Re: "Carlton Football Club Keeps Fires Burning" - AGE
Reply #7 –
MM is in the process of weeding out the "quitters", the "faint-hearted ones", the "useless ones" and the "losers". He's made a start - next year will see how much more of this is needed. We won't get near a flag until this work is complete.
Well, he's got rid of a couple of useless players, and we've lost a star and a bloke with potential.
I don't think "quitters", "faint-hearted ones" and "losers" would survive at AFL level and I wouldn't put any of our list in those categories. What we do have are players that may not be good enough, or who may need some adjustment "above the shoulders". Malthouse has had 12 months to identify and address those deficiencies and I think that he has strengthened our list significantly in that time. Depending on how much improvement he can wring out of our fringe and developing players, and how durable our established players are, Malthouse should only have to fine tune the list for us to be genuine contenders.
Rather than weeding out underperformers, Malthouse's real challenge will be retaining the team's core with Bryce Gibbs, Michael Jamison, Marc Murphy, Heath Scotland, Kade Simpson, Jarrad Waite and Andrew Walker eligible for free agency. Excluding Scotland and Waite, we would have to hang on to at least four of that lot.