* already 24 and is no good, no upside
*We have wasted our PSD No 1 pick on a hack
*May force us to take Leuenberger cos Ackland isnt up to it
*will last about six games and then be replaced by Deluca who will be replaced by McLaren etc etc
* French could tap the ball, Ackland has poor tap stats
*Couldnt hold his place in a team thats has no ruckman, replaced by Rix.
* 8th in their B&F....in 2005...amazing
*played every game...how did he do in the ruck in all those games?
* Leadership....poor attitude at Port and whinged when Rix took his place..
*Chooses carlton???....chose the bigger contract...
* They required him so much they recruited a screw up like Gardiner..
*Immediate impact.....when Simmonds towels him in rnd 1 he will impact on the bench...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

How do you think Alan Didak would perform in the ruck against Cain Ackland?
Not very well I'd suspect as there is 140mm difference in height.
Now consider that there is a greater height difference between Ackland and Sandilands.

Apart from the fact that we have committed 4-5% of our annual salary cap for 3 years on a player with a questionable work ethic, I'm not surprised with the decision.
Ackland has reasonable hands and hopefully will improve under the tutelage of Dempsey.
I wish him well and hope that he at least provides a contest and can break even.
He will struggle against most ruckmen but if he can play to his strengths around the ground, he'll be better than most of the incumbents.

However, how we can continue to avoid picking up a young ruckman in the ND and then annually recruit a recycled ruckman is beyond me.
This is'nt a deficiency that amazingly occured last week. We havent had a decent ruckman for 6 or 7 years.

Surely at some stage someone needs to override Pagan and start to manage our list structure.
His efforts to date have been disappopinting at best.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

To me this is his great blind spot (yeah I know there are others) but in reality he just doesn't get the importance of a ruckman.

But at least we have changed our recruiting ways, instead of picking up hacks at the end of their careers we pick them up earlier

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Look after Suga for me please. Always liked him, was great for us in 2005.

Hope he recaptures that form.

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And I have asked to be where no storms come.

BV's nailed it.

The problem isn't that we recruited Ackland, per se.

It's the fact that we've put ourselves in the position where we had to recruit someone like Ackland.

But this doesn't seem to be a new problem at Carlton. Remember when SOS finally hung up the boots and it was almost like the shock of the century. When SOS was 30ish, we were throwing away picks for flankers like Mansfield and crocks like O'Reilly, instead of trying to recruit the guy who'd take his place when he retired.

Just like we should be recruiting Fev's replacement in the next year or two - the time to do this is BEFORE the need arises.

How on earth does it force us to take Leurnberger? How do you know Ackland isn't up to it? Maybe we should disregard any top ten lists for B&F and just recognise the top 3? What were the meaningful tap stats for Ackland over the past two years? I'll post his 2005 stats for all to read tonight.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

It's probably also due to the fact that we have had so many holes in our list. They are just trying to pick the best player, because of our overall lack of talent.

Given the time it takes for the development of a ruckman, though, we need to commence this now so that when the other talented young players mature and start making us competitive again we have a ruckman (or two) ready to make a contribution.

Surely this can't be ignored again? We've tried the mature bodied VFL ruckman approach (De Luca and Bryan) and that failed, and the recruiting of other AFL ruckman (McLaren, Ackland and attempt on Knobel) hasn't been a screaming success so far.

No but it should be kept in context mjonc.
Ackland came 8th in the 2005 B&F.
Lets not forget that David Teague won our B&F 2 years ago. It doesnt make him a required player today.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Those who want us to get a 200cm ruckman that ADL isn't, bare this in mind,

Rix (200cm) was slaughtered by White (196cm) in the Elim Final. They may well have had a better chance with a more mobile ruckman than a 25YO giant dud.

Too smart by half, those Sainters .

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It's ok I have the solution...I've dusted off my time machine and I'll be prepared to go back in time to repair the recruitment/devloplment mistakes of the past...give me a list and I'll fix them all Lets just look forward people...he fills a gap for the moment whilst Aisake is devloping and whilst we possibly recruit a young ruckman in the draft....Isn't this what you anti Acklands are wanting future devlopment... it appears we are learning e.g not trading away picks, opting for youth etc so as there appears to be no more talented people in the PSD stop your crying and support the bloke

Oh well, Ackland had a very good 2005, but had a terrible 2006. Maybe we should all wait and see how he goes in 2007. There doesnt appear to be anyone better coming along who we could pick up with the no.1 pick. It is not like the situation when the bulldogs picked rawlings over stevens is it?

Our choice was ackland or who???? let me know if there was any other talent we could take.

We are clearly drafting a full compliment of youngsters, i dont think we could really take on any more youngsters - there needs to be some balance in age.

And in respect of drafting ruckmen in the u18 draft - well we picked batson in the rookie draft and he was no good. Would carlton be in any different position if it had picked mcintosh in the top 10 like north did, or laycock in the top 20 like Essendon* did, or carteledge. The fact is that we have tried to pick up some ruckmen via alternative means - as the crows have also done with hudson and matthew clarke, but the fact is we have been unlucky and havent found a ruckmen.

If u look around the league, the majority of ruckmen are not playing for the club that drafted them:

Adelaide - crow, hudson
richmond - simmonds, stafford, knobel
stkila - gardiner, brooks
hawthorn - everitt
sydney - jolly
west coast - cox was a rookie, just like batson was.
Bulldogs - peter street
Essendon* - who knows who there ruckmen is???
melbourne - jeff white

And we should all remember that justin madden was a reject when he came to carlton....

In conclusion, we are all frustrated at not winning the ruck position for the last 4 or so years. But good ruckmen are rare and good ones can pop up from different sources, and we just need to get lucky with one source. Unfortunately that has not occurred yet. Hopefully we draft tippert and he is the special one to lead us to the ruckmen's holy land!

That's completely true. But that fact that we dug ourselves a great big ruck hole doesn't necessarily mean that getting Ackland is a bad move. I don't think any of Mclaren, Deluca and Bryan are good enough, so that means we need to add at least three new ruckman to the list.

We just got Ackland for free (in draft pick terms) and while not a world beater I still think he has more to offer as a short term no.1 ruck and longer term 2nd stringer than any of the rucks currently on our list. And we can add to him now by drafting a Renouf or a Tippet (or even a Leuenberger), and a speculative ruck with a later pick.

Getting Ackland is only bad if we use him as an excuse to not draft any ruckmen in the national draft this year (like we did after we got Mclaren last year). Lets wait see if they finally get the second half the equation right.

Thats only half the story Bozman.

Adelaide has Hudson but they also have Biglands who would walk into our side and developing youngsters in Maric and Meeson.
Both who were taken in the ND and are being developed.

Its amazing what happens when you plan for the future and understand list structure.
Pagan can only dream of such foresight.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I dont agree at all with this list. It is extremely pesamistic, and alot of it is unsubstanciated or untrue.

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dane's trolling again

We would all be jumping for joy if he was 4cm taller, then he'd only be giving up 11cm....

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dane's trolling again

We didn't get him for 'free'.

He is costing us a 3 year contract, cash, and a spot on our list.

That is not free.

I really hope he does well.

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Congratulations CK95

[quote="nightcrawler"][/quote]Getting Ackland is only bad if we use him as an excuse to not draft any ruckmen in the national draft this year (like we did after we got Mclaren last year). Lets wait see if they finally get the second half the equation right.[/quote]

Agree 100% with this NC.

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In WADA we trust

Meeson is in the system for 2 years without scoring a game....Just like Aisake

So BV, who would you have got, and at the expense of which current player?

The only one I can think of is Russell, and I'm not entirely convinced he won't make it. Otherwise I reckon we've recruited pretty well since we've been able to play at draft time again.

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Thanks Mr Tyrant. Good to see this post has the posters swinging and looking at the positives - especially since the club has had so few in recent times.



bh, it is free in terms of, the club wanted him and owes nothing to St.Kilda in return, not cash and not a player. That is the real meaning of a 'player for nothing'.



spot on dane.