I get more and more frustrated each week with the media's view of Hawthorn vs their view of Carlton. Everything the Hawks do seems to be spot on according to the media, while the good things we do are ignored, and our bad news highlighted.

All year we read about how Hawthorn had embraced youth and were headed in the right direction. No mention of Carlton having one of the youngest lists in the AFL. They won half a game more than us, yet the view of them seems to be so much brighter.

We continually read about Clarkson's and Hawthorn's fantastic no tolerance attitude towards players who are against him or the club. Meanwhile, Pagan's difference of opinion with any player (eg Fevola) is reported differently.

Carlton are crucified for refusing to buckle to the likes of Lappin, Camporeale, et al. At the same time, the Hawks are applauded for considering the trade of Crwaford (a club legend) and Joanne Hay.

Is this a public relations thing, that the club need to be more pro-active with, or is just the work of tossers in the media who have hated Carlton for years, and are gaining a fraction of satisfaction by giving us a pasting, week in, week out?

When we have a plan and we can show that were not looking for band aid solutions..
The media will look at us in the same way....

If we pick up 3 kids in the top 10 the heat will be off.. and the attention will swing to youth....

Hawthorn were under no illusions where they were this year...

We were.....!!!

I think Collingwood and Essendon* still are.....

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I've said it all along but Hawthorn got an absolutely DREAM RUN in the media this season. At the end of the day they only won FIVE games, forget 'but they're playing for the future' etc etc they still only won half a game more than we did, but were placed under virtually no scrutiny at all the entire year.

Footy is still a results business whether or not you're going with kids and five wins out of 22 is nothing at all to be proud of. Yet it seemed that nobody once questioned Hawthorn, I'm not saying they needed to be pilloried in the media but they virtually escaped any form of scrutiny and frankly I don't see how.

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

They have a plan and everyone could see it..
So people are patient in the middle of a 5 year plan....

What is your perception of what our plan has been???

Nothing obvious was there?????

Thats the difference...

Just like when the Saints were accumulating the picks.. the media was saying "only a matter of time"...

You cant say that about where we were over the last couple of years....

10 games last year?????

Lappin answered your question this morning.. "It was a weak competition with more struggling teams last year"....

Thats whats happened to us this year... we slipped back down because there were less rabble clubs....

We were the most 'rabble'... when it came down to the crunch this year.. because we had the least talent..

Time to bring in talent and be patient and change our names to Blues Back 2007 or 2008... me thinks...

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Joanne Hay.... Love It!!

I agree, the Hawthorn team I saw in the last round WERE a rabble. Complete lack of skill, direction and clue. As for the Aints, well, they aint won anything yet and are in real danger of going out in Prelim week again.

We're okay, it will take time but know body wants to jump on us because there are too many un-knowns with our list (or what's left of it)

Read Synbad's first post in this thread. There is your answer.

We may well have a plan in place, but until the meedyah sees kids and a club taking the accepted route towards rebuilding (ie. kids) expect there to be critics. Factor that in with a new coach (for the Hawks) and that probably also explains why the heat was off them. They will probably be the new Geelong in terms of media scrutiny because having a coach like Clarkson, who may well prove to be a superb coach but has achieved nothing at the senior level in terms of finals/premierships, will probably give them low expectations in the media.

We'll most likely always attract scrutiny because of the hardness of our fall on Black Friday, and the associated reasons for it, and the fact that we have a big name coach.

Don't spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror though.

Jarusa, can you please find me the stats on premierships won by teams with a good media run vs those with a poor media run.

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Yeah, the hawks shit me off. To me, they're the most blantant, organised tankers the competition has yet seen.

1) trade away KPP so they can't kick a winning score (they'll do it again with Hay this year)
2) state before the season even begins that you're not trying to win games this year you're just developing players
3) play all your first year players from round one when they don't have the body strength or the fitness to finish off games. Then act suprised when you can't win. Let older, more physically developed players who could win games languish in the VFL.
4) When, despite all of the above, when your team has got into a winning position, sit on your hands in the coaching box and don't make obvious moves that would protect your lead or actually win the game for you.

When you've done all the above, you don't have to tell your players to go out and lose because it will happen anyway. It's despicable really, but lets face it, if the media is going to cheer you all the way cause you have a "plan", and it's a more refined version of St Kilda's "plan", which is the only socially acceptable plan these days - then why fight it.

We need a fresh clean slate. Move along all the prenders and the davises that are never goin to make it, and the hacks from other clubs who we were plugging holes with and play our own kids and see where it takes us. Whits and Fev have too much baggage and negative sentiment attached to them and need to go as well, although I will understand if the club keeps one of them.

If it was Jake Niall's article in The Age today that sparked this off, then don't take it too seriously. He's a Collingwood supporter who's lived through many years of torment at the hands of the Blues and it's altered him pathologically. He will take any opportunity to talk Carlton down, to undermine the good and promote the bad.

Sounds like we're planning on doing that next year.

In fairness, the Hawks got absolutely crucified in the media last year.

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Dut, de dut, de daaa!

Predicting a Grand Final playoff and finishing 15th will do that to you.

This is the thing though - the media is very selective in its memory. The Hawks thought they were contenders at the start of last season. In reality the year they had last year was the one Collingwood had this year, and the one we had in 2002.

We are in a completely different boat, though, because we had no access to the draft and no real ability to bring new young players in to rebuild with - ultimately we had to hang on to what talent we had, at least for as long as we owed them the combined debt of a banana republic.

PLUS the Hawks can afford to ditch the Crawford types because they also got a top 3 pick in the draft of the decade and got Hodge, Brown etc. They have another generation of superstars coming through - we haven't - until now.

Or others predicting a grand final playoff (due to pre season "form") and finishing LAST seems to be whats 'doing it' to us...

Next year the media could love us, as Synbad suggests...

The article by Jack Niall, "Hawks show Blues the way" is an absolute crock. Its discussed in another thread. In essence, the article gives them credit for trading 'big name' p;ayers and names Thompson and Rawlings.

Yet Rawlings went for nothing, and Thompson for a Rd 26 pick and the hawks are probably still paying half his salary.

Lazy journalism.

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Everything before the word "but" is horseshit - J Snow

AIRCAV mate, Thompson got the Hawks pick 10 and pick 26.

Rawlings effectively went for Jacobs.

I'd say that's not bad trading at all.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

The article is a crock and if they had have restrictions on trading none of these deals would have gone through.And I guess dumping players of the ilk of Beaumont, Allan and Murphy who were all on good money, wasn't an example of being pro-active.
I doubt anyone would have taken Whitnall and Camporeale with their contracts last year and have us part of their contract to play for other sides.Unless they wanted us to break the cap again!