Carlton Supporters Club

I can only go by my opinion, and once again I believe the talent is genuinely there, we are only seeing it for bits and pieces of the game.

At the end of this season, I am going to show a table of our players average time on ground percentage (some of which will be thrown out by mid game injury) but I think we are going to find that we have a large number of players spending a lot of time on the ground at advanced ages, and the younger players spending significantly less time on ground.

I think that there is talent there ... but it is spread too thin and hasn’t been given time to mature.

I suspect that we will have quite a few players who have spent more time on the ground than is usual.  Several games with a reduced bench will have contributed to that but I reckon that we are asking a lot of our players and they are feeling it.

Earlier this season I saw 34 year old Kade Simpson registering 95% plus time on ground percentages, and he hasnt exactly been marking space in back pocket all season.

Ditto Ed Curnow who is pretty much an everywhere man.

The kids were in the 60's (kennedy, DOw, SPS).  If you have 4 players playing less than 3/4 of football, you are effectively using one bench spot on them each quarter meaning everyone else is significantly impacted.

Something that for me at least gets forgotten in the "play the kids" mentality. The impact of that rotation down on other players is quite significant, and we are being forced to play more and more of the kids.

@WAsurfer

I agree with everything you’ve said.  I have to bite my tongue whenever posters on here or anyone in the media says “the talent is there ...”.

Is it? I’ve heard it so much i’m starting to think there’s something wrong with my eyes or I know nothing about football despite having attended roughly 1,000 Carlton games over 50 years.

Not one of the u18s we have drafted the last 3 years has been a bust. There's alot of talent in that group and alot are playing. One looks a superstar in Charlie. Some better than others, but plenty of ability. We have the likes of a real superstar in Cripps, Simmo, Murphy, Kreuzer, Kennedy, who has really picked up since he got fit, Marchbank, Ed Curnow, Pickett, even Thomas, although his best is past him. We mightn't go through to the whole 22 but there's plenty there do do alot better than we are, which is nearly winless. Certainly not enough to play finals but enough there to be doing alot better.

So the question get asked, why do we get pumped miserably every week?

I'm not sold on our U18 talent as being all that great at this stage...Charlie aside there is no proven match winning talent that I can see and its all hope and promise without much delivery at this stage....I wouldnt call anyone a real bust either as its too early to tell but there are a few who worry me  ...

re: Kennedy...better but no star...B-C grade battler who is slow and whose kicking is average at best.....
     Marchbank...talented but cant stay on the park and not true KP, we need another big key defender like May from GC to see the best of Marchbank IMO.
     Pickett...I like him as he has real flair but struggles to get on the park and doesnt ever get continuity to give you 4 quarters.....

I'm not sold on our U18 talent as being all that great at this stage...Charlie aside there is no proven match winning talent that I can see and its all hope and promise without much delivery at this stage....I wouldnt call anyone a real bust either as its too early to tell but there are a few who worry me  ...

re: Kennedy...better but no star...B-C grade battler who is slow and whose kicking is average at best.....
     Marchbank...talented but cant stay on the park and not true KP, we need another big key defender like May from GC to see the best of Marchbank IMO.
     Pickett...I like him as he has real flair but struggles to get on the park and doesnt ever get continuity to give you 4 quarters.....

Curnow and Fisher I'm confident about.
Many of the others show some good signs and a few of them will no doubt be long term players....but we need to see a bit more before declaring them a success.
If you read back on many of the threads of some of our recruits of the last decade the signs were promising...but they're gone.

It all boils down to development of the talent...and that's a job for the coaches, whoever they may be, over the next couple of years.
It will be task made easier with a couple of 22-26 year old experienced, elite players to serve as examples.

Bolton's there for the next twelve months at least.
There may be noise about changes around him....but he won't be replaced in the short term.
That noise isn't strong enough.

Earlier this season I saw 34 year old Kade Simpson registering 95% plus time on ground percentages, and he hasnt exactly been marking space in back pocket all season.

Ditto Ed Curnow who is pretty much an everywhere man.

The kids were in the 60's (kennedy, DOw, SPS).  If you have 4 players playing less than 3/4 of football, you are effectively using one bench spot on them each quarter meaning everyone else is significantly impacted.

Curnow and Fisher I'm confident about.
Many of the others show some good signs and a few of them will no doubt be long term players....but we need to see a bit more before declaring them a success.
If you read back on many of the threads of some of our recruits of the last decade the signs were promising...but they're gone.

It all boils down to development of the talent...and that's a job for the coaches, whoever they may be, over the next couple of years.
It will be task made easier with a couple of 22-26 year old experienced, elite players to serve as examples.

Bolton's there for the next twelve months at least.
There may be noise about changes around him....but he won't be replaced in the short term.
That noise isn't strong enough.