Carlton Supporters Club

Kane Kornes has picked us for the flag.

2nd year blues is a symptom of being the system long enough for the opposition to build a portfolio of your strengths and weaknesses, it is not related to the stats or the year of draft.

It's about finding ways to continue to influence games when the opposition have learnt how to make you uncomfortable or ineffective, and it's very real. Virtually every players suffers it, because they are facing opponents for a 2nd or 3rd time and the honeymoon is over, they are no longer known unknowns.

A great example, after his breakthrough season opposition started pushing Cripps onto his left side, he still got plenty of footy after all he is almost unstoppable, but his effectiveness diminished. He could barely make contact with his left foot and he started doing blind over the shoulder handballs and the like. Over the next couple of seasons he developed ways to give himself time and space so he could be more effective. Only recently he's started using his left foot, it's still not great but it buys him even more time and space because opponents can no longer just force him that way.

Kane Kornes has picked us for the flag.

Kane Kornes has picked us for the flag.

He's setting the bar at the highest level so he can say we didn't live up to expectations if we only make a prelim.

Just on Ollie Hollands....you could probably argue he had his 'second year blues' (if you believe in such a thing) in the second half of the year, after he was injured.
This kid is made of pretty stern stuff.
Don't write his 2024 off too soon.

As Kruddler said some players get better.
Some perform worse.
If your club has more players going better there's a fair chance you get a better ladder position...even if other clubs also improve.
Some may even overtake you...but our players are all the right side of their prime or already there.

The expectation is improvement, and from third position after finals... guess where that puts us.

That is seriously underrating Crippa’s performance in his second season - when he won his first JNM - as well as conceding that he didn’t suffer from the mythical second year blues.

It’s a fan’s concept that doesn’t happen in the real world.

It's not about stats or possessions, and it doesn't have a time limit, it's just something that happens, a milestone in every career. Some exceptions avoid, others might suffer it to a lesser degree, but it's root cause affects all players to some level.

The absurdity of your argument is exposed by the opponent's perspective, you have basically declared someone's opponent infallible!

Did Patrick Cripps win the John Nicholls Medal in his second season?

Yes he did, and he probably should have won the Rising Star if I recall.

But my comments stand, it's not about stats it's about a player's experience and effectiveness.

Having finished dead last on the AFL ladder, I also recall a lot of debate on this very forum about the value of the different player ranking systems. In particular a lot of debate about why Cripps SC and AFL ranking was so low. It was because some ranking systems do not just award points for possessions, but they deduct points for clangers, poor DE, etc., etc.. As such sMurph was Carlton's highest ranked, Cripps was down in the 70s in several rankings.

Of course for Cripps the 2014 debut season was injury interrupted, just 3 games, so in 2015 he was basically in his 2nd season before everyone had been exposed to him in match ups. In effect that gave Cripps an extra pre-season before his 2nd round of genuine opposition. In 2017, his stats went up but he fell in the rankings.

Which just reinforces what I stated earlier, it's not about stats and the like, it's about experience and effectiveness.

This concept of 2nd year blues is about match ups, players and clubs having experience of opponents, and developing and training for tactics to counter them. It's not instantaneous, it takes time. We call it 2nd year blues because it takes one or two match ups to determine what works, but I suppose you could call it the 25 to 50 blues, and it's another reason why getting players to 100 games quickly is so important.

It's absurd to suggest a player has attracted the same level of scrutiny before they play a game or have an impact, it's not until a player touches up an opponent that the focus really begins.

Clutching at straws LP.  Second year blues is a fan's construct, as is the alternative 25 to 50 games blues. Neither happens in the real world.

Clubs compile dossiers on potential draft and rookie picks.  Those dossiers are passed on to the opposition analysts when players are drafted by other clubs. No AFL player is given a season, or 25 games, without the opposition having tactics in place to curb their influence.  Furthermore, players aren't left to their own devices when coming to terms with their AFL careers.  They are given every support possible, on and off the field.

Consider Jaxon Binns.  He's yet to make his AFL debut but has excelled at VFL level.  Opposition clubs put a lot of work into him last season because he was a standout player.  He will have had the benefits of a year playing in the VFL and training with the AFL team, as well as his first full pre-season, when he does make his debut, but his opponents will know as much about him as any other player in our team.   

When will Jaxon be struck down by the second year blues; 2024, 2025 or after he has played 25 or 50 games? 

It is a nonsense