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Robert Heatley Stand / Re: List Building - More than one way to skin a cat
Last post by Thryleon -People have faith in the current list management team, because of the car crash that has surrounded our footy club in this department outside of Silvagni. Austin is not a departure from his approach. He is more of the same, just with a different name. You dont like him because you dont agree with his strategy (or the clubs direction) but thats more of a philosophical question that can only be discussed in theory. The second we do something different, you lose the ability to prove or disprove something. Hence why you come across like screaming into the void, and most people on here going, well, you cannot actually assert that and be proven correct. All you can do is point to a failing and say I told you so. Even that failing though is potentially based on a pre conceived idea. Austin didnt strengthen our list for 2026. He didnt do it for 2025 either. That much is true, but the list composition that got us to a prelim in 2023 was as much by his machinations as it was by SOS. Do we get there without his moves to secure, Cerra, Hewett and Saad? Probably not but that flaky underbelly that we have all hated at our club has persisted during both recruiters regimes. SOS did a good job with us. It could have been better, and he will rightly admit that, but he played the hand he was dealt. Austin effectively did similar. We are glossing over something else here too. To me, the thing that stopped us more than anything else was dumb luck. A run of season ending injuries ive not seen in a footy club before since 2015.
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Thing is, HOF was good. ACL. Jagga appears to have all the right stuff said about him. ACL. We have Dean joining the fray, and we also have Walker coming in, but then the AFL have pulled a fast one on us. Instead of getting the guys without the premium draft picks, ala Daicos and all the Brisbane Father sons like Fletcher and Ashcrofts x2 we have had to pony up to get them. So that means looking at futures rather than the now. It had to mean sacrificing selecting a key tall to net in additional draft picks next year. To me, that was as simple as they wont help us now, and we will need them moving forward to flesh out the following.
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Rightly or wrongly, our club has made the decision to neglect the short term and gamble on a few players that are not dial movers but solid citizens (to be frank, using history as a guide, our rise was fleeting, and too much went wrong to sustain us up there and most of the truly big clubs never really feared us as Geelong has been the only side with bonafides we have consistently troubled over the last 5 years) in an effort to carry us forward. Thing is, this might be enough if it all goes well enough, which thus far it hasnt. I wouldnt be banking on it all going swimmingly either, as that just doesnt happen at Carlton, but you never say never. Irrespective, I see enough in what we are doing to prevent us bottoming out once Cripps goes, and potentially to get us back up the ladder fairly quickly and hopefully removing that flaky under belly in the process.
Maybe im too optimistic about it, but I can see what they are trying to do, and that is enough for me. @kruddler you seem to be most negative about what they are doing and I understand that too, as there is no time like the present and we need to be getting better now, but old Carlton used to walk that road. Old Carlton would top up with a couple of players and then put us in the mix. Thing is, old Carlton is dead, and any attempts we make to resuscitate it seem to end up causing premature bottoming out, and doesnt look to be a sustainable way of moving forward. I have a cousin who is similarly minded. He is in his late 40's and always likes to bag me out for not understanding the old Carlton way because im only in my early 40's, but I remember what it was like. Thing is, that was over half my lifetime ago, and I dont see the point in attempting to emulate old Carlton. The competition has 5 extra teams now, and attempting to be old Carlton has simply delivered our worst performing 20 years in the clubs history, with a few highlights. So am happy there is a plan, we are executing it, and it seems to have its heart in the right place. Will the results marry up? Im not sure, but I for one am happy to have a proffessional approach which will hopefully avoid years of pain. I can handle a couple of dissapointing years, but not another decade of "rebuilding".
For the record, i'm only 45, so this is not about 'old carlton'.
I like to think i'm very modern in my thinking. I am always looking at ways to improve our team, our club and the entire AFL competition but get shouted down by traditionalists who say thats not how things are done.
I find it amusing that my 'go to the draft for KPPs' is now 'outdated'. The alternative being poach them from somewhere else later.
To me THAT is 'old carlton' and a poor way to ensure success. Carlton doesn't have the same aura (or brown paper bags) to facilitate such moves like they did in the past. Its a strategy that relies on other teams coming to the party.....and i don't want to rely on other teams doing our work. I'd much rather take that out of their hands. Otherwise its another year of 'but there was nothing available, can't blame the recruiters for that'. Well you can, because thats the path they took and they should've planned that better!
Anyway, i've highlighted a few bits from your above post.
Since i'm seemingly in the minority and arguing with many people, it seems not everyone i'm arguing against is on the same page.
The first part is something that you concede and agree with me on. However, others in a similar position to you cannot come to the same conclusion. That worries me as thats pretty clear to me and makes me think i'm arguing with overly emotive people who cannot see reason.
Everyones entitled to their opinion, but i can't see any evidence to back that up, just navy glasses in action IMO.
The second highlighted part is something i disagree with. I pointed out before it happened that we did NOT need to overlook KPP. We chose too. Big difference. I flagged moving up a couple spots on night 2 to make sure we got 'our guy' whover that may be (for me it was Ludowyck - for the club it was Emmett) and ensuring we could still get Ison. I don't know if the club tried, but ultimately they didn't. Whether that a failure, or simply choosing not too....same result.
Third part...our club has chosen to ignore the short term....which is fine....i suggested it was a distinct possibility that we would need to IF TDK left and Charlie left (and Jack while we are at it). Problem is, we are trying to be half-pregnant. Why didn't we try and sell off some more talent now. Cripps might want to go home. Harry might be better off elsewhere etc etc.
The way we are tracking, they will most likely end up counting the days and rueing this time at the end of their careers when they 'could/should' have moved on.
Finally...ultimately i think you are being too optimistic.
I'm sure plenty of people saying i'm being too negative.
I like to consider myself a realist. Despite losing Charlie tdk and jsos, I think we wont miss their 2025 output. Some of our worst losses this season featured all 3. Our best win for the year had all of them (Geelong), but our best loss for the year only featured TDK (gold coast) where Frankie turned it on. Thats not to say we'll be better. I think we've brought in some players to make us better than that team that day. Thing is, we can improve just by having a better run with fitness. Anyway it's old ground, but kemp played 5 games for the year. Walsh missed significant footy, jagga hasn't fired a shot etc.
Sometimes, your arguments are scattergun. Thats fine but it reeks of agenda.
SOS said he cut too deep, here you are saying trade more. We've lost some solid players when you add docherty to it. Not sure shedding more helps short term, and we saw how likely it is to lure players during a rebuild and it probably just elongates a bottoming out. Been there done that. Lesson learned so we arent doing that again. Not worth it for this draft either. It was not a highly rated draft and lots of teams had academy picks which meant picking talent on offer positioning a relative nightmare. Where im a bit torn is when we could have drafted Curtin instead of Byrne but the decision has been made now and im choosing to wait till I see the kid before I criticise this much more.
Your also saying we should have aimed to be stronger for 2026. Weve probably hedged the bets surrounding walker and trading with tassie sufficiently to suggest that the futures you wouldnt have taken may be a better strategy or trading out additional players not netting us much better at the trade table either.
What we are doing is looking at an outcome. I think the only key tall we had an interest in was jed walter. Time may have been the enemy there, but he'll be gettable in a year if jamarra catches fire.
