Shakin77

I think yours is an excellent post and one I have no objection to.... but one thing to consider, in answering your question, is that I'm not defining "Development" as (necessarily) skill development, or positioning, or strength.... or one or a couple of areas of "polish", so to speak

its about the whole package of taking a kid and bringing the best out of him in every facet of his game so that in X number of years he is a productive young man on an AFL senior squad.

Obviously, complicating that is his desire to actually make the effort (or various other reasons why his effort is low), and a significantly sub-par amount of ability to begin with. (in other words, factors 1) and 2) on my list).

I think often when I use an example like Wiggins, people use Wiggins the man to counter my argument. When using Wiggins as an example, I'm not suggesting that Wiggins should by now be a key player of the team. Obviously if you extrapolate my logic I'm suggesting he MIGHT be one... but thats not hte point. I am realistic about the reality that some players can go through a complete regime and just never be good enough.

BUT the point I'm raising is in his development PLAN... which is the domain of the senior coach. What opportunities and culture has the coach exposed the kid to to bring him up in the best and most effective way. How has he given him chances in the seniors, developed IN-GAMES areas of weakness in his skillset, allowed him to execute his stronger skills and rewarded him for that.....

and getting back to my original point of about 15 pages ago, in my perception the careers of Wiggins, Sporn, Davies etc etc don't seem to follow any particularly well-devised plan, and all 3 are near certainties for delisting.

Wiggins and Sporn have had injuries
Wiggins and Sporn (5 years later) probably have insufficient skills
Davies has questionable attitudes (BUT, a good manager can manage that)

The real issue with these guys is a lack of sustained game-time and rewards. W and S have had injuries at various times to stall that... but in a team that over the last 3 years has finished 2nd last, last and a slightly more respectable finish way outside the top 8, there really isn't any excuse for not putting more (game) time and effort into these players. Pagan instead insisted on his banal crusade for wins with his brigade of retreads. Trading for similar players and removing opportunities for young players is a very good example of poor development.

And danny can say "do we need mature bodies to play with kids.... yes", but the FACTS that by seasons end 95% of the retread experiments will have failed dismally, and that these kids Pagan inherited will have also, COUPLED with the fact of our ladder positions under Pagan have been the worst in the club's history, and this policy is INDEFENSIBLE.

YES we had a shit list to begin with
YES we were hamstrung in our list growth (draft picks)

BUT, when so many of the re-treads have come and gone and how win/loss ratio hasn't improved

AND where a lot (but, admittedly not alll) of the kids Brittain drafted have not come on

There are some major criticisms of the coaches "plan" that must be leveled.

Look, I don't know what Pagan's KPIs are..... but put yourself in Pagan's shoes sitting infront of Malouf (or whoever) at a performance review... what does he point to as his successes, IF the probable scenario of another spoon occurs this year.

"Need more time" is the best line he could use.

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Of course im serious and its not over the top.
There are average names at other clubs playing good footy.
Take some of the Crows 'no namers' for example.Why is it that they find players out of nowhere and can turn them into AFL footballers and we cant???

Our players havent improved.

As a matter of fact a common complaint is they have no feedback from the coach.. theyre just pulled off the shelf played.. and if not performing put back on the shelf... nothings done with their defficiencies.
The fact we dont have a real fine tuned gameplan only compounds things.

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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.

Danny

how can you ruin a kids career by playing him when he's not ready?? Literally, explain to me how it happens??

Also, please bear in mind that the team we have now, AND the team we had in 2003 have/had a good swathe of senior players across all positions. Please refrain from the absolutist argument of a team of all 17 year olds losing by a million points a game with no support.

Also, if you choose this line of argument, please bear in mind that Wiggins and Sporn had 2 seasons (ala Bentick) when Pagan took over, and Davies 1 but a few debut games in his first season under his belt.

Also, I'll remind you of some other facts that are conspicuously missing from your list.

CARLTON RESULTS UNDER PAGAN
2003 - 4 wins - 15th spot
2004 - 10 wins - 11th spot
2005 - 4.5 wins - 16th spot
2006 - so far not very good

RETREADS (ie, not Stevens) BROUGHT TO THE CLUB BY PAGAN
David Clarke - GONE
Brett Johnson - GONE
Daniel Harford - GONE
Cory McGrath - Not a regular in the side
Jordan Bannister - GOING
Ricky Mott - GONE
Heath Scotland - A regular, with question marks
Jason Saddington - Regular-ish with question marks
Troy Longmuir - GOING
Callum Chambers - GOING
David Teague - GOING
Digby Morrell - GONE
Dylan McLaren - Regular, with ??

YOUNG PLAYERS ON THE LIST PAGAN INHERITED (ie, not players drafted under his time) - feel free to add some because I can't recall them all

Simon Wiggins - GOING
Trent Sporn - GOING
Justin Davies - GOING
Jarrod Waite - Success!
Bret Thornton - Success!
Luke Livingston - GOING
Callan Beasy - GONE
Blake Campbell - GONE
Ryan Houlihan - Success-ish

Not a lot of success stories there.

Lucky he has a few more success stories among the kids drafted under his time..... lucky for us to that for all his work, we still haven't left the bottom of the rung

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If thats true than the guy is even worse than I thought. If true then he should have been marched out of the club after his first season.... we should have let that Patrick Smith imagination be executing and sold him off to Richmond for a cheaper younger coach.

If this quote is true, then Pagan's @#$%&! pathetic.. and deserves to now be in that illustrious company of Danny Frawley and Tim Watson

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How many of those here who think Pagan is doing a bad job as coach would be prepared to say that if he sees out his contract it will cause so much damage that Carlton will not win a Premiership during Marc Murphy's career at the Blues?

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I don't agree to that.... a new coach only needs MAX a season (IMHO) to retrain a team.

Its more the players he never gave a chance to that suffer from his tenure

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So in your opinion there is no long term residual damage?

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I was a huge Pagan supporter and ive done a 180.
In my opinion each week Denis is here is another week we have to catch up on...

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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.

in my opinion NO, because most people can adapt to a change environment....

... the real issue that would underpin that is the quality of the list a new coach will inherit. There'll be a bit of young-raw skill on it now, but there will still need seriously development into the list, and a retraining of (some) young player's thinking and confidence to be their best.

If I had to slap an arbitrary time-frame that I pulled from my bum: a year to fix the players ON the list, but still a bit of time to rebuild it by clearing out the Paganisms

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Love Cricket? Love me

clearing out the paganisms?


are you implying that Pagan is losing more games than an other coach would if they had our side?

Does that mean you think our list was far better when Denis came to the club?

That he should have had far better results?

Like what? 3 years of ten or more wins? An average of 7 wins a season?

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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!

When Pagan leaves the club he would have left it better then he found it. You can only judge him on that.

In time Pagan will be remembered by Carlton supporters as the guy that helped bring Carlton back as a power. The new kids that are playing now are playing their best footy under Pagan. Walker, Bentick, Carrazo, Murphy, Houlahan, Felvoa. plus more to come. Dont tell me he cant coach kids.

Like Ian Colins only time will tell us how good Pagan really is

probably, not thts not my main contention. Mine is that more of our kids would be better placed now under a different coach, which means 1-2-3-4 years from now our team would be stronger



thats an illogical inference from my posts. The issue is that more players Denis inherited would be better now under a better coach. The full potential of that 2002 list hasn't ever been realised. (and I hope for the sanity of this site no one assumes I mean that the 2002 list was awesome...... I'm talking about the 5% of the list with room to grow who haven't



with certain players... certainly. Whether that means we'd have won more games over his time, thats probably the case... but not certain. The issue is that our team would be stronger as those players, along with the new draft picks, developed. Perhaps not over 1-3 years, but 4, 5 6 years after 2002.[/quote]

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5% of players. A list of 45? thats 2 and half players.

And I think we should leave Livo off this list, livo does have an on going battle with his back and that as much as anything (seeing as how he was told it might stop him playing altogether) might be the main cause of his inability to secure a regular starting position. Even this preseason his back kept him out of a fair hunk of the summer sessions.

How many players exactly do you think Denis could have done better with
Livo Wiggins Sporn, or do you also mean and Beasy and Campbell(?) and others?

And can it not be argued that those players may very well be okay (which is why he has retained them on the list) when he has developed the more talented players to support them ?

So concentrate on Walker, Murphy, Kennedy, AB, Carrots, Fisher, Simmo, Betts because from the likes of these our talent and our future leadership will sprout.

Get them right and the Wiggins and Sporns of this world will be better.

Dont get them right and the wiggins and sporns will never make it.

As with any management type job you make choics. Denis seems to be choosing to concentrate on the core, to develop, expand and educate our top liners (fast tracking them perhaps?) knowing the fringe players are not hard to find.

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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!

Wake up and smell the roses. We've won 19 from 71 with a list that isn't as bad as what people think. At times in the last 4 years the players have looked almost dis-interested, and played like they've had no respect for the coach. Most coaches with any sort of ability would've won games more than Pagan, even Thomas and Connolly. We'd like a coach who could re-invent himself and keep with the demands of modern footy, not one that's still coaching from last century with Wayne Carey.

When he arrived in 2003 we still had alot of the players that played in the 1999 GF, won 13 on end in 2000 and weren't that far away in 2001. 2002 aside, there was still a pretty fair list there on paper, not a list that should've come second last with 4 wins, a screaming percentage of 66.7% (must've been some real hidings in that lot), and played like a uncommitted rabble. Tells you something on it's own.

What would've been better in his time would have been a team that played consistent committed and passionate football. Certainly more wins would follow than we had.

Like Synbad, I was once a Pagan follower and was happy when we re-signed him after a near finals effort in 2004 and an outstanding Wizard Cup series. After a distasterous 2005, where the players were obviously lost (a second group after 2003) and we won the spoon, I went 180 degrees as well. We have been dreadful under this guy and the quicker he goes the better. We pay this bloke a fortune and have actually gone backwards if that was possible.

Oh how, in hindsight, I would've wanted a Rodney Eade instead who was available at the time. The Western Bulldogs had a "crap" team under Peter Rhode, worse than us unbelievably, then a change of coach, better game plan and lot of sudden extra committment later, the change has been overwhelming.

Just two points because everything else has been addressed:

McGrath - has missed one game so far this season, will miss a second this week, is as much a regular as Saddington for now.

McLaren - you can include him as a retread but exclude Stevens?? He walked as well.

Ok so by the simple process of elimination these are the players you claim Pagan is responsible for:

Bentick
Betts
Blackwell
Bower
Bryan
Carrazzo
Deluca
Edwards
Fisher^
Murphy
O'hAilplin
Raso
Russell
Simpson^
Walker

Rookie List
Batson
Flint
Aisake
Jackson
Smith

Past players drafted by Pagan
Kenna
Becker*
Norman+^
Angwin+
Pleming*^
Croad^

* - Rookie
+ - flower
^ - 2002 draft, which Pagan was not involved with

I agree with you apportioning the development of 2002 draftees with Pagan if you are going to blame any coach, but keep in mind he supposedly didn't draft them.

The only complaint I can envisage you having with players drafted 'fresh' under Pagan is with Becker, but he has gone meekly into the night and was sighted as being unaccountable and he hasn't changed that enough for any club to have a sniff.

So with the former two lists, what complaints do you have? Alongside with the younger players Pre-Pagan that he has had a chance to mould.

So, if your theory is accurate.... do we just not bother caring or trying to develop those second-tier players at all? what are we doing for 3 years? twiddling our thumbs and becoming a speakeasy for rejects from other clubs, and hoping those early picks turn out ok???

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On the bright side the Bullants are 14 goals in front of the Box Hill Hawks after kicking their 16 successive goal. 16.8 to 2.7, 30 min into the second term. Russell outstanding. Goals are coming that quick that the score has changed 4 times while i've written this post. It's on SEN.

Russell outstanding - gee development there.

Bo we do not twiddle our thumbs we prioritise.

And we set Wiggins, Sporn etc targets they must reach. Develop them, strengthen them see which of them will shine through the tough times.

But really it is about the talent. We have all known this. It is about addressing the weaknesses/deficiencies in this list. Sporn or Wiggins were never ever going to address them.

But when they are adressed, when we have a spine, a defence and a midfield of mature bodies and talent - then lets see how a Wiggins or Sporn fare - those that are still there because the system demands you turn your list over and the only way to get talent is to pick enough kids to unearth the gems.

I think Denis is developing the list and playing the retreads as you call them. You just want to do it a differewnt way, perhaps even a better way, but we will not know that answer until the kids are older/stronger. That's been the story of every developed list since this draft crap began. the older/stronger bodies dominate (they must have talent - hence the tanking debate).

I think when our key kids - Tex. Murph, Kennedy hopefully, JR etc, we'll know a lot more about how Denis is going. Until then it is a bit of shifting deckchairs.

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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!

Just giving the score at the time, not trying to make a point (re Russell). Just mentioned that Russell was going very well. Probably should've been on another thread but as this one's popular I thought I'd chuck it on here. Thought some may have been interested. Bullants are 146 points in front Blackwell best, Russell terrific, Prendaghast 7 goals. Think even Bryan's got 4. Suppose when you got 32 goals suppose everyone will play well.

As I type this the game ended. 32.15.207 to 8.13.61