pick a kid. 1 of the campo's preferrably. and wear the lumps of developing a kid at afl level, over choosing doc - a guy who's given it his all over the journey, but the game has passed him by by a couple of years, and he's too selfish/ stubborn to pull the pin on his career himself. take the option out of his hands.

developing a kid right now is the play, over choosing doc and playing a man down in a crucial running role.

I have high hopes for Lucas. He's struggling a bit in the VFL imo. I don't think Lucas would have helped us get over Crows though. That's the point we are discussing.

Our biggest development flaw imo has been the fact that ever since the Marc Murphy draft we have not developed kids in the reserves, like say, Swans, GWS, Dogs, Pies or Cats do. Instead we throw the kids into the fire out of Desperation, and call it development.

I was hoping after SOS' declared 66 game rebuild, around 2020 we would have a great mature team and developed our quality kids with mature players around them (like Doc) to help with their development in the VFL. Now the kids are learning from 26yo Boyd, 24yo Evans and 28yo Pittonet. Thats the big issue imo.

As long as we keep playing kids who aren't ready we will be middle of the road imo.

We don't bat deep my friend. Injury is not our friend.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

100%
And until TDK can beat that type of ruck, he's not worth 1.7m IMO.

doc isn't helping... i think it's the last 8 or maybe 9 games doc has played we've lost. and somewhat brutally

makes you wonder wtaf our development team is doing. we don't have one single kid who can step up and play wing in the entire club.

with acres looking like he's now too old and slow we don't have one bonafide winger in the club. so add the list manager to the "wtaf are they doing" profile, too.

Hit nail on head braithy.

We are forced to play old players past their peak: Doc, Acres, Haines, Gov, Williams, Fantasia. Our list would be better placed if they were 6 25yo's.

The kids aren't ready, and we lack depth. As a result we are forced to protect the kids a bit by playing oldies with hardened bodies and experience, but lack edge and with that form. Lucas got a go and started to fade after a couple games with the big boys. Its OK to give them one or two games IF we think they can stand up. If they stand up, like Cowan did, then they get rewarded with more games.

O'Farrell, Wilson, Charleson, Campo.B, Campo.L, Binns, Moir, Lemmey, O'Keefe, Duffy, Monohan ... that's half of our reserves team, AFL listed and under 21yo. They are not ready to take Carlton to the next level yet.

SOS drafting in rebuild had too many misses: High pick draftees who should be playing instead of the oldies: Dow, OBrien, SPS, Fisher, Cuningham, Philp, Stocker, Setterfield, Kennedy, Marchbank, Plowman, Jaksch....just 6 to replace the above 6 oldies would have made a huge difference.

Imagine those 6 oldies in the VFL protecting and teaching the kids as well as giving us depth to play a role if needed instead of auto selection.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

The coach was a bit grumpy in his presser this morning. Good to see.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I thought we'd need Pitto against Xerri but TDK had a great game as first ruck. I'm not sure the horses-for-courses rule still applies to TDK, it could just be a consistency issue.

Fingers, crossed.

Been asking this for a long, long time.....

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my last one was rubbish

It depends on what you’re looking for from a ruckman, I guess.

Some perspective on the north game.

Xerri was on one leg for a few games including v Carlton.
Was talk he wouldn’t be fit to play.
Was obvious Xerri wasn’t mobile.

Xerri 2 nd highest rated player on ground after Hewett.
Xerri 43 Ho vs TDK 24 HO
Xerri 14 disposals TDK 11
Xerri 11 tackles v TDK 2 (work on the floor)

I think TDK consistently struggles against heavier ruckman who take away his space in the ruck.
TDK usually does his work as an extra mid when ball hits floor unless the oppo ruck gives his mids first use: see Crows game. In the north game Xerri had more disposals

Interesting how one wants to see the game.

I think a rucks role is primarily to win the ruck or not be dominated.

No good being a great ruck rover when your opponent in the ruck has given his mids great service and we lose the game.

TDK looks flashy with those long blonde locks. Keith Grieg stood out with his white ankle socks. Attention is attention. Sometimes it wins you a Brownlow. Sometimes people remember you played.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Yeah , Xerri is a bash and crash player . Real nasty . Bit of Shane Mumford about him . Good call Bondi .

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All my dangerous friends

Xerri looked more dominated than nasty Mick. TDK received votes from both coaches. Xerri none. I'd suggest the coaches know the value of the players and their roles.
It wasn't even close IMO. Tommy dominated Xerri in the middle of the ground and gave our mids an armchair ride. Centre clearances, 20-10. Centre bounce goals, well in our favour.

After copping a brutal lesson from Xerri last time, Tom humbled him this time around.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Reckon Xerri is definitely in the Shane Mumford nasty mould . He is very physical . I don't think TDK dominated Xerri myself . I think it was more a case of our midfield dominated there midfield . Still , I respect your astute opinions BV . We just happen to see different things . What do they say , opinions are not right or wrong , they are just opinions .

PS .......... spoke to someone with connections to the TDK camp and he is a long way from making a decision . Sadly .

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All my dangerous friends

Just finished having a squiz of the said game to check on my memory and basic AFL.com stats, and enjoy a win before tonight's game.

Like I thought, TDK did better against Xerri than I thought he would.
He did well, and you could see Xerri wasn't moving well, and taking jumping space away from TDK, and TDK did a lot of jumping, and you couldn't miss that lock of blonde hair, but he didn't dominate Xerri.
Xerri wasn't nasty on this night. He was limping. But we all remember the game last year when Xerri took out TDK in nasty fashion. Prick.

The ruck numbers speak for themselves.
What the Carlton midfield group did was massacre the North midfield, and they sharked a lot of the Xerri taps.

Centre clearances may have been 20-10 in favour of Carlton mids.
That doesn't necessarily imply TDK fed them.
HO to advantage were Xerri 17 to TDK 11.
IMO that alone prove that TDK didn't feed all 20 clearances to our midfield group?
Our mids "smashed" the North mids.

Like I said, TDK did well, and yes the coaches gave him votes but I don't think those votes were for his ruck work, given the ruck stats, but more for the ruck roving role TDK played in particular 5 surge kicks into the F50. He didnt win the ruck duel and only had 11 disposals, so go figure. I'm sure the coaches saw something in TDK, but I'm judging and reflecting on the value of his ruck work rather than his groundball work. After all, regardless of how well TDK does with his ruck roving follow up work and around the ground work, it's his ruck work against OBrien, Nankervis, English, Meek and Cameron that cost us imo. Nankervis and Cameron were judged most influential on ground. English controlled the air in the last and we lost the lead and game, and we all saw what OBrien did last week. I value the ruck role more than some, and the results prove to me the ruck role is an important role to win or break even.

I'm not dismissing coaches' value of players and their role, but values are measured in different ways and the coaches votes isn't necessarily based on stats, but the bias of only one angle. For example, I doubt all 3 line coaches, also privy to tactics, would have the same votes as the coaches. The coaches votes don't tell us much about their ruck craft which I'm alluding to with TDK. I'm not degrading TDKs work around the ground, just his primary role.

It is good to get perspective from the coaches, but also good to get other viewpoints based on empirical evidence, to enable us to draw a picture outside the eye test:

afl Fantasy points

1. Hewett 123
2. Xerri 116

28. TDK 62

HS ranking

1. Xerri 144
2. Hewett 106
2. Walsh 106
2. TDK 106

Nah, I don't think TDK dominated Xerri, nor do I believe TDK fed a midfield group who were set on monstering the highly rated North midfield whether Xerri won the ruck or not.

We all have our own perspective Mick, and that's why we value TC posters opinions, like BV's. Its another perspective outside our own bias. That's what makes TC great.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Don't be sad Mick.

TDK obviously wants to stay at Carlton.
His manager has made that clear to Saints.
Saints have failed to attract players with Million dollar offers eg Weitering, Callaghan and LDU
Saints, in response, have offered a number that can't be ignored.
Carlton want to know by MSD time to start planning for his replacement and other FA targets. Yep. Austin has a list and cap space, albeit no first round pick in 2025.
TDK is looking at short term and long term benefits of both offers.
TDK has been attending in Business Conferences, as do Durdin and Newman religiously, so he's not the only player.

I called a couple people today involved with In Business Group.
Yep, TDK has been attending. It would be remiss of InBusiness Carltonians to not give TDK reasons to stay with Carlton.
It would be remiss of TDK to not look at the Network opportunities

It aint over till he does his due diligence Mick.
He's doing more than what he says, focusing on his footy on field. He has a big decision to make, and I'm sure he doesn't want to do the wrong thing by his club, team and team mates.

The other thing I was amazed by was that our offer is more than $600K pa short of Saints offer.
Cripps is the Carlton million dollar man, and TDK's offer will be the highest at the club. Didn't say equal highest.

Glad to say there's no leaks or anything like that. No one really knows what is happening other than we are not budging from our first and final offer. A lot of info is shaped by inuendo and people putting 2 and 2 together...and we all know TDK loves Carlton, and we can't get his brother Sam over at the end of this year.

Tonights game is huge. It may shape TDK's decision. I hope we can retain him for a Million dollars.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Fingers crossed Bondi .

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All my dangerous friends

Will be sad to lose TDK if he goes, but he’s not worth a million dollars.

I wouldn't go as far as to say he humbled or dominated Xerri, but I agree he outplayed him. Xerri had the stats but TDK made them count. It's not "seeing what you want to see" as Bondi put it, it's about qualitative analysis. Stats have value, and I was surprised to see they favoured Xerri because watching the game live I thought TDK was the winner. TDK also had nice fantasy scores against Richmond and Collingwood, but watching the game he was clearly beaten in those games when it mattered and his loss contributed heavily to our loss.

Anyway, glad to see I'm not the only one who judged TDK the clear winner against North. Another big test for him tonight, with extra spice thanks to the 1.7m.

I've been one of his harshest critics and still don't think he's the one, but I'm @#$%&! glad we have him instead of Ross Lyon!