Agree. If the first 20 are red hot and there is not much gaps between them then it makes sense to get two players in.

We have too much cash tied up in broken down players...and/or players that force us to play a system that doesnt get it done in todays game.
Would happily lose H or Charlie and TDK if it meant we could bring in Darcy Jones and Darcy Wilmot and Darcy Cameron. And I hate the name Darcy.
Get it done Austin. Operation Darcy.

We have too much cash tied up in broken down players...and/or players that force us to play a system that doesnt get it done in todays game.
Would happily lose H or Charlie and TDK if it meant we could bring in Darcy Jones and Darcy Wilmot and Darcy Cameron. And I hate the name Darcy.
Get it done Austin. Operation Darcy.

Can’t agree club.

We have too much cash tied up in broken down players...and/or players that force us to play a system that doesnt get it done in todays game.
Would happily lose H or Charlie and TDK if it meant we could bring in Darcy Jones and Darcy Wilmot and Darcy Cameron. And I hate the name Darcy.
Get it done Austin. Operation Darcy.

It's not for everyone and designed to challenge. To my eye teams with dangerous forward pockets, crafty HF's, dashing wingers and attacking hbers get it done with average tall fwds and average rucks.

It's not for everyone and designed to challenge. To my eye teams with dangerous forward pockets, crafty HF's, dashing wingers and attacking hbers get it done with average tall fwds and average rucks.

Let’s see how Brisbane go without Daniher?

It's not for everyone and designed to challenge. To my eye teams with dangerous forward pockets, crafty HF's, dashing wingers and attacking hbers get it done with average tall fwds and average rucks.

There will be huge changes at the end of 2025.
We have what we have, and no need to blow the joint up
But I like your thinking re creating cap space and list space to fill gaps and trade for "high value" players (good kicks and speed)

TDK is the priority, and his decision is in his court, not ours.
So lets not mess around with coach sackings before the decision, please.

Do consider the following cap space created at the end of this year and list space, and you know what we can do with that.

1. McGovern 500K
2. Newman 500K
3. Docherty 500K
4. Kemp 300K
5. Haines 300K
6. Fantasia 350K
7. Cincotta 200K

Free up $2.6M cap space

Pay out Young's 2026 contract 250K
Increase TDK 300K
Reduce Hewett 50K and recontract ... he may become depth or continue solid citizen
Retain SOS same hopefully ... he may be depth or continue to be solid citizen

Add $500K to salary cap

Leaves us with an extra $2.1M in our salary cap for 2026 or 3 GOOD PLAYERS but we lose 7 players.

Hopefully we have earmarked a Fwd Ruck and a CHB. Maybe an elite small forward plus we add Smith to the playing group.
Maybe Harry McKay plays CHB. Maybe SOS plays Fwd/ Ruck and we add good players around the good players we already have.

We still need to recruit depth players to cover Cincotta Fantasia and Gov, and another 3 or 4 to cover the loss of Kennedy, Owies, Marchbank, Martin, Cunningham. May keep Cincotta as a bonafide tagger. Depth types of players are in the WAFL, VFL, SAFL, fringe players not getting a go who can play a role, who have pace and skills we need. Shouldn't be too hard if you look at what you're upgrading from.

Retain Wilson, Lord, Lemmey. We can draft at least 3 kids from draft if we can match picks for FS Dean, Allan, and, NGA, Jack Ison

Knowing at the end of 2026 we have Williams $900k contract ending, Saads $600K, Fogarty $300K, Durdin $250K (ie total salary or salary space $ 2M end of 2026), and Young discarded end of 2025.

We also have Walsh contract and Ollie & Elijah's contract to work through.

We also know Cody walker comes to Carlton end of 2026.

We are in a much better place than when we started our rebuild in 2016, with only Cripps and Docherty remaining on the list from 2016. My point is a Collingwood type list wholesale list change can happen at the end of this year and the following year.

If we can't change the people, change the people.

I fail to see the value in trading an elite ruckman so we can have an average one. TDK is a huge bonus for us. He's an extra midfielder and a top quality one. Any club would give their right arm for him.
I'd trade Harry for the right deal but Charlie and TDK are off the table IMHO.

Agree with the general plan but I'd be hesitant to get rid of Newman, what we need is a list of skilled ball users and he's one of the few we actually have.

i honestly believe that screws should be starting to turn on Nick Austin ,considering his picks we are a slow side so who does he recruit to solve this

Hard to know how much Austin has to do with our current situation. I think we got lucky/unlucky the year both Cerra and Hewitt decided to come to Carlton with Kennedy out of nowhere coming good in the last few rounds of the same year. Then we had two very big tall fowards who can kick goals but may have done more harm than good re games style.


A redesign can sort things out reasonable quickly but first we have to admit to ourselves that we need to change. Id trust Austin to do his part well.