Carlton Supporters Club

This is worrying from a different perspective.

We all believe our club has turned the corner, yet the AFL womens are showing just how far we still have to go as a footy club.

Damien Keeping was considered a real coup when we got him.

Chocolates to boiled lollies over 2 seasons, in which we also believed the List manager was a problem and had to go??

Now the captain wants out only 8 matches (of which she only played 3!!!!) at the end of the season??

THE FISH ROTS AT THE HEAD.

This club looked capable of doing so much more, and we are taking a broom through here.

  he Carlton Blues have been architects of their own AFLW downfall from day one, but it has all come to a head in the past 12 months.
Poor list management and atrocious player communication has resulted in the Blues being in their current position: wooden spooners without a coach, without a list manager, and without a hope for the near future. 

To cap things off, reports have emerged that the Blues’ nucleus in Brianna Davey is seeking a way out of the club, which is not a reaction to Carlton’s horrible season on the field but the politics off of it.

It is also suggested that Davey’s potential departure may lead to an exodus of players who are unhappy with their current roles in the team and the management of the women’s side, which has been set up to fail from the get-go.

Some clubs are fit to host women’s teams, others are not. Carlton has proved that it is not. This is why.

Let’s start with the on-field and list management issues that saw Carlton become uncompetitive in 2018.

The Blues’ issues go right back to October of 2016, which marked the first AFLW Draft.

Carlton bottled it badly, and that is not an observation that comes solely with the benefit of hindsight.

With defender Brianna Davey, half-forward Lauren Arnell and mid-sized forward Darcy Vescio already locked in, the Blues targeted players from lesser clubs with their early draft selections rather than players with a reputation of being consistent performers.

Pick three was used to select Bianca Jakobsson, who was coming off a decent year as a forward. Jaimee Lambert, Elise O’Dea and Stephanie Chiocci, all players with brilliant reputations, were selected before the Blues’ next pick.

With pick 14, the Blues selected Katherine Gillespie-Jones, who has proved to be the biggest 2016 draft flop of all.

Her selection was followed up with Gillespie-Jones’ Seaford teammate in Sarah Hosking. It’s worth mentioning that Seaford finished seventh in the VFL Women’s competition out of 10 teams, with the bottom two teams being booted from the competition at the end of the season.

The Blues selected 16 more players in that draft. Their only genuine, experienced midfielder was Katie Loynes taken with pick 115.

What the Blues had managed to do was assemble a team of very good role players while the likes of Alicia Eva, Lily Mithen, Jess Duffin, Jasmine Garner, Hannah Scott, Sarah D’Arcy, Richelle Cranston, Lauren Pearce and Brittany Bonnici – just to name those who come to mind – were all left for other clubs to freely snap up.

In season 2017, the Blues were able to paper over the cracks in the list due to the performances of a few individuals.

As an added bonus, they were even able to remain in the Grand Final hunt for most of the year thanks to the forward efficiency of Darcy Vescio and the spectacular defending of Brianna Davey and Danielle Hardiman.

As bad as the initial draft was, the end of any semblance of a balanced list would be tossed out the window when the Sign/Trade Period began following the 2017 season.

It was well documented that Carlton’s major issue in 2017 was its midfield, with a lack of star power making it difficult for the forwards to get much use and the defence having to work overtime to keep the side in matches.

But instead of targeting a star midfielder or two, the Blues traded away their first three draft picks for another defender in Nicola Stevens, and traded away two very handy players in midfielder Nat Exon and future star Isabella Ayre to Brisbane for a billboard player in Tayla Harris, who was seeking an avenue to Melbourne in order to advance her boxing career.

The great irony in that trade is that Exon alone has received more media time than Harris in 2018.

To make matters worse, the Blues were forced to delist Jordan Ivey, a top-up player who had become one of Carlton’s best players in the back half of the season, further diluting the midfield talent.

With their four picks in the 2017 AFLW Draft, the Blues only selected one midfielder.

Yet somehow, the performance of the Blues in 2017 had both the bookies and many tipsters fooled. Some had Carlton as certainties to go all the way despite having the most unbalanced list in the competition, and being the only club without a single star midfielder.

The key to Carlton’s success in 2017 was Davey. She worked tirelessly in the back half, and it almost looked like she was going to drag Carlton to another decent season in 2018 before she was sidelined with an ACL injury.

Then Carlton’s list was exposed. With no Davey to stop attacks, teams racked up scores. The Blues lost their remaining five games of the season by a combined total of 176 points, conceding 297 points and kicking a piddly 121 of their own. On four of those five occasions, the Blues couldn’t even top 22 points.

It’s no good having a good forward line if the ball hardly gets there. Not to mention teams had a whole off-season to figure out how to curtail Vescio’s influence, and Harris is hardly renowned for her ability to hit the scoreboard.

In that time, the Blues even thought it would be smart to drop Lauren Arnell, a sensational half-forward forced to play an inside midfielder role and punished when it didn’t work out.

While we widely reference the players on Carlton’s list as ‘role players’ – particularly the midfield core – it is not intended as an insult.

Shae Audley, Lauren Brazzale, Gabriella Pound, Tilly Lucas-Rodd and Lauren Arnell are all proven performers in teams where they are able to play to their strengths, and would be outright stars of this competition if they weren’t being forced into midfield battles that they are not equipped to win.

The writing was on the wall. List manager Graham Burgen jumped ship in the middle of the season, and his exit was followed by head coach Damien Keeping after the Blues confirmed their position as 2018 wooden spooners.

The Blues now have no coach, a list that is in tatters, and no access to decent draft picks due to the incoming Geelong and North Melbourne teams next year.

Off the field, the Blues have become renowned for their poor communication with AFLW players in just two short seasons.

As we have reported earlier in the season, Carlton is guilty of offering players the world and failing to deliver, and also being unable to communicate with the playing list in a manner that would be considered acceptable.

It’s no secret that additional incentives are used to lure good players in the men’s game, but the Blues are guilty of doing the same with its AFLW players, too, a dangerous practice if the club does not follow through when you consider the current players are already working for peanuts.

Upon signing their marquee contracts, Brianna Davey and Darcy Vescio were given employment at the club. That’s all well and good.

However, there have been a number of reports from Blues AFLW players past and present stating that they have been offered incentives, from advanced opportunities in the team to club-related work, that have never come to fruition.

Additionally, the club uses its ongoing sponsorship with Hyundai to offer cars to star players, and a dispute over Carlton taking a car off a player for a nonsensical reason is still being resolved.

We were also made aware of multiple players being forced into uncertainty about their futures when it came time to make list management decisions last year.

In one such case, a player under the age of 20 was told with great confidence that she would be retained, only to be delisted over the phone two days before the end of the AFLW Sign/Trade Period with no reason cited.

Add to that the ridiculous dispute over Arnell’s selection, and it paints a pretty poor picture of Carlton on the communication front.

The worst news of all is that there is no end in sight for Carlton’s self-inflicted suffering, as the club has no obvious experienced coaching candidates to choose from.

The Blues have to find someone who will be able to immediately sort out the unbalanced mess of a playing list, as well as get the best out of whoever is left when all is said and done.

With four new Victorian teams entering the AFLW over the next two seasons, it does not bode well for Carlton’s AFLW existence.

Considering this is all happening on the AFL’s dime, perhaps it’s time a league representative steps in and asks some important questions.
 

At least now we know why the girls looked as flat as a stack of pancakes after first couple of games.

And it's things like this that have me worried whether the New Carlton is in fact really new, or is it just papering over the cracks ? This is so unprofessional, it's embarrassing. The girls have been treated pretty badly.

At least now we know why the girls looked as flat as a stack of pancakes after first couple of games.

And it's things like this that have me worried whether the New Carlton is in fact really new, or is it just papering over the cracks ? This is so unprofessional, it's embarrassing. The girls have been treated pretty badly.

That article is 'one side' of the story.... watch this space!

Well, that cheered me up no end.

It's really bizarre because marketing wise our club has done a fantastic job. From the outside it looked like we were leading the way for women's football.

It's really bizarre because marketing wise our club has done a fantastic job. From the outside it looked like we were leading the way for women's football.