Cam Bruce has gone completely mad.

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#DonTheStash

I wonder if he has heard that before?

Some good answers to this around recruiting. Think I'll put in my own two cents ...

I'd suggest impatience and unrealistic expectations based on results from an era late last century when we had unfair advantages. Mostly I'm thinking recruiting. We had the Bendigo zone to ourselves which was as good as any. We also had plenty of money behind us and a keen enthusiasm and aptitude for raiding interstate leagues. There was a bit of dodgy salary cap stuff at the end, but given most clubs were doing it I suspect it wasn't a huge factor. When the draft came in we pretty much ignored it. Why would we want to bother developing a 17 yr for four or five years? Success now: that's the Carlton way.

Then we got made an example of by the AFL. We were already sliding and that just made it all the worse. The mind set didn't change though. We are Carlton and we are successful by right. If the flags aren't coming then the people in charge must be incompetent. Sack them and bring some messiahs. Listening to many TC-ers that mind set lives on with many.

Problem is, the playing field has changed drastically. We've not only lost the advantages we did have, we now see other clubs with advantages we don't have. Geelong has a very nice regional set-up with plenty of keen country boys who would play for less to stay local. This is potentially exacerbated for the S.A and W.A teams. Free agency has made it even worse - good players only want to go to already strong clubs.

So the only way we are ever going to be any good is to build a team primarily through the draft. Problem is we have never done this before. The current people in charge are trying to do this now. They have tried to fast-track the process by trading out some older players with currency to get more picks. When this process was started it was made clear that losing those senior players would mean performance would decline even further. IIRC most people at the time were on board with this. IMO this is the only strategy that has any chance of ever working.

That what I believe is the answer to your question.

Wow. That is very measured and logical. Sanity prevails.

Nice summary Kev.

There's also the part where Carlon invested in Princes Park stadium with the AFLs assurances the ground would be required to play games there. Then Commissioners changed their minds and focussed on Docklands leaving Carlton with a $20M debt and white elephant in Royal Parade.

Thereafter, Carlton had no money for the all important footy department, when the successful teams were investing heavily in their footy departments and facilities and Carlton fell further behind the rest of the comp.

To further hampen Carlton's position, the penalty drafts were said to not only being the harshest in history, unprecedented, they buried Carlton further financially and the AFL stopped Carlton from the first rounds on the next 2 drafts, missing out on the likes of Wells and Goddard let alone a couple of 2nd round Draft picks, and Carlton wee no longer a destination club. Commentators thought it would take 10 years for Carlton to recover.

After 10 years Carlton lost any traction keeping up with other teams who had forged past them, despite the Trade coup with one Christopher Judd.

Not a destination club. Could not attract coaches and players we targeted thereafter.

When we re entered the drafts, with the introduction of new clubs, not one but 2 over a 3 year period, the 2 new clubs received unprecedented help draftng 17yo's and irst 10 picks of drafts over the next 6 years: now known as the compromised drafts, where Carlton missed out on promising stars despite having early picks.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Good post.

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

SOS hasn’t had many wins with later picks
The recruiting of “mature” bodies hasn’t worked either so far

He Brodie and Agresta should of been more patient in last years draft

Kept 26 and 28 picks to get 2 kids
McAdams profile fits the late bloomer
He has had a calf injury but is back playing and could of been that pressure forward we so desperately need
Poison and Le Bois don’t cut it
We should of kept Kreuger and our second round pick in this years draft which will be around 19,20 ish

Setterfield is another big bodied slow mid
We don’t need another one
Setterfield had a dominant junior footy career partly due to his size
He is now an average 21 year old compared to the other 21 year olds in the AFL

If you like Setterfield looks like the opposite to Kreuger and McAdam in terms of development

And this is where good recruiting comes into play
Kreuger kick 6 last week in the Geelong twos
He has talent
You have to be patient
Carlton haven’t been since the goal posts changed 32 years ago when the draft and the salary cap came

The McGovern and Setterfield trades were an example of a team wanting success too quickly
In one sense due to our lack of success you can understand this

But to me it smacks of irresponsible behaviour by our recruiting
department
Of course it would be ok if McGovern and Setterfield become stars
But they won’t
What you see in McGovern is what you get
He is a burst player whose second and third efforts have been non existent his whole career
To give him five year $700000 a year contract and give up potentially 3 good players when we already have McKay Curnow and Kerr is sheer lunacy
I said it in November last year
So far it’s not working out

What also doesn’t help is Sos’s Picks in the 2017 draft
Dow shows some promise but is way behind for a guy who was a pick 3
His kicking is atrocious and he doesn’t get enough ball
OBrien looks awful
When you only get it around 10 times in the VFL and your a pick 10 in your second year
there are warning signs
Kennedy was a plucked from GWS with pick 16 and 40
He is a spud and a bust
DeKoning who we did get in that draft might be the long term ruck we so desperately
need

SOSs obsession in players from GWS has cost the club dearly

Do we have a guy over in the West who goes to as many games in the WAFL
Colt games as well
I know Wells has a talent scouts over here
Same in the SANFL

We should have looked closer at these comps to obtain the so called
late bloomers
At this stage we have in this years draft
A first rounder around 15
Two third rounders one of those from the McGovern trade
A few picks after that

It looks pretty disastrous
The extended bench for this weekend looks terrible
Poison Garlett Fasolo are below AFL standard
They struggle to get it at VFL level

We need a better recruiting officer

After a good couple of years SOS and his bunch of merry men
have had a couple of howlers

We simply have to recruit better
The job of list manager is far more important than the job of head coach

I’d like to reply to some of your points.

Regarding patience - I don’t think anyone could say that Carlton haven’t been patient in the last few years. We’ve traded out pretty much anyone we could in exchange for youth, knowing short to medium term we’d suffer, long term we would hopefully have a talented list with a great age profile. You’ve written off Setterfield after a handful of games, perhaps you could try some patience yourself.

Picks 16 and 40 in 2017 got us 28, 30 and a second rounder last year from the dogs. So not just Kennedy, but also TDK and half of McGovern. Speaking of Mitch, can anyone confirm 700k for 5 years?

Dow has his faults, but again he’s a teenager making a pretty good fist of a very tough role, and is tracking pretty well against his peers. Again some patience may be called for.

I do blame recruiting for our current ladder position, but from 2008-2014 rather than in the Silvagni era.

I agree. This Dow bashing has gone a bit crazy. The kid is in his second year...we had to pick him as on all accounts he was next best.

It was him or LDU. I think we are doing ok in comparison. But again LDU might also be good...because...he is a kid too. So too the first two picks, which I think Dow is comparable.

The only one we have got wrong was Stephenson, but not many would touch him due to the heart issues.

Also, if we had him he would be crap because the ball hardly gets down forward. Good luck to the kid. He got lucky being drafted by a good team.

Hindsight is wonderful thing. But so is sense and a rational argument.

"should of"

And this is a school teacher?

We get it, no need to keep going on, and on, and on.

SOS is no good as a recruiter.

We get it.

[REDACTED]

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No Guts, No Glory

Another thought - if we don't need McGovern, why should we have kept Kreuger?

Maths
Not English
Rather than taking pot shots
Provide some constructive thoughts as to why
are last 7 years is on par with Fitzroy as reported in the Age

The only thing on par with Fitzroy are the results, nothing else. The cause of results are even completely different. We chose this path for a bigger vision, where Fitzroy has no choice and was finished or merge.

Agree with what you are saying
Except last year we went back to the old Carlton way at the draft
And to this point it has backfired
And the picks from the other AFL clubs in the last 4 drafts have been overall a fail as well

It's way too early to tell weather last years trade with the Crows backfired on us. Maybe in a few years time once we see how Stocker progresses and where the crows finish on the ladder this year, who they pick up and how he progresses and who we pick up and how he progresses. I'm not sure how you can make the call without seeing the results? Or are you assuming it will backfire?

The other interesting thing about last years draft was the speculation
that we would trade our number one pick to say Port for 5 and 12

Given the teams performance last year 3 years into a rebuild and the obvious lack of depth
And that the draft was the best one in years
The trade had merit
Losing Walsh wouldn’t be good but Rozee and Duursma wouldn’t be bad at the minutes

Thanks Bondi. Good additional observations - agree with all of them.

Another consideration is the impact of the AFL, (as distinct from the VFL). If you consider how the four big Melbourne clubs have travelled over the past 25 years, us, Essendon*, Richmond and Collingwood, we have one flag each. As woeful as this period has seemed for us compared to what we're all used to, our peers haven't actually done any better in the measure that counts the most.

Richmond did well to pinch one. Essendon* found their own approach to get an advantage, and if they hadn't have been caught it might have worked. Eddie's done his best to get every advantage for Collingwood and torpedo everyone else and he's done a pretty good job. Fortunately Collingwood choke.

Hawthorn is the club that impresses me, (even though I can't stand them). Their whole approach seems, from the outside, far more in tune with modern times. They appear to be far more interested in the "whole person" rather than just the footballer or employee. My impression is that there's still a mindset amongst some at Carlton that the way to get the best out of people is to yell at them and threaten them. If they don't deliver quickly sack 'em and get someone who will. It's old school and if it ever worked it certainly doesn't these days. My perception, again from the outside, is that Bolton and crew are trying to change this.

The Stocker and the Mc Govern trades are separate
Ironically the second rounder we gave to the Giants for Setterfield has fallen into the Crows lap
You never know
Sos may pick a gem with the extra third round pick we obtained from the
Mc Govern deal
One things for certain
Money bags needs to do far and get more involved in future games to warrant what we gave up
for him
That’s been his story his whole career to date

Mr Hindsight preaches PATIENCE with this Kreuger lad at the cat's but writes off Dow and Setterfield .
Patience goes both ways.
We GET IT you Hate SOS......
When this years draft is on i want YOU KEOGH to predict LIVE at the time of our pick who YOU would recruit.

MR HINDSIGHT

Mr Hindsight preaches PATIENCE with this Kreuger lad at the cat's but writes off Dow, Kennedy, Obrien and Setterfield .
Patience goes both ways.
We GET IT you Hate SOS......
When this years draft is on i want YOU KEOGH to predict LIVE at the time of our pick who YOU would recruit.

MR HINDSIGHT