AGRO wrote:
Unfortunately Luke Livingstone was the victim of a whole bag of circumstances not of his own making.
- He was drafted at Pick 4 in a draft as the next best tall - when most recruiters reckoned he was barely a top 20 pick.
- He sustained a life threatening illness in his first year that necessitated him having very serious surgery in order to save his life.
- He was thrown into the deep end at Full Back and CHB into some of the weakest Carlton Sides ever to grace the football field - when essentially he was recruited to Carlton as a marking forward - on the back of his very good form in that position during the Australian Under 18 Championships.
- He was always cruelled with injury at the most in opportune times just when he looked like he was going to establish himself as a member of the side.
I agree with the general thrust of your post AGRO. Particularly the point that he was cruelled by injury. The twisted bowel that nearly killed him at the start of his time with us should have been enough for one player to have to deal with in a career. But he hardly ever had a complete preseason because of injuries. Then, in 2005 he managed one, only to sustain an injured ankle in a marking duel with Sav Rocca in the opening game, and his season subsequently mirrored ours.
But the coup de grace was the chronic injury he carried last year. I was always very hopeful that he'd make it, until I read an interview at the beginning of the 2006 in which he explained that he had a chronic back-related injury which had resulted in one leg being smaller than another. He indicated it sometimes flared up, and he'd lose his ability to accelerate and would have to rest. It flared up in the preseason and he missed a match against the Dogs in Darwin as a result.
The fact is that you have to be fit enough to put in fully at training and in weights work at AFL level, and only the very elite can be kept on with chronic injuries that prevent that. That's why Justin Charles resorted to nandrolone - not to pump up his body, but to allow him to gain the sort of recovery that he needed to keep pace with uninjured teammates. In short, due to no fault of his own, Livo's body wasn't up to the rigours of AFL footy. He may well be able to cope with the lesser demands of VFL footy, but unless he overcomes the chronic injury he won't be returning to AFL footy at any time soon. Such a pity, but life's often unfair.
But there are 2 things I'd challenge.
First, I remember newspaper articles around the time of Livo's drafting. Before the draft, I recall him being touted as the next best player for us if Didak wasn't available by pick 4. He was an AA CHF, and the wraps were big. You might be confusing this with the draft in which we took Vance. That was completely out of the blue.
It might be that the newspaper articles reflected feedback from Carlton about it's intentions rather than an independent rating of Livo.
Secondly, it wasn't at all unusual back then to recruit a forward and put him in defence. At U18 level, it used to be that the best players were played up forward, and the honest toilers down back. So if you wanted a good defender, you recruited a forward and groomed him. The best example of that was Mick Martyn who was a great full-forward at U19 level and became a full-back in the seniors (although of course this was before the U18 system came in).
Livo was not big enough to scream key-position forward, and his kicking was never flash. Like Mick Martyn, those factors would have favoured playing him back.
The U18 system has progressively focussed on rotating the boys through a range of positions to broaden their experience. The tendency to load the forward line with the star players is much reduced.
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