Carlton Supporters Club

How then do we turn blokes like Setanta, Tuohy, Byrne and Sheehan into reasonable players?  Someone must know what they're doing 

I think that part of the problem is that we have taken far too long to work out that times have changed and you can no longer buy success.

All 4 of them were elite players in their own right before coming to the club. That explains a lot.

If you have players with the right internal makeup, they will succeed no matter what. Look at Kade Simpson.
However, the majority of people/players can only take so much and most get worn down by bad culture.

I think there's just a touch of hyperbole there.  Byrne was the closest to an elite level Gaelic footballer and O'hAilpin won the equivalent of a rising star award for hurling, Tuohy played Gaelic football as a junior and Sheehan had a few years at senior level.  They were all part-time, amateur sportsmen.  Regardless of that, someone at the club taught them how to kick, mark, handpass, bump, tackle, bounce, position themselves, read the ball and the play, etc, etc.  Of course, they were all rookied because someone recognised their potential to transition from their games to a very different, full-time professional contact sport played with a different ball, and no hurley in the case of Setanta.

It's the same reason the AFLW league has recruited basketballers, netballers, soccer players, cricketers, track and field players and a few other sports players.
It is NOT because there is a limited number of women footballers, rather because they are already playing sports at a high level and can be taught those things quickly.

Being a professional footballer is as much about being a professional as it is being a footballer.