It should also be noted that Pagan has seriously overestimated the list in the last 3 years, and has only now realised that you can't always teach an old dog new tricks.

Martyn, Scotland, McGrath, Bowyer, Teague, Bannister, Kenna, Morell, Chambers, Longmuir, De Luca, Clarke, Johnson, Mott were all either passed over as 18 year olds or discarded by their clubs.

Yes some of them have been ok, but that's 14 players, most if not all of whom will never play in a final for Carlton, let alone a flag.

More to the point, 14 teenagers who never got a chance, (among whom surely some gold could have been found), because Pagan decided to "top-up" the competition's worst list rather than truely re-building from the ground up.

For every Cameron Croad there's a Brett Thornton, or at least a Karl Norman.

Most of these 14 names came in 2003. It now seems that the 2003 trading and drafting period may have set us back an ADDITIONAL 2 YEARS in development, on top of years of poor drafting and shocking trading plus Black Friday's penalties.

Why 2 years? Because not only did we neglect to use the 2003 draft to punt on kids that MIGHT one day play finals for Carlton, but the rejects that Pagan cobbled together made us JUST competitive enough to scrape 10 wins together last year, thereby thwarting our chance to do a proper re-build in the 2004 draft.

Yes, Pagan was dealt a dud hand, but while he's candidly bemoaning the decisions that gave him a poor list, he might like to take some responsibility for his own poor recruiting directions over the last 3 off-seasons

I:

a) agree in principle
b) wrote a similar thing 2 weeks ago

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I'm in good company then!

Problem #1

If you chuck in kids who are 75kg against players who are 90kg etc. you'll do them physical harm.

Problem #2

If you have a team of 10 x 75kg 18 year olds then the whole team would be skinny.

At Hawthorn and Richmond at least they have older seasoned players who are willing to throw their weight around. Richardson, Stafford, Knobel, Simmonds, Coughlan, Crawford, Vandenberg, Hodge, Everitt.

At Carlton, if we didn't have the rejects, then we'd have no seasoned bodies.

That's the only reason Pagan got them. If he had any other choice he would have chosen more in the draft.

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- Igor Stravinsky

2003

57 Ricky Mott
58 Benjamin Hudson
59 Matthew Davis
60 Julian Rowe
61 Michael Rischitelli
62 Not utilised
63 Glen Bowyer
64 Shane Morrison
65 Craig Callaghan
66 Not utilised
67 Not utilised
68 Not utilised
69 Jordan Bannister
70 Brent Hartigan
71 Not utilised
72 Adrian De Luca
73 Shane Tuck
74 Not utilised
75 Stephen Kenna
76 Andrew Raines
77 Not utilised
78 Not utilised
79 Simon Fletcher
80 Not utilised
81 Kyle Archibald
82 Not utilised

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As you can see from Jasura's post, it's not as if we had a choice.

ahh the natives are restless - forget the penalities, forget the clean out, lets now just point the finger at pagan and rest all blame upon him.

Go back, look at the list and ask yourself, would it have realy been wise to do ask you presume?

Dennis brought something in with those players - culture 'cos here at Carlton land that was the first thing we sold off to build Elliotsville. Plus the blokes he brought in (apart from Mickey) were 25 or younger .

of these I think Cory will make it for a few seasons. Chambers and Longmuire I still hold hope for. Bannister - nah. Bowyer is a great clubman (and despite what many think these kids are still important) and may yet survive this year. DeLuca - fine. Bryan - fine. Scotland - will stay. In fcat i think players pre Pagan are still the ones most at risk.

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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!

Exactly!

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Perhaps Jarusa could pop up the PSD and rookie drafts

Julian Rowe would get a game with us. Bentick came off our rookie list and doesn't look bad next to Bannister. A couple of guys picked the next season (McQualter??) where available.

If we'd picked even 3 more kids, they wouldn't necessarily have been "chucked in". We just would have seen more matches for guys like Clarke and McGrath, rather than Johnson, Bannister, Bowyer etc etc who shouldn't have been taken..... or more responsibilities for the Sporns/Davies of the team.

The theory was ok, but he adopted the theory too absolutely and its cost us a few smokies we could have invested in. Swapping Beaumont/McKernan/Murphy were a must, and we got some good nuts with those trades that provide those bigger bodies... but the others....

Ok, Mott was a fair enough pick. We needed a ready-ruck, and he had runs on the board when he was younger (Sydney).. he was a risk that failed.

DeLuca and Kenna were fair punts because neither were tried at the top level.

Obviously the draft has risks attached and you sometimes strike rock and not oil....... and hindsight is 20/20, but:

- The Harford + Johnson trade was a bad one (shoulda kept that pick)
- Picking Bowyer and Bannister was bad

thats 4 more teens on the list we might have looked at. A smokey or 2 (or 4).

If even 1 of those kids showed a bit now, we'd be better off than now.

Fault for our list predicament is well spread. The Elliott/Parkin/Brittain lot have a case to answer. The draft penalties play a big part.....

but, I reckon some choices in 2003 were bad ones. They did some GREAT things as well, and overall you'd say they're on-top.... but saying "we've done the best we possibly can" is wrong.

And Chambers and Longmuir didn't help either.

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Chambers? You're off with the pixies! He was THE Super-Sub - unable to get enough games due to a potential premiership winning midfield all of which are Brownlow candidates - bar injuries, would presently be also! He is NOT expected to be in the top few midfielders of the league, yet neither does he cost that in wages, nor in the trade in which we gained him.

I guarantee he will show his wares, won't be a B&F winner, but a good quality midfielder with not even a hint of a hinderance on our salary cap, Albeit injury prone. Fire your shots at people that aren't "good value for money" and have had injury free years yet continue to be in an out of best 22. Longmuir was gained via a cheap pick, and underwent major groin sugery during the pre-season - a pretty integral area for anyone that needs to run a little! He has been playing well in the 2's in a position that is not currently under scrutiny in our best 22. Our problems are currently confined to our very poor midfield, with the general blame often resting unfairly on our backmen. Tired of continuing this general misconception, do some now turn on the Coach?

Pagan is the epitome of coaching brilliance, not for team day tactics, but for what managers of our generation do; strive to get the very best out of each and every person. What aspect of his coaching do people criticise? His direct play?

Funny that finally after grasping this concept of direct football, a team goes out and wins a premiership. Namely Port Adelaide. Funny also that the teams that have all improved this year have done so under that strategy. The arrows fired at Pagan are based on recruitment, something he did so under extreme handicap and came up trumps. He instilled some hope in the team, sponsors, media and most importantly the supporters thoughout the end of 2004 and the WC. Unfortunately it has not carried through for a number of reasons beyond his control. But underlying his short term vision I'm sure there's a more deviant and well thought out longterm plan that we all must continue to trust, considering we all made the pledge to support the board that under much thought, has extended his tenure for a few years to come. Only at the end can we truly judge.

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Nailed it in one.

We lost a lot of players at the top age group, and the middle bracket was either crap or obstinate. For the short term he had to get physically mature bodies in otherwise the kids would have burnt out.

Oh, and did I mention the removal of picks as well?

Rebuilding starts now. It could never have started 2 years ago.

The worst thing Pagan has done is let that crap list win 10 games last year. No more than 5 this year Denis.

2003 Pre-Season Draft

1 Stephen Powell Saint Kilda Melbourne 2003 PS
2 Richmond 2003 PS
3 Craig Bolton Sydney Brisbane 2003 PS
4 Brent Moloney Geelong Geelong Falcons 2003 PS
5 Guy Rigoni Melbourne Melbourne 2003 PS
6 Adelaide 2003 PS
7 Luke Mullins Collingwood Murray Bushrangers 2003 PS
8 Saint Kilda 2003 PS
9 Richmond 2003 PS
10 Sydney 2003 PS
11 Saint Kilda 2003 PS
12 Richmond 2003 PS
13 Saint Kilda 2003 PS
14 Saint Kilda 2003 PS

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Pagan didnt overestimated the current list, he desperately needed to get rid of players such as fletcher, beaumont, murphy cos they are all crap!

Tyrant, as noted, with the benefit of hindsight any recruiting can be picked apart once boys become men or older players succeed or fail.

Maybe Pagan could have picked up a few kids, but I think his stategy under the circumstances was pretty sound. Moreover I hardly think our list is lacking youth. We had a dearth of talent in the mid 20s age group and Pagan tried to remedey that. He really had no option but to go for rejects. We had nothing to trade with and, remarkably, still no room in our salary cap.

In in some ways recruiting should be as much judged on the thought processes involved as it is on the results of the players chosen. That may sound silly, but the point I am trying to make is you criticse Denis for not picking more kids. Pagan had his reasons for not doing this and even with the benefit of hindsight I think his reasons still stand true. If we acted differently could we, two, three years later, sit back and say we could have done better. Of course we can, I doubt there'd be a club in the land that couldn't sit back and say we shoulda picked him, or we shouldn't have swapped him.

If we look at the draft proper in 2002 the only dud selection was Mick Martyn, and again even if history has proven this to be a poor decision, the theory, I believe, was sound. How many years is it since SOS retired and only now are even starting to look like having a reasonable defence. And gee, as we've seen, we lose either of Tbird or Livo and our structure is screwed. So recruiting a 280+ game veteran on base pay to help those kids along kinda makes sense.

Further to that, in 2002 if we had picks 1 and 2 conventional theory was that Goddard was #1 and Wells was #2 ...
well, on reflection you'd go with Wells (#2) and Jared Rivers (#26) wouldn't you?

http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=draft& ... eid=176962


Anyone can speak with authority on how a club should have recruited years afterwards.

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Agreed. In hindsite, we over achieved and rob ourselves of earlier picks.

Of our list, how many of the players are playing near potential or could be said to be having good seasons? - I cant imagine you would come up with too many - given that is he actually achieving what claim he is brilliant at? Is he extracting the best out of each and every person on the list atm? - I think u might find most unbiased observers would say that he isnt.

Fair call.

We can argue the merits of our list for ages, how good is it, how bad is it?

But the fact is what is largely the same list as last year performed a shade better 12 months ago, why is that? I admit I have been a little disappointed that Denis has not been able to extract more from our guys.

Or are we just playing for picks now anyway?

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@#$%&! off these players all contributed Murphy was brilliant in 1999 and Beaumont played 150 games, you dont get to play 100 games if you are not ok, just the last couple of seasons they sulked when Pagan wanted to play his way.They were not shit,they were not great.

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Bang Bang.

I believe that part of what makes a list look great is how much they are willing to put themselves on the line for their teammates.

Some lists dont look great on paper, but they gain confidence because they do the things that help their teammates perform better. Then as a team the entire morale goes up, so they are more prepared to put themselves on the line.

The current Carlton list don't do that from the minimal football I've managed to see.

Playing as a team is the first step imho and I'm not sure we're even there yet.

And then theres the gameplan, but we've travelled that ground many a time before.