Fair points.

Perhaps that innovation fella IS the senior assistant? I can’t think of anything else that a senior assistant would do.

In any case, I think we’ll need to go over the soft cap & lean on the business side of things to cover the tax.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Adelaide Crows have someone like that....Chris Sheedy "Head of Football Analysis and Data Innovation at Adelaide Football Club"

Carlton have Ash Walls "Data Analytics Manager"....would be interested to know how much input he has regarding opposition and then as you say longer term trends.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

The numbers are important, but they’ve got to be interpreted through a coach’s eyes.

I suspect that’s how it came apart for Luff at Norf… that and the angry imp’s superiority complex.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

It’s fairly clear the club didn’t see the coaching as the issue in how we finished in 2024
Laying largely the blame on Russell and keeping the same coaching structure
Another oversight by the club

And if we think that bringing in new assistants and keeping Voss is the answer, it will be oversight V2.0

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

The club didn't see the playing group as an issue and we got rid of 3 experienced players and only added 1 in return.
How we ended our 24 season, it was obvious we needed more reliable experience if we were going to stay in the hunt.
But the club (and a lot of supporters) overvalued the list and we went all in on a 'super draft' and this is where we are at.
Changing coaches would not have changed a thing, even the assistants IMO.
The game has moved on and we haven't as a list, first and foremost.

Yes mate , while everybody else is moving forward we are stuck in the mud .

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All my dangerous friends

Sliding doors.

It’s not impossible that Jagga Smith could have had a Judd-like first year which may have invigorated our midfield and potentially changed the way we play.

Is that messiah complex? Maybe. But he was ripping it up preseason and making some of our more senior players look flat footed.

Unfortunately he got injured and missed the season.

But had it worked out we may well be in the 8 right now.

And I’m not putting that purely on him but I think we all regularly forget the power of momentum.

We are going nowhere at the moment because there is zero momentum.

There’s clearly a breakdown in confidence within the playing group and that’s affecting everything.

It’s not an excuse and we’ve made plenty of mistakes but we also haven’t had a lot of luck.

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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

Luck has definitely not gone our way, with .... everything, with the exception of 2nd half of 2023, and first half of 2024, and that was all on the back of a bit of luck with injury, then that was taken away from us as our luck ran out.

Landing Judd wasn't luck, because we paid a huge price for him. Losing Kennedy was the pound of flesh we gave up. I think the cut was too deep.....similar to when SOS took the reigns with his Turbo charged chainsaw. Luck didnt go our way, because SOS couldn't control his tool and cut too deep.

No Luck.
No Flag.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

A lot of spots to get right to be on track.

Put it all under the microscope. There are a lot of good football already at the club, so not every position needs people from outside, but start at the top would be a great start: Diesel.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

And it may have also papered over the cracks

Let's be brutal; there was a stench from the middle of last year and "injuries" were the low hanging fruit to be scapegoated

I see Jagga's injury as a blessing in disguise. Will be stronger and more motivated next year, while not having all the pressure in the shitshow that is our 2025 season

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

You're probably only saying that b/c Jagga Smith missed the entire season.

It's interesting to see Bam Bam and Jack Martin getting regular games at top 4 clubs and Kennedy described in media as the mature age recruit of the year… probably just over egging it a tiny bit.

I agree that Kennedy had ability to kick inside 50 with skill and to mark and kick a goal from anywhere inside the F50 arc with consistency, and that's something we don't exactly have in spades in our midfielders. But which of our midfielders would you have traded out to make room for Jagga Smith? Would you have not tried to get him?

I think Owies was a reliable forward and thought he was treated poorly by the club but I have to concede that if I was asked to pick b/w Owies and Jagga, even sight unseen and on reputation alone I'm picking Jagga.

Same for Kennedy vs Jagga, though less of sure thing. As for Kennedy + Owies for Jagga and it starts to get more difficult a decision but I still probably will be backing it if Jagga plays up to his reputation in 2026.

We desperately need an inside/outside mid who can make great decisions, dance around opponents and kick with precision. Just look at how Butters alone kept Port in the game against WCE https://www.afl.com.au/news/1365349/coaches-votes-r18-port-adelaide-star-zak-butters-makes-a-move-brodie-grundys-incredible-streak-for-sydney-swans. The Cripps 2 Walsh 2 Cripps combo ac only works with both of them on the field every week. Hewitt has become that clearance combo player with Cripps, but Walsh did outside and running to so many contests to be the one extra who takes possession and gets it out/forward)

Not sure delisting Jack was the best move, essentially we gave him to Geelong for nothing at all and yes injury prone but so are many of our players (eg Walsh this year and last, Newman,…) and we aren't giving them away for nothing. Maybe they just did it for Jack's sake hoping his injury luck would change at another club? It didn't but he's playing in a top 4 side now, and Chris Scott is playing him much more as a transition off/def player than a goal scorer, I wonder how Blues are going at transition off/def in 2025 and could use him play more of that kind of role than he did in the past?

Don't put a straight physiotherapist in charge of conditioning and recovery oversight. Nine times out of ten they'll make sure chiropractics are frowned upon or banned as Pies did decades ago and the club's soft tissue injuries went through the roof as a result b/c half the team was already seeing the same Chiro. Said chiro got black listed because the poor- little physio's feelings got hurt... so complained to Head of Medical.

Agree with all that.

Confidence and momentum are big things in pro sports. Can't be underestimated and yes, I think Jagga may have changed our season just because he fit the bill of what we lacked in so many ways. I'm sure teams would have put time into him as a result, but that leaves Cripps, Hewitt, Walsh when available, more latitude. And we may have seen coaches with more confidence in rotating other players through the middle more b/c of the Jagga factor.

"infantilsed [sic] and feminised", WTaF?!?!

having a bad temper or short fuse or lack of self control isn't the same thing as playing skilful and rugged footy. Anyone can lose their sh!t and that helps nobody.

I think in the last two months Voss has been really transparent in the media about where we are falling down. The clichés that had been given me some annoyance were all gone and he finally said "It's not good enough" in the presser two weeks ago. I'd been waiting for that for weeks. I think the Essendon** game was when the rot really set in. We won it, just, which allowed Voss to spin it as a 50/50 performance to the media. it wasn't it was everything that we are doing wrong on the field in one game.

I think Voss is holding up remarkably well given some of the lunatics who barrack for Blues and the size of the supporter base and a long history of buying our way to the top and winning premierships. People seem to forget how much the AFL has changed from the VFL days.

Yeah, the high performance stuff is a little bit out of my comfort zone. I mean, I’ve got a few old mates in the caper, but I’d say that I know just enough to be dangerous.

That said, I would bet my balls that 99/100 Football Directors would be in the same position… and maybe, given the club’s position & tools at our disposal, we might appoint a Medical Director to the board?

I dunno… it’s just something that popped into my head as I was sitting on the thunderbox. In fairness, there are already a couple of candidates at the table.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Injuries were brutal to Carlton. No ifs or buts.

I thought Andrew Russell was the low hanging fruit and he was the scapegoat.
I thought everyone (including media) acknowledged injury derailed our 2024 season (17 missing by the end of the year), after being 2nd on the ladder with enough players available to compete.
Russell was blamed for those injuries and injury prone players we carried throughout the year.

We started the season with 13 missing. Tomorrow night we take the field with 13 missing. You don't think that wrecks our chances of winning?

Show many any team in the AFL with more than 10 injuries to the Best 23 players, and winning games, let alone Finals. Its pretty hard to do, with salary Cap.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Good reminder

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Some of our supporter base carry knives for the purpose of sticking it into the back of one of their own. Savages looking for signs from God to point them to the..... scapegoats.

Last year it was Andrew Russell, and we still average about 10 out injured every week in 2025

I wonder who it will be this year's scapegoat?

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Nope, not saying this because he got injured at all.
I said it before and after we got Jagga also, I also said I wanted to use the 2 picks or trade one for an experienced mid.
Putting all our cards on the one player and expecting an 18yo kid to be our saviour was high risk, even if he didn't get injured he would've burnt out by seasons end.
I was strongly advocating for experienced players to be traded in that had speed and skill before the draft also, if we wanted to stay in the window.
We didn't have to trade anyone out, we could've targeted out of contract UFAs also if there were any to boost the midfield.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see what Jagga will become, I just wanted to take less risk in that draft as it was so deep.

As for Kennedy, we didn't really need him as an inside mid, so he left.
He fits in well at the Dogs because they already have outside run.
I would've loved him to stay but we are too slow already.
With Owies we lost reliability, leadership and someone you could count on to kick that goal in big moments.
Instead we backed Durdin and Motlop as younger versions to develop.

The situation wasn't Owies and/or Kennedy v Jagga IMO.
But the club took a high priority on the draft last year and we lost experience to do so.
That has an effect on our depth and experience and this is the result of that decision.
At least it has highlighted my concerns with our midfield I have been banging on about for a few years.
Hopefully we will do something about it now.