Why Can't Carlton demonstrate the same level of comittment and desire that Essendon* showed last night against the Eagles?

The Bombers last night were fantastic to watch. Seeing Sheedy on the boundary line all wired up urging on his team was a great sign for the game and demonstrated the will which he still holds for the game and importantly the club.

Essendon* never flinched from a contest all night and the endeavour and spirit with which they wore their jumper was sensational.

What stuck out to me was the leadership quality of some of their players. Now we all now that James Hird is a fine player, but his leadership qualities are second to none. What a Captain!

Essendon* last night played a brand of footy which I wish Carlton could demonstrate. They had the ingredients which we are lacking, leadership, endeavour and solid teamwork etc.

Why won't Carlton play like Essendon* tonight against the Lions!?!

Our lot are a rabble wasting much of our time. And until they get their act together, things aint gonna be pretty for some time.

BTW, I'd love to end up with egg on my face after tonights game, but I think the boys are in for a tough night at the office.

The Hird reason is a big reason.

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James Hird > Essendon*

I think we should offer Hird an assistant coaching job when he retires.. thats if Voss or Chris Grant aren't already coaching with us.

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Love Cricket? Love me

Did anyone notice young Monfries?

The kid is a young, average footballer. But....

did you notice that he gives more than 110% every contest.

If you have mediocre players giving that sort of effort, you're going to be a good team.

I think we had a short glimpse of that in the Wizard Cup.

We lack heart when we play, never mind skill, endeveour and the rest.

Our team is built up of too few players that were brought up at Carlton. We have a group of footballers(barely)...we dont have CARLTON footballers who are willing to put their bodies on the line for their jumper and for the history of their club. (As witnessed at OO a few weeks back)

The players and clubs aren't to blame. It's the AFL...Jackson and now Demetriou's shift to complete and utter commercialism has completely divested this football competition of its passion, its culture and its history.

I think the fact that we play our home games at TD, and had to say farewell to OO perfectly illustrates the aforesaid.

exactly. We should always aim to make our own players through the draft. Real CARLTON players we dug outa the ground with our bare hands.

We need more Waites and Walkers and Thorntons who make their name for the club and win the right to have their paintings on the wall here.

You should always develop internally and through the draft before you look outside.

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Love Cricket? Love me

I think the players in general should take a lot of the blame. The exorbatant paychecks they've DEMANDED and are allowed to receive has forced the competition to sell its soul to pure commercialism.

I agree and disagree budzy. Had the leage enforced stricter rules, condemning exorbitant salaries, we wouldn't have this problem.

"But what about the poor footballers?"... so many people say!

A 100-200,000 salary is very decent. And there would be no problem in adding in benefits such as health care and insurance to cover during players during their careers and after.


budzy I seriously question where this game is heading. I'm concerned, very concerned.

btw... media has a huge part in this deterioration...ever since 9 and 10 have taken over, commericialism has risen exponentially. its not eddie's fault or the networks, its the stupid AFL.

Demetriou is an avid ABBA fan....."Money, Money, Money"


since channel 9 and 10 have taken over there has

Yeah, why on earth did they go and recruit old players like Diesel, Spalding, Rice, and Clape rather than 18 year olds? As though those guys could have their pictures hung at Princes' Park ...

Monfries is a gun

Will we regret not picking him up?

Hmmm...

Thats exactly what I thought Mav.

Those guys mentioned just added to the culture which was so rich only 10 or so years ago.

Mention the word 'culture' today, and you start reminiscing.

It's being marketed to the new age masses...the sydney-ish marquee type of supporter if you will. Victorian clubs in particular are fast losing their cultures...the very thing that made the game so great.

I remember when each club had an identity and a reason for their players to play the way they did. There's not much of that player attitude left now. You see it every now and then.... like Hird last night.

There's still great things to like about the game but I hate seeing the individualism of each (Victorian) club disappear.

Still I reckon theres a lot of "old Carlton" in the likes of Kouta, Waite and Fev.

All those guys walked into strong Carlton teams though, with Kernahan, Bradley, Silvagni, Dean etc etc (Carlton greats) around them.... It was a great era and they fitted in seamlessly.

Thats the era we're facing, for 5 years at least, until Walker et.al get a sniff of silver polish

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Love Cricket? Love me

Sadly I think this is true... not enough blokes playing for pride in the jumper!

This is one of the main reasons I want those f#@kwits in the AFL to leave the Father/Son rule alone. I dont want us to miss out on the likes of SOS, Waite etc... "Sons" who clearly play for the love of the Carlton Footy Club... the sort of love for the jumper you can probably only develop as the sibling of a former player.

Damn! I can't wait for SOS' kids to grow up (not putting any pressure or anything ).

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When Dick became President, it was as if everyone at Carlton came out of the hailstorm and into the sunshine - Stephen Kernahan

YARRAN!!





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My comment was mostly in fun. But I think you might be underestimating just how low we went in 1989 to 1991. We really struggled. This was despite the presence of Kernahan, Bradley, Dean and Silvagni. We had a lot of retirements, and very much like recently Parkin tried to bring in some honest toilers from the VFL like Verbeek and Reinets, and recycled players like Athorn to give us a more mature edge. None of that worked greatly, until we had the good luck to snaffle a disaffected Spalding from Melbourne and then in 1992 Diesel came and changed things dramatically.

Which is not to suggest that we can do the same again this time. Occasionally clubs will bungle like Melbourne did and let a very good player fall into our laps (like Port did with Nick Stevens). But you get one of those a decade, I guess. And we can't really pull the sorts of tricks we did with recruiting Diesel (2 contracts, paper bags etc.). To snaffle a star these days you have to mortgage your future.

But it is nice to dream

I'd say the only decent pick-ups from other clubs since 1995 have been Matty Lappin and Nick Stevens. The rest of them have been so-so. You can't build a great team or a great culture on so-so players.

By the way I wouldn't have minded picking up Shane Tuck in one of those later picks of 2002. Look at him now... But most are right we had little choice back then.

In 2003 we gave up pick 35 for Heath Scotland and traded Justin Murphy for Cory McGrath. Time will tell whether they were wise choices. Other trading that year though was good.

It is true, bringing through the kids that no nothing else but the Navy Blue jumper is the way to go. Unfortunately, when they are starting out in the reserves they are playing for a red jumper which I don't think helps this at all.

Excellent point.

One would expect though that playing in the red jumper would instill an immense hunger in the players to one day put on the famous navy blue jumper.

That hunger is evident to me when the Bullants regulars are promoted.

Again, I don't know whether it's management, Pagan, the AFL or the players themselves, our team plays with little passion and even less heart!