dannyboy wrote:
that's your interpretation BV based soley on your observations from outdie any decision making process - bit like the parents that complain about why tommy is played out of position without knowing anything about the reasons why.
To the club the progression may be linear.
I agree with BV that it's not particularly linear danny but I don't think it's a full circle by any means either. It'd be nice to think that you could sit down and plot a course and start at A and end up at B but unfortunately footy clubs and organisations are a bit more complex than that.
For a coach who'd had players like Carey, Archer, Stevens etc controling his playing group Denis must have had to entirely relearn what he was doing when he arrived at Carlton. That can't have been easy considering the playing group wasn't just another side with a new coach they were a side whose club had just had the mother of all implosions. Why people expect that anyone could walk straight into that and turn it around with a simple plan is beyond me. What happened and what was likely to happen (with the benefit of hindsight) is that we had a majorly bumpy ride for a while.
Clearly bringing in the retreads from other clubs was an act of desperation brought on by unusual circumstances but what people tend to forget is that part of that initiative was about removing difficult players from the list and replacing them with players considered to be capable of having a positive influence with the squad. I don't think Denis or anyone at the club really thought Digby Morrell, Daniel Harford, Corey McGrath and David Teague would rock the football world with their skills but what all of those guys did was help to reset the tone of the squad and the culture of the club and I think we're seeing some of the benefits of that now.
I can't think of anyone from the list of 2002 bar Andrew McKay who you'd describe as a "great clubman" but all four of those guys provided that at a time when we were crying out for it. Morrell and Harford may not be playing anymore but both continue to contribute to the club. I think it's easy to underestimate the value of people like that around the club.
Maybe if we'd solely gone for youth with every pick we had in 2003/04 we'd have an Amon Buchanan or two. I don't think any club can expect to get great players with every pick and certainly not at that stage of the draft but a couple may have turned out to be that good over those two years. It would certainly be nice to have them in the side now but who knows where our club would be had we not had the input of some good guys like Morrell and co. Obviously Laurie Angwin doesn't fit that profile but I'm not trying to suggest that every pick was for a Morrell/Harford type and considering the potential upside if Laurie had ever been able to get his head straight it was probably worth a punt.
And that's the point. It's a punt. All of it. People make decisions and people make mistakes. In hindsight we can criticize Denis and co for not sticking entirely with youth but perhaps if we hadn't had Morrel and friends we'd be more talented but worse off. If it was simply a case of having a fixed plan and implementing it then coaching wouldn't be a particularly revered position.
It's taken a while for Denis to get anything like the sort of team he'd like to be coaching but as it becomes more and more "his" team I think he's likely to become both more flexible and better at what he's doing.
Hopefully that's starting to happen.
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If Melbourne didn't pick him up at pick 40 we wouldn't have Simpson playing for us
