Nothing new from Walls, there's truth in the article but it's a little unfair to blanket recruiters over an 8 year period if the staff have changed.

It's stupid to come down hard on JR or Hartlett. Hartlett hasn't been on the field long enough to pass a valid judgement, admittedly we could have taken Ivan Maric with pick 25, but in reality, neither or Hartlett or Maric have shown enough to suggest one is better than the other.

JR is suffering from the expectations of being a top ten pick. In the 2004 draft the overall consensus was there were about 5 standouts and it got very even from then on in (which is why collingwood traded out of pick 7 for chad morrison and pick 10) From what I understand Jordan was chosen because he had the athletic ability of a guy like Deledio but was still available at 9 because he didnt have the football ability and smarts of the top picks. The recruiting staff are obviously operating with the confidence that they can teach the skill to make athletes into players. To put it into perspective, Jesse Smith was a TAC cup ball magnet with poor athletic abilty, while JR was the star of Draft Camp testing (behind Danyle Pearce) and had competent playing ability. Both kids have been busting a gut at the blues - Jesse has pulled back something like a tenth of a sec off his 20m sprints and JR has gone from getting 5-10 possies (VFL) in 2005 to 20-30 in 2006. Both have improved their weaknesses but while JR is picking himself for the seniors, Jesse is miles off. I think the senior SANFL experience cast JR as a plug and play winger or hbf, but while his body and athletic abilty were up to AFL standards, his skill and confidence levels make him more of a project player.

Where did Walls mention they are duds? Have you watched the VFL at all this year? Checked the teams this week? Listened to Pagans comments of rewarding players who play 3-4 great games in a row at the Bullants? Wonder why JR is in the team this week? How did Simmo go in his first 3 years? In fact his first 3 games?

Maybe you should look up the definition of dumb, as I don't see my name there

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

start by overhauling Pagan.

Seagull = Bizarro Parrot.

Walls is 100% true and correct.
Most here with 2 open eyes know that we are in the mire and will be for a long time no matter how well some people think we train.

I shudder to think but maybe it should happen that he does in fact give The Irish boy and all the kids 5 games in a row. After that we will have seen enough to make a reasonable judgement against the top flight.
Look at our 2nds. - FLYING at the moment.
JUST shows how large the gap is.

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Stay tuned We're in for a BUMPY ride

I liked some parts of the article and some not. Bit harsh on JR and Hartlett just yet in their 2nd year, but Wallsy was putting it in the context of throwing them in the deep end - whereas Pagans philosophy is to not destroy the player. Also, as others have mentioned, he failed to mention the diamonda in the rough that have played, and were picked up late in the draft, eg Fisher, Simpson

Most of the other stuff was about spot on, particularly the full time development coach/s, and young assistants.

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

About time someone in the media told it like it is about our FOOTY and not financial stuff in the media. I agree 100% wholeheatedly about what Wallsy wrote. Maybe he should become our development coach if he's so smart...?

Maybe he should be appointed as an advisor to the club!!!! You know, like Parkin is doing at Hawthorn - he still gives inside advice on the football operations!!!!

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

A nothing article. Would have been more interested to read an analysis of our younger players and those in the VFL and what he felt they needed to do to become consistent AFL players. Perhaps that would have required more research. Easy to pick one or two youngsters at any club who have not played every game or are being brough along slowly.

I think that Wallsy has forgotten that there were a lot of other dud first round picks by other clubs in the early years and that it is only in the last few years that the AFL and clubs have made the early draft picks more of a science.

Also there was no mention of the last years of Parkin and Brittains preference to give up our draft picks for trades who didn't work out. Has that barren period not hadd an impact on our playing list? Practically all of those mature age pick ups are now gone and the list has been turned over and we have continued to turn it over as we re-build the club.

As for getting rid of the support staff or getting more recently retired players on board I was under the impression from most of the VFL posters that Mitchell has been doing a very good job with the youngsters and that Libba has not been out of the game that long. Perhaps at tha end of the year we can add Glenn Archer to our coaching group?

walssy wrote:I was disappointed last week when teenagers Luke Blackwell and Josh Kennedy were dropped. This week, Kennedy is back in the team and Blackwell is an emergency. Young players can thrive if given continuity of games. Promise them four in a row. The club has nothing to lose.

i think he makes a very valid point there if you offer a young player 4 games in a row in his first game he's not going to be playing like its a matter of life and death he will fit in more with the others and enjoy his football rather than be scared of failure.

For whatever reason the Club has decided to develop many of our kids in the 2's - whether they believe in the bad exposure theory, or they are playing the super tanking theory, or just dont think they're ready, thats's what they are doing. Few agree with it, but that's what the CLub has done.

But to link the Hartlett issue is plainly absurd. Of course its worrying if a guy cant get out on the park - but solely to do with injuries.

It continues to amaze me that the "experts" in the media continue to write stories that are far inferior to those that could be written by at least a couple of dozen people in here.

Keeping abreast of what's happening at 16 clubs isn't easy but if you're putting yourself up as an expert and you're paid to do it full time then you should be doing that.

As many have pointed out it's a very selective article and doesn't balance the crap with any of the good.

I like Walls overall but articles like this one are Herald Sun quality. Even Rohan Connolly could have done better than this. Maybe it's a editorial decision to limit it to the column

Media's changing due to the web. The Sunday Age now has a column written each week by a reader commenting on their subject of choice. This is going to happen more and more over time.

Media consumers have already become media producers (it happens in here not to mention Australia's Funniest Home Videos ) and the big media conglomerates will pursue it because it's cheaper than adding a full time journalist to your team.

I don't care who the writer is as long as it's well written.

Sorry Wallsy.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

lift your game, CK

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Congratulations CK95

What about Murphy, Walker, Waite, Carrazzo,Bentick, Betts, Thornton, Kennedy, Simpson, Fisher. These are young players who will be around when the good times come. Players like Fevola, Whitnall, Stevens, Scotland, Houlihan and McLaren are still in their mid-twenties.
Russell and Hartlett will also be there to play a major role along with Bower, Setanta, Edwards and Raso.
The match committee have made a decision to bottom out for a couple more years to get as much talent as possible into the club. They are not going to come out and say it to the world. While we were all celebrating our 10 wins in 2004 to finish 11th Richmond was celebrating the acquisition of Deledio and Tambling.

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WE ARE CARLTON, WE ARE ARROGANT AND WE LOVE IT!

About time Wallsy put a rocket up our club on the eve of it's next game. We're paying $9.25, put your bloody house on us!

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if carlton is to move forward, we should welcome these sort of articles that analysis where we went wrong, maybe walls wasn't correct on all fronts,

but y'know, what's saddington doing this weekend?

Carlton is a very bad football team right now.

There are players like Fevola and Whitnall who do what is required, but theres a lot of other players that simply havent come on the way you would expect and also in the way that similar players have at other clubs.

Walls said : "In 2000, the Blues' first four picks were Luke Livingston (No. 4), Trent Sporn (11), Simon Wiggins (15) and Blake Campbell (31). "

Those selected by us in 2000 should be good middle order players now. The fact that they arent is something that will prolong our stay in the bottom 4.

I would have hoped that we had say 3 or 4 good middle order players from the 2000 / 2001 period that would have probably given us enough on the ground to have maybe another 2 or 3 wins than we do at the moment....

It frustrates me that more of our young players arent given more game time. I agree with Robert Walls, Kennedy Blackwell Ohailpin Bryan and Russell - should all be getting more game time in the seniors.

I remember when we lost a final to Melbourne in 2001 I think, and the ABC commentator on the radio was saying how a certain Carlton player was unablke to adapt to the conditions of the AFL and in particluar how he was out of his depth in that match.

That player was Brendan Fevola.

Well how did Brendan get to be the player he is now?

Id say a big part of learning how to cut it in the AFL involves actually playing games at senior level and not being continually played in the Bullants.

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My Blue Heaven

Walls is spot on. Hopefully Russell and Hartlett can prove him wrong, but as it stands they have delivered doughnuts. Finally someone who has put the wind up our recruiting dept for their poor decisions.

It's about time we made some tough decisions, and not just the players.

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17 4 10

Wasn't there stories going around at the time of the draft that he were injury prone?? A few people in Adelaide tell me that he had dodgy knees. They were surprised he went so high in the draft; they were thinking that he was too speculative for pick 25. I wonder whether that risk to draft him based on his history of injuries was worth it. I think even the guys from footydraft may have made mention that he was injury prone.



Did miss that game but of all the games I’ve seen him play he hasn’t done much. In fact he's had no influence. Curious to know what his statistics are in the VFL and VFL reserves games that he's he played in. I’m thinking that they wouldn’t be overly impressive. Few others that have seen him play in some VFL games have been a bit disappointed in his output.



Looked all at sea playing in defence in the NAB Cup – Really struggled to hold his ground against his forward opponent. Didn’t look comfortable one bit – maybe he should have played as a forward if that was the basis we picked him up.



Haven’t seen any of the in a game yet. I guess those tricks aren’t too difficult at training though. Let’s wait and see that happen in a real game hey!!! You got any statistics on how many kicks and marks (pack marks) he took in those NAB games.



True but don’t you think we were more desperate for a quality ruckman at the time??? Hang on a minute I forgot we’ve got the talented trio of French/Deluca/McLaren . Either of Ivan Maric (pick 40) and Fabian Deluca (pick 35) would have been handy.
Surely part of a recruiters role is to identify the best young talent. To see young Rosa (pick 29) playing awesome footy for WCE must be a kick in the guts???



I’m well aware of the change over in the recruiting department. I’m also well aware of our history in the draft. Before we start back slapping this new department lets see how the kids of the 2004 draft go hey.

Regards…Rhys26


P.S. I’m still looking forward to feedback regarding Teague and McGrath in the Carlton V West Coast thread. Or are you just happy to accept mediocrity like the way the rest of the club do at the moment???

I think Robert Walls should do some research before writing his articles.

Overall the article is poor due to the unfounded criticism on Russell and Hartlett as well the fact he didn't bother to mention the late draft/rookie picks in recent years of Fisher, Betts, Bentick and Carazzo.

The damage to this club was done by the poor recruiting in the period 1996-2001.

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There is no footy god