you to 3rd.

Are you drinking and posting bondi?

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Don't think White is contracted for 2018.

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The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Ronald Reagan

Hope not Kill have to move on from white good servant BUT

I wouldn't be surprised if they get 1 year deals. If the contract thread is correct, we've got 22 players across the list coming off contract, most of which won't be here in 2 years. Only 10 players are off contract next year and some of those are likely to get deals, so I reckon that we'll get rid of a lot this year and have a few 1 year contracts which will get sorted next year.

Looking at the 22 names, there's 9 in the likely column:
Armfield (confirmed)
Jaksch (No senior games in 2017)
Gorringe (No senior games in 2017)
Korchek (No senior games and not close to it according to reports in the Talking Northern thread)
Palmer (hardly played seniors in 2017)
Buckley (hardly played seniors in 2017)
Sumner (not being picked at the end of the season, Lamb gone past him)?
White (pushed out of first 22, time probably up)
Sheehan (Time to make the call?)

Of the other 13:
Kreuzer, Casboult & Cunningham to be offered new contracts? Kreuzer and Casboult certainties, excluding the possibility that Casboult chases more coin elsewhere. Cunningham a question mark based on not being picked in the last few games when the cupboard was bare.

Of the remaining 10:
Boekhorst & Lamb played late season senior footy, so new contract (even just 1 year).

Of the remaining 8:
LeBios, A. Silvagni, Gallucci & Glass McCasker - Not sure what the club would be thinking here, so could lose some from this list (I'm assuming that 1 or 2 might be delisted)

The remaining 4 players are:
Simpson, Rowe, Graham & Thomas. Assuming that 10 or 11 of the above players are delisted, that's probably enough. So these four may just get into the 1 year contract, depth player category. It would also provide the candidates for next year's clean out.

Players out of contract in 2018 are:
J. Silvagni, Murphy, Docherty, Plowman & Wright (best 22, likely to be extended)
Polson, Pickett & Kerr (young players, probable/possible extensions)
Kerridge & Smedts (candidates for not being extended).

So we've got too many players on the list with contract expirations in 2017 that aren't long term list options and less so in 2018. One way of balancing this out will be to have a few 1 year extensions.

Given the lack of depth on our list, I reckon the club will try and be aggressive in turning players over again, somewhere in the 9-12 area. Given that we don't have a 2nd round pick, I'm guessing that we'll be looking to trade aggressively to turn so many players over. So players like Graham and Daisy may be on the cusp, but they might just scrape through. I think it's going to depend on whether we can trade for multiple picks/players cleverly.

Given the numbers, if Graham or Daisy don't make it, it's likely that one of the other names will.

Hmmm.....I must admit, it is kind of tempting to read something into the likes of Graham, Smedts & Armfield getting games late in the season ahead of Cunningham.

Cunningham has shown some good signs and we are desperate for young midfield talent. Not sure why he wasn't given more of a go late in the season. I know he had an injury at one point but there were games he was available but played VFL instead.

Still out of contract next year, as far as I know.

Food for the conspiracy theorists? Another KJ scenario? Or was Bolts just making him earn his spot....?

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

I know Cunningham had an injury that was restricting his output. The prognosis was he couldn't make it worse by playing. I suspect they thought it was valuable to still get game time into him but he wasn't good enough to be playing seniors at 80%.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Nothing stronger than petrol.

Yeah 3rd Round is 40 ish...and so on.

Point is we will be picking up 5-6 new recruits as we delist 5-6, and maybe trade Gibbs for a quality mid with the pick plus player, and get a pick for Casboult if he goes.
Surely we can get ourselves 5 upgraded in the midfield to fix up midfield gaps.

The 2018 we drop another 6-7 players and pick up a KPF FA like Lynch (although the AFL wouldn't like it and will do whatever it takes to keep him at GCS).
I'm sure we can bolster our midfield in 2018 Trade / Draft period, and have a list which will take us players and put pressure on positions all over the ground...other than ruck.

We have enough talls for backline and forwardline and with 2 trade/ draft seasons before 2019 implies we have the list to take us further than 2018.

12 wins is all it took to make the 8 this year. Looks possible for us to reach that in 2018 if this 2017 Trade/ Draft period is a good one for us.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

22 players out of contract includes Senior players and Rookie players ??

9-10 players off the list including rookies is realistic.
Rookies vulnerable IMO is Gallucci, Le Bois JGM and Sheehan so 4 for sure. Korcheck is a different category rookie.
I wonder / doubt Sheehan is upgraded as Byrne was last year? Doubt it after dropping his bundle against the Dees. Alex Silvagni should be upgraded IMO.

Do you know for fact Palmer and White are off contract in 2018? I'm not sure. I've read they are contracted. White got 2 years (2017-8) ????
If that's the case, then I see Graham is vulnerable.

Point is we can get rid of a lot to make room to blood 9-10 senior and rookie players.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

There's some very insightful posts here regarding list management and I reckon yours is particularly good Steve. You haven't fallen for trap of looking at a bloke's last couple of games and basing your decision of those. The reality, I would think, is that we're not likely to delist players who have a played a few rubbish games ahead of those who simply haven't played well enough in the VFL to get a game, (age factor notwithstanding).

i am not a fan of plowman,for me he is to SLOW,he could be used as a trade / good draft pick,we have other players on the list that could play his role. IMO

I would hope that graham and white aren't offered another contract.

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T E A M

Recently I have been surprised to find Mr Plowman has a few supporters who don't rate him.
I accept that. Perception is reality.

He is not slow. He's got enough pace to play against talls and smalls, hence why he does.
He's played on a wing for GWS, even had a taste as a mid.
It is not because he's slow.

What is it about Mr Plowman I'm missing.
I've been curious since The Craniums post.

At the beginning of the season he was touted as The General of the backline.
He was the glue for Rowe, the newcomer Marchbank and Weiters.
He was the bona fide backman.

He is usually in the mix as the 3rd man up in team defence because he reads the play so well.
Many. like me believe Jones missed him on the weekend.

I have a theory that some fans have seen Williamson and they think he's passed Plowman.
That's all good, but Williamson needs to develop a right boot and learn to chase a bit better than he has been.
Williamson can't play against the bigger bodies Plowman does.
I think jamespul65 has an idea there's others who can play his role, but are they better?
Bottom line, Williamson is developing, not developed.

Plowman is new to our club, and has slotted in perfectly with our backline.
He's been targeted and recruited from GWS. He played only 2 years.
He fits the youth profile we want. Why would the club trade him?
No one would take him if he was too slow, and james wants a high draft pick for him. Confused.

I'm really curious from others why they feel Plowman is not dependable/ worthy of first 22.
What has he done wrong to feel that way?

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue