Opinion Mick Malthouse

[Windhover]

I actually agree with most of what you said Windhover - but I just don't think a one year contract would make any sense at all.
We won't attract any decent coach if we only offer them a 1 year deal. And what can you really achieve in 1 year anyway.

Well, you can't achieve a premiership so it would be unlikely the coach will be sacked because we don't win one in 2016.

If the coach is any good there should be at least some vaguely objective criteria by which to judge him as coach. If, for example we replace Dick and Tutt and Jones and Whiley at the end of the year with yet more proven players of poor quality AND the coach can't do anything with them then we have only taken one year to find out the coach is no bloody good. Which is a big improvement on taking 3 years to find out the coach is no bloody good.

 

[DaVillaBlues]

I actually agree with most of what you said Windhover - but I just don't think a one year contract would make any sense at all.
We won't attract any decent coach if we only offer them a 1 year deal. And what can you really achieve in 1 year anyway.

Considering we won't be playing finals before 2020 (and that's being optimistic) what is the point of giving the new coach getting a 1 year deal ??? Naive line of thinking.

 

[ajb72]

Ive said for ages that all coaches & players should be on 1 year contracts. Then we wont get the media circus on this player or this coach being sacked or traded.
Probably too hard to implement, but ah well.

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

And that's relevant how?

It's not like Mick can just recruit 20 ready made footballers in three years.

You don't think past recruiters are to blame for the fact that we have nowhere near enough tall talent, and not enough depth through the middle?

Mick has instead had to compensate for previous mistakes and in three years he isn't going to get them all right. Hasn't been anywhere near as bad as people make out.

The massive hole comes from the drafting failures of 2008-2011. Those are the type of players that should've been the core of the side by now. Instead Mick has had to try and find these types from limited options.

The young players he's bought in as replacements cannot be relied upon yet, so again how is he to blame?

Yes, the young players HE has brought in. How is he not to blame when they're his replacements?

Of course the previous administrations have a lot to answer for, but you can't say that Mick's hands are clean in this mess.

 

[fortynine]

I heard this exact thing in '00. From someone very close to the club at the time.

He told me back then that the culture at the club was absolute rubbish; basically it was dominated by players with a 'me first' attitude. The concept of team was non existent. It was more about the size of your contract than actually playing for one each other. A lot of entitled selfish blokes with massive ego's. Contracts for favorites were blowing out (many as it turned out, over the salary cap with outside deals), and blokes were scrambling to get bigger and better bits of the pie. It was dog eat dog within the club (this tied into the rift that drive Hamill out when he got in the dust up with Elliott).

Then the whole thing came down like a house of cards.

Not long afterwards Collins came in and sat the players down and made them take forced pay cuts to keep the club afloat. Kouta wrote about this time in his book, noting that there was a basic mini-revolt of the players when this happened, and that the players were trying to wag the dog with respect to Pagan (who they resented for his hard leadership style). Following that we had the dark years where a few gifted individuals were allowed to do basically as they please, and blind eye was given to anything they did off field (cough*Fevola*cough).

Since all this went down, I've still yet to see a footy side that places team first (barring a few individuals with the right mindset - I'm looking at you Kade Simpson you ******* legend). The whole team still reeks of a 'me first' attitude and not team first. Players are too focused on their own performances and not on the performance of the team. Why this talk of a rebuild has them all shit scared; we've already seen two players (Murph and Gibbs) come out and declare that they've sought reassurances from the club that they wont be traded, and Malthouse come out and say that the talk of rebuilding has left blokes feeling like they're under the pump (read: the players are scared).

They players are still worrying about themselves first, team second.

From where I sit, this is indicative of the problem we see now. Whenever things get hard, the players switch into self defense mode, go into their shells and literally stop playing as a team. They did it under Pagan, they did it under Ratten and now they're doing it under Mick.

Until this culture gets changed (make team first a non-negotiable and draft as many Selwood types as we can) we will be doomed to be a middle ranked team of downhill skiers and flat track bullies at best, and an incoherent side full of self interested and over payed footballers at worst.

Yeah, exactly. Well put.

So you can safely say that today's situation is 15 years in the making. Carlton has refused to modernise itself as a club for the modern game and has refused to adequately change its culture from that of the past. It's no wonder then that even extremely strong-willed coaches such as Mick Malthouse have been driven to the point of essentially giving up. You have to ask yourself then, where does this leave the club long term? It seems to be that we're reaching a crisis as an entity and unless dramatic and bold decisions are made, it's just going to intensify further until you might reach a point where your membership numbers can no longer sustain you financially. Carlton has already asked for advances on payments, we're about to have to pay a huge chunk out to Mick, you start to wonder just how bad things could actually get.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I agree with that too, but my points are still valid. Regardless of the quality of coach you are, it's very difficult to inherent a list that is at its most unbalanced at arguably the two most crucial ages for players. This occurred in BOTH regimes and I think goes to a long way to explain the situation we face now.

Both we're given difficult tasks, but both approached them in different ways. We're now in the situation where Mick won't even play most of the young players brought in during his term, creating an even bigger imbalance.

Both are at fault for refusing to revitalise the forward line adequately too.

Yes, both had lists with holes in it and didn't adequately address gaps but I argue that Ratten got the best out of his list and was coming from further back.

Based on the H&A ladder because it highlights consistency:

Ratten inherited a 15th placed side (out of 16), then went 10th, 7th, 8th, 5th (out of 17), 10th (out of 18).
Malthouse inherited a 10th placed side, went 9th, 13th and currently sitting 18th.

This from a relatively similar starting position.

I just want to negate the argument that Mick was sold a lemon and Ratten was responsible. Nobody wanted to make that excuse on Ratten's behalf. As soon as he made finals, he was accountable for getting to the next level and wasn't doing it quick enough. Then an injury season from hell (worse than Mick has had), and 11-11 season and supporters were baying for his blood for half the season.

 

[fnm_just a man]

Tom Elliott at a guess

The EGM will be fun, I was at the one at Mooney Valley race course when Big Jack and his board were booted out.

It was at that meeting that I learnt just how feral Carlton supporters can be.

 

[ESKIE]

Reading through here, its deplorable

Do the people that run our club think they're safe



Because they are not

 

[JustaBattler]

1. Malthouse has had legal advice on what to say - his oft declared I am no quitter is definately a public statement out there to protect the balance of his contracted payments.
2. However, his public utterances about player unhappiness/inability to attract FA/ poor list/lack of confidence/injury and whatever other bather he can conjure from his bag of tricks - aded to public criticism and disagreement with Tigg and the President and now revelations about Betts having done a deal whilst Trigg was at Adelaide- all speak towards a man who does not have the best interests of Carlton as Club at heart.

He is now not only aproven error of judgement on the part of those who appointed him - but also a terrible liability off field who is dragging the club's name through the mud.

Malthouse is trying to force his own sacking - and repeating the same disloyal antics he showed whilst at Collingwood. Disgusting behaviour - much worse than I could have predicted or imagined.

 

[slashin_velvet]

The young players he's bought in as replacements cannot be relied upon yet, so again how is he to blame?

Because he's not even playing half of them - even the mature age ones he particularly targetted. The ones he is playing arent performing.

 

[ODNBlue]

I bet Murph and Gibbs are feeling safe now they have been reassured by the club that they're still wanted...

 

[fortynine]

Yes, both had lists with holes in it and didn't adequately address gaps but I argue that Ratten got the best out of his list and was coming from further back.

Based on the H&A ladder because it highlights consistency:

Ratten inherited a 15th placed side (out of 16), then went 10th, 7th, 8th, 5th (out of 17), 10th (out of 18).
Malthouse inherited a 10th placed side, went 9th, 13th and currently sitting 18th.

This from a relatively similar starting position.

I just want to negate the argument that Mick was sold a lemon and Ratten was responsible. Nobody wanted to make that excuse on Ratten's behalf. As soon as he made finals, he was accountable for getting to the next level and wasn't doing it quick enough. Then an injury season from hell (worse than Mick has had), and 11-11 season and supporters were baying for his blood for half the season.

I agree, but similiarly to the predicament the GC currently find themselves in, I think it's easy to underestimate the significance of the arrival of one Christopher Dylan Judd. Without him, I don't think we would have would finals in any of those three seasons. He was an absolute talisman during that time and won games of his own bat on several occasions (none moreso than the Swans away win). Even during the productive years under Ratten, questions were asked as to how heavy our reliance on Judd was. Not just as a player, but as a leader and as a psychological boost to the players.

His sharp deterioration in form over the last couple years has coincided pretty strongly with the current situation. I think it's proven a lot of people correct about just how little depth our list has, particularly if you include current injuries. We have basically taken a champion player and run him into the ground. I can imagine if he'd gone to Collingwood instead that he'd be playing better footy with a better body.

However, I do agree that Ratten achieved more with a worse list. I think that can be attributed to the creation of a game plan that suited the list we had, one that used slightly undersized but quick players to keep the ball moving and attack, attack, attack. We've basically tried to do the opposite under MM and now have a structure that is slow and overly tall.

 

[PP34]

Because he's not even playing half of them - even the mature age ones he particularly targetted. The ones he is playing arent performing.

Who's he not playing? You can't just play young players for the sake of it.

You can ruin a young bloke's career by throwing him amongst the wolves regardless of how the side is going

 

[HARKER]

Malthouse may have just done the CFC, the biggest favour it could have asked for.
The spotlight has finally turned onto the board by almost one and all.............they won't get away easy this time around.

I've never been a fan of all of Malthouse's ways but he may just walk away as the short term villain......and the long term hero.
If the heat really comes on the way it should, the real CFC may yet come out of this better than when we walked into this mess..........it's possible.

 

[PP34]

Yes, the young players HE has brought in. How is he not to blame when they're his replacements?

Of course the previous administrations have a lot to answer for, but you can't say that Mick's hands are clean in this mess.

I didn't say they were but people carry on like he should've turned around the club like Hinkley did at Port. Give me a spell.

 

[slashin_velvet]

And yet the only game weve won this year was when juddy want playing. Do the players drop off in effort when judd is around?

 

[95blues]

Malthouse may have just done the CFC, the biggest favour it could have asked for.
The spotlight has finally turned onto the board by almost one and all.............they won't get away easy this time around.

I've never been a fan of all of Malthouse's ways but he may just walk away as the short term villain......and the long term hero.
If the heat really comes on the way it should, the real CFC may yet come out of this better than when we walked into this mess..........it's possible.

In what way though? Surely they aren't going to axe the coach then all just hand in their own resignations?

I don't really understand all of the inner workings of the club etc, but how can a full cleanout be achieved all in one hit rather than bits and pieces over the next 5 years?

 

[fnm_just a man]

Western Bulldogs would kindly disagree with you. Macrae, Dahlhaus, Bontempelli, Stringer, Hunter, Hrovat, Honeychurch and even Jong have all been in the last few years.

We've buggered up possibly 8 out of the last 10 drafts anyway.

That's one team ... Macrae currently in the seconds, Hunter in and out, Jong only in this year and struggling, Dahlhaus being seriously overrated, Bonts gone quiet the last few weeks .......

Give us another few teams before claiming that Azul's 3 drafts is a fair call.

 

[slashin_velvet]

Who's he not playing? You can't just play young players for the sake of it.

You can ruin a young bloke's career by throwing him amongst the wolves regardless of how the side is going

Boekhorst, Jaksch, Whiley are three names that he has handled poorly and they are all mature recruits to the club. In and out of the side does nothing for confidence, and nothing for growth and development. Throw them to the wolves, and then dropping them does even less for confidence IMO.

 

[Slats]

5 minutes after Mark LoGiudice sacks Malthouse, LoGiudice, Trigg & the rest of the Carlton board should all resign. The rot starts at the top and this board is rotten to the core.

 

[PP34]

In what way though? Surely they aren't going to axe the coach then all just hand in their own resignations?

I don't really understand all of the inner workings of the club etc, but how can a full cleanout be achieved all in one hit rather than bits and pieces over the next 5 years?

There could easily now be a challenge to this board. For years we've needed something like this.

 

[fnm_just a man]

Let's all just remember one thing regarding MM pre-Carlton tenure - if the ball bounced to Milne's benefit, his coaching record would just show 2 premierships with a side that could've been coached by a peanut and still achieved the same success; 12 years with 3 GF losses, and 6 years with no GF participation.

All this rhetoric about him being able to rebuild a side is meaningless. A coach is not remembered for all of his participation in finals series; they are revered for their success. Ross Lyon is a seemingly good coach, but his record suggests that he can't get his teams over the line in the one that counts.

On your way you archaic dinosaur.

I'm still running that WPOTY contest ... Another nomination.

 

[JustaBattler]

I bet Murph and Gibbs are feeling safe now they have been reassured by the club that they're still wanted...

They have merely continued acting out what they learned to be standard operational behaviour amongst players at Carlton. The Club has positioned itself to be be able to be held hostage by any player(s) who have some better than average talent- irrespective of team results. Poor recruiting makes the better than average player safe and cosy and very very demanding. Poor salary payment logic- makes things even worse.

 

[fnm_just a man]

Everyone is absolving Mick of all responsibility for our list.
He turned over 50% of it. He has been head coach for 3 years. At some point the excuse of "omg the list is sooo bad it's not Mick's fault!" is pointless.

Of course. That point hasn't been reached yet though.

To claim it has, is typical Carlton short-sightedness.

 

[95blues]

There could easily now be a challenge to this board. For years we've needed something like this.

That would be nice.

The whole place needs to be cleaned out. Fingers crossed.

So embarrassed.