sparks:

Teague - his courageous acts build the team up. We always seem to grow just a little bit taller;
Fevola - when he kicks goals consistantly we always get a lift when he gets his hands on the ball
Lappin - good use, desperation and a biy of class and time. When he gets good ball, the whole team lifts.
Eddie - 'cause he's a live wire

Building blocks:

Walker;
Waite;
Fevola;
Stevens;
Lappin;
Thornton.

There's also a group i don't know about - Raso, Hartlett, Russell, Blackwell, and the O'hailpins. They might fit here too. Building from youth. i just don't know them well enough.

_________________
"Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost

Ok so weve established we dont have that many players that can have a real positive effect to the team.
We also have very few A grade players.. but were hoping to play finals and win premierships... interesting....

We do have magic navy blue jumpers though

We don't even have a quick fix solution - as I've posted previously we wiped ourselves out of the 1999 and 2001 drafts with poor trading, the AFL wiped us out in 2002 and 2003, so we better hope that Russell, Hartlett and Blackwell amount to something because we haven't used the system to accumulate good players.

Waite, Walker, Fevola, Houlihan, Lappin and Stevens are genuine talents - Thornton, Teague and French are good (Thornton may be better than good). Sporn, Wiggins, Carrazzo and Livingston could all play 100 - 150 games with us - partly due to lack of competition for spots - but they do offer something, and Campo, Whitnall and Kouta can all play - but at the right salary level. I don't think there would be a lot of interest in these players at trade time given their ages.

The issue is we need 5 picks in the top 30 (we will definitely get 2 - 3 is not out of the question but we do play Coll, Ess & Haw again this year). I can't see us offering up anything that will attract 1st or 2nd round picks unless someone who we wouldn't want to trade wants out (a la Barry Hall - Tony Lockett)

_________________
Get comfortable being uncomfortable

To be honest if a team relys on 'sparks' to win them games then they will not win to many. What wins games and lots of them is team where every player takes responsibility for thier game and the teams game. I have never needed a 'spark' to motivate in any sport I have played. Motivation should come from within, not from some external source. I have never played a game and raced in a race where I did not believe I could win, make finals or even a Premiership. As soon as you do not believe that, then you should hang your boots up because you will not give 100% in everything you do on the field.

As for our current team, it is not the A Graders that are the problem, although they get the heat, but the second tier players, most of whom are in the cold hard light of day are not up to it. Our youngsters though do show some promise.

When you rebuild sides you are looking 3 to 5 years in advance. Thus after the great cull Dennis rebuilt the side around Kouta Campo and Whits with Lappo and Houla as the supports, Dennis then recruited to fill the gaps.

Now for the next rebuild it is obvious that Kouta and Campo are near retirement and Whits has between 3 to 4 years left given the wear and tear on his body. So obviously you look to the junior players and at the moment the two standouts are Thornton and Waite with the likes of Setanta, De Luca and possibly Betts as supports.

But if you hang around waiting to recruit all of the right players than you will never win a premiership. Plenty of 'hacks' and also ran players have Premiership medals around thier necks, but they all played in the best team of the year.

_________________
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Please expand on our core group being a flag group of players..
Who are the second tier players who are not up to it? (there are 40 players on a list)

and when do you foresee us having a window of opportunity to play off in a GF BM?

Wouldnt call Arkemanis a spark??
Or Byron Pickett?
Or Peter Bosustow?
Wayne Johnston?
.... yep good teams dont historically need sparks or core players.. and yes Denis has the big guns out.. Campo Lance and Kouta.. all those guys need around them instead of the second tire players we have is Ball, Rievoldt, Brown, Judd, cousins, Geghrig, Lloyd, Scarlett.... and then wed be right with what we have......

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Well @#$%&!, Synbad, what do you want us to do?

Not Carlton FC... I mean US, i.e. TalkingCarlton people...

All this whinging from you about how we are not up to scratch...

WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO ABOUT IT?

Don't shoot people down for being fans of Carlton players. We don't control the trades, contracts, or select the teams.

I really struggle to see what you are hoping people on this site are going to do after they read your "inside scoops"... (i.e. "we suck" "campo gets paid heaps")

"Geez Synbad you are right, we do suck, there's no hope for us now except draft picks"

Does that mean Carlton will go and lose games? And when they do, are we going to be satisfied with it? Is that the plan?

Sorry mate, we're just Carlton supporters, and we just wanna see our footy side win.

I'm all for discussions on who should be our future leaders etc, but this CONSTANT sooking from you is really getting old. I don't see what you are achieving on here apart from getting people down about our prospects and turning them away from the Carlton FC.

i want you to lose your nerve....

i only opened up a thread and was interested to see where we think were at... i didnt say much till late this evening... and allowed the thread to fill.
interesting most of us think were miles away and one or two think were staring a premiership in ther face.

Just interested in knowing where we think were at.How hard the task ahead is...or easy.

If you dont like the threads i really dont know why you look at them...

Not turning them away from the CFC... to the contrary i think a sustained period of nothingness will turn people away... thats what were staring at ..
unless supporters realise this is the long haul they will turn away... when i say long i mean LONG!!!!

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

You look at Richmond, Hawthorn, the Bulldogs and Adelaide and there's much to be excited about this year. You look at us and it is blah, spit, spit... We fall over the line in two games and just draw a third. We could easily be 0 and 7. What is the difference?

I for one was over the moon about our 10 wins last year and our Wizard Cup win.

For me it was all about sticking it up "The Spew" and letting him know that we were back before he thought we would be.

Hell it hurts for me to admit it but we aren't back we just papered over the cracks.

The Richmond game blew those cracks to the "Shizen".

Yeah we can turn it around and maybe we can beat Geelong next week - and we may even turn the season around and win the next 8 out of 15 games and finish with 10 wins and have a crack at 8th or 9th Draft Pick.

I want to stick it right up "The Spew" and I want to do it right now - becauae I hate that son-of-a-donkey to the very core - but right now the only way we can do it is to get some quality into the list and we dont have enough of it right now.

Unless someone can tell me another way of accessing 2 picks in the Top 5 and another "Nick Stevens" type in the PSD I am all ears.

Yeah, "The Spew" I hate him, I hate him a lot.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Ok that there... does swaying supporters opinions (i.e. making us pessimistic) change what Carlton does?

If every person on TC said "you're right Synbad we need good draft picks", would that change anything?

I just don't see what we're achieving by posts like this...

Are we not meant to support players like Campo, Red and Kouta?

(And don't tell me this thread wasnt started for the inevitable "i told you we're screwed"... )

ok benny.. you want bragging rights dont you?
you want to be a winner dont you?
you hate us losing???

Well were losing!!! were getting smashed each week!!!
were at the bottom with the other powerhouse clubs .. Essendon* collingwood and hawthorn... wanna know why???

cos u have to take your turn at the bottom to pick up the players(in case you havent noticed they can only come from one place... the DRAFT) before you have enough vredit in the bank to go back up,
Barracking for the odd win is great. it makes u feel real nice and fuzzy inside .. till you get smashed by last years wooden spooner that is.

Im not saying drop off the band wagon.. im saying we should support the club through a bottom out for sustained success.. otherwide to go to the footy hoping to win ..sometimes u do.. sometimes you dont... for the next 10 years will be what youre looking at.

cant you see that???

Did Kouta Campo and Whitnall support the club when they took the contracts theyre on.. "Im going to port"... "Im going to Sydney"... "Campo and Kouta have big contracts i want one too"

Why should i support the players... that kind of thing is finished these days.. players will leave like Hamill.. i loved Hamill.. he still pissed off for the cash!!!... then the ones still at the club collect 2 million this year and dont show anything for it.. not even at training with the kids...

Why should i support them...

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Parkin gives players power.
Some players are the pigs... (overpaid underachivers)
Some are the dogs(Hamill, Manton Beaumont)
Some are horses.. (players who try hard but arent up to it(Hulme Franchina Wiggo, Livo)
Some supporters are the sheep...
One day the whole thing falls over... and starts again...i cant wait for that to happen..

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

You know we have already bottomed out to pick up the required draft picks, but because of Black Friday, we really must bottom out again because we didn't get enough of them.

We missed out on three top 10 draft picks and if we could add them to our current one (Walker) we might have enough to form a nucleus of a side on the rise.

Sorry to bring it up. We were talking about this over two and a half years ago, but it has much to do with where we are now.

I see one player on the list with the "spark" necessary to inspire his team mates. That guy is Matty Lappin who stayed at the club when we were at our lowest and more money was on the table somewhere else.

The trouble is you can't build a side around him and I don't see anyone currently on our list that falls into that category. We have some honest toilers, some unfullfilled talent and a lot who are just making up the numbers. Denis papered over the cracks at the end of 2003, and he had to, but as he said, what we lack starts with "T" and ends in "T". Even when you have high draft picks you still have to choose the right guys, but I have no doubt that we will be back!

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In Bolts we trust.......Until we don't anymore

Back on topic.....

I am suprised that more posters have'nt picked up on Elwoods line,something that i could'nt agree with more..

CHF's are a hobby-horse of mine.Whenever we have had a good one,Carlton have usually done well.Fortunately i was able to witness the glory years.The common theme was a strong CHF.Walls,Maclure and Sticks drove our team.Even the much maligned Whitnall in his early years was the catalyst.Even in the "dark times" when he was up, we won!

Centre Half Forward is the key,get us someone who can mark the ball!

I agree 7dom.
the problem is do we have a player at the club that can drive the team from that position?
If we dont, where do we find one?

Bloody hard isnt it?
We certainly have our eye on one or two players from other clubs. but assuming theyre interested in coming... how would we bring them here?

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Reread my post numnuts, What I actually said was that good teams need a strong second tier to win, we don't have a good second tier. I did NOT say we did NOT need a core of players in fact I said the opposite moron.

As for naming who is not up to it, I thought it was pretty obvious but unlike you I do not like to rip players apart justified or not.

I know you advocate the St Kilda method of winning flags Synbad but given they have been the hot young things the last couple of years, they are still yet to deliver something meaningful. My tip for the flag is West Coast and has been since pre-season, maybe you should look at how they and Worsfold go about assembling a good team, some lessons there I think.

As I have stated, Good [/i]team[i] teams win flags.

I know why you started the thread and all it proves is that you are a vindictive whinging smug pessimist

_________________
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Arrrghhh!!!!! Why do I bother. Its like beating your head against a brick wall. And I should know better than bite.




*sigh*

_________________
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

You're right Synbad, but part of our problem is that we failed to grasp the opportunities the draft gave us over the last 8 years. Powerhouse forwards Brown, Tredrea, Reiwoldt, Pavlich are going to stay where they are. You get these guys through the draft (wish Brian Brown played for us). We could have had Hall, but some genius gave that pick away for Craig Davenport. The problem with bottoming out for a sustained period is that if you're in big financial trouble as we have been, you need memberships and sponsors to stay afloat, and they'll both jump off bottom sides. Geelong have built a side without bottoming out. Our problem with leaders is that we swapped or misused most of our draft picks in the late 90s and consequently we have hardly any 25 - 29 100-200 game players. Maybe we'll recruit a star from elsewhere but half the time that doesn't work. We just have to finish where we'll finish and work through the draft. Given that almost every week our best players are the older brigade, we may well be medicore for many years unless some of our youngsters improve rapidly. We're paying for past shortsightedness and we need to be patient and build a side. If we did well in this draft and do so in the next few we may build a decent side in 4 years, but we're going to have to be really good in the draft. If we are wooden spooners for the next three years, we'll have great draft picks, but maybe no club for them to play for.

I'd rather be patient tho than bolster our side to mediocrity with other clubs hacks. You can still draft players of the quality of Maguirre in the 20s and he has leader written all over him. The problem with recruiting from other clubs is that often the player, is slefich, greedy, injured past his best, trouble, can work but often you give up more than you get.

Damn, beat me to it again...

I was relaxing in Yokohama last year and I woke up one morning with a bit of a sore head. Funnily enough there was this beautiful Japanese girl lying next to me. Couldn't believe my luck...

I felt like the king, the maestro, the champion of the world! And then she gave a half-smile and said,

"GWS - you were good and nasty but you're no Tyrant..."

Sorry...

...what were we discussing again...?

Who are our second tier players?
StKildas young players who are good are the same age as our young players who are good but much much better. If we need patience with our young players... why would StKildas young players have won the premiership..

worsfold??? you mean Judd (priority pick) Sampi pick 5 in the same year???
Gardiner was a pick 1 or 2.
Cousins father son.. not a bad father son eh??

We have a 25 year old father son too...

West Coasts senior players are pretty good arent they???
Not many on huge contracts not performing.

Our problem is our core group isnt performing to the level they are being paid and senior players from other clubs...
After them we have a group of rag tag players who were rejects from other clubs..various degrees of success but full marks for trying.
The kids are at various stages of development.
Some of the second tier will make it some wont.. because we dont have many top 10 picks in the mix compared to other clubs. (including West Coast)
But how do you build up the second tier to come through at some point and become the first tier (some of them anyway) Mark???

what you forget is you cannot bring talent to the club by any other means but the draft.
If youre saying that our top core of senior players are guns and we have no second tier. (assuming you think Kouta Stevens Campo Lappin and Lance are our gun senior group) 2 will retire inside 2 years... another inside 3 or 4.. and we have no second tier...and youre not interested in the draft..
You paint a bleaker picture than i do....

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.