DarkTint
All Australian
Bare with me blues supporters. I'm on holidays from work and am starved for footy. Just some of my thoughts. Happy to see if who thinks I'm an idiot and who doesn't 
Regardless where you sit in the KPP debate I think it is tough to not acknowledge our list is def top 8 in the a.f.l with no limitations on where it could end up. Talent wise we could easily have a top 4 list but just as easy as it is for me to imagine guys like Paul Bower and Shaun Hampson taking the next step for arguments sake I'll just rate them on their current progress as players.
I personally do not believe we have a shortage of talls/KPP players. No more than any other club in the competition. As many long time posters have pointed out, the fact is we have a number of KPP players, particularly down back. So much so I see our backline being a major strength for us once they've hit that 80 - 100 game mark TOGETHER. With continued development of our midfield defensive pressure its not crazy to assume within 2-3 seasons we could have the #1 defense. That is also taking into account the current best defensive units (cats, aints) will be on the downward slide by that time.
The argument about who will kick our goals I find one of the most ridiculous going around atm. Sure Brendan Fevola was a superstar of the game, but while fevolution was doing his thing we had a 1 dimensional forward line. How do the doggies ever win games? Going by the logic of some of the posters on this board they're all a bunch of short people. They may as well just give up at centre bounces because they don't have a 205cm guy to play ruck. How did collingwood get to a prelim last year without any KPP forward talent? John Anthony + Travis Cloke more effective then the fev? How on earth did the cats win the flag without anyone kickong 60+ goals? 50+? nope. 41,39,30. Top 3 season goal kickers for the cats. All forwards. Murph kicked 30 goals mostly in the midfield. Ratts will be prepared for life AD (after ********). We will have 4-5 options up forward rather than 1-2. Fev had the ball delivered on a platter 8/10 times the last couple of seasons but it would seem like a lot less by the way he carries on when a kick doesn't go lace out to his chest. We will have ALL forward players committed to the defensive pressure that's required by forwards in the modern game, not just when chasing suits them. FWIW Fev chasing down Andrew Mackie vs cats last year was one of the greatest feelings I had during the season, prob because the fev pulls one of those TEAM acts out twice a year just to let u know he can do it, when he wants to. But acquiring a young, highly rated KPP forward Lachie Henderson at least gives us the replacement piece for our forward line. Yes he hasn't played much senior football yet but when you are considered the long term replacement for one of the modern great centre half forwards you gotta have something going for you. By all reports and pictures the kid will be fine. Its exciting to not quite know what we're going to get next season. Sure we could LOSE some games (god forbid) but even if we still had #25 we we're prob still only 4th-6th in line for the cup. With a new structure and young players we may fall to 6th-10th for the cup but you know what? Come prime time 2012-2016 our boys are going to be like a navy blue machine crushing any that dare to stand in the way. Hey I'm not against us stealing the 17th before then but looking at how young our list is we still got to give the boys time to fully understand their capabilities/limitations.
I would like to thank the club with how we used our 3 #1's and high draft picks in recent seasons but I think our rookies would give all those 1st round picks a run for their money. Aaron Joseph, Michael Jamison, Andrew Carrazzo, Sam Jacobs, Setanta, T-Bird. O.k maybe not but taking into account Mitch Robinson (#40) Kade Simpson (#45) Dennis Armfield (#46) M. Davies and so on and so forth. Just typing this up and researching the info I see this pattern with our first round picks we just go for the talent, the guys dripping with class etc etc But in our 3rd round - Rookie selections we actually have the guts of our team. The guys we want to go into the trenches with, the tough guys. Obviously there is a lot more in-depth explanation to do with our reasons for drafting every player on our list, something a lot of you guys prob know a lot more about than me. All in all IMO I couldnt be happier how we've drafted + traded recently.
Just briefly on the trade situation there will always be some trades that work and some that dont. Thats the nature of the beast, only in video games can u always get the better of the trade. Clubs like Man U, Real Madrid, Lakers, Yankees etc These teams have made some of the worst trades/deals in history yet they still manage to find themselves at the top of the tree. Besides having limitless credit and different salary cap restrictions what the Carlton Football Club has in common with the world super sporting clubs and has shown the other 15-16-17 clubs is that, We do business. We want the best and are willing to make a deal for the right price. What makes the opposition supporters fear us, thus leading to the hate we have been receiving again in recent times (damn it feels good) is that Carlton seems to be viewed by a good number of players as the club to be at. We lost that I believe when we were winning spoons and arguing in the boardrooms amongst ourselves. Enter Dick Pratt and true Carlton soldiers like Stephen Kernahan who have dug in for the long haul and a small event that happened Oct 2007. Not just the fact that the once-in-a-generation player of his generation CHOSE our wonderful club over some smaller inferior clubs. It was when asked why he chose carlton, besides he couldn't say no to Dick (lol) I remember him stating he was really excited by the prospects of playing with such a young and talented list, being able to be part of something special from the start. Following year the big fish or big docker on the table was the #1 target of most clubs. He didn't want to go anywhere except Carlton. Some more hardball but we got our man. This year everyones talking about luke ball for #30. He can still consistently be a good player but he won't learn any new tricks at this stage of his career. Now Brock for #11. Risk? Yes. But you need to take a punt sometimes to get ahead. To hear he is training the house down and winning time trials makes me think it was a risk well worth taking. Obviously the kid has been injured and Ratts and Mark Riley would know the whole bio on the bloke and rate him high enough to give up our first round regardless if it was a weak draft or not. But throw in 2 potential 250+ gamers (KL, LH) and 2009 draft/trade week seems like once again the blue boys did well. The fev thing was out of our hands, he signed his own death warrant and we were left to try and get anything out of this mess. Well maybe not next season or the season after but when we're holding up the 17th cup with Lachie Henderson and Kane Lucas in the team and fev and the lions still don't have a premiership then I think they will finally understand we r*ped them on that deal.
Finally the whole reason I wanted to start this thread which ended up turning into a venting session after reading post after post about how we stuffed this up or we need that. Honestly some 'supporters' make it sound like we will struggle to kick 5 goals a game next year and Jarrad Waite is the only KPP player we have but do we put him up back or forward? Really the tigers board is where all the melodramatic attention seekers go. According to them I think they're gonna sneak into the 8 because over 3-4 months Hardwick is going to turn them from the biggest bunch of soft-***** in the a.f.l into this contested-ball winning/hard at it/tigers of old bunch and then Richo is going to come out of retirement to double his finals tally. Dustin Martin is going to win the brownlow and trent cotchin will play 1 game for the year but it will be the granny and he will win the norm smith. They will then rest him till 2011 granny where after 1 full season under hardwick they will be like twice as tough as geelong....
sorry guys more venting. But thats what some of you guys make yourselves sound like. Richmond is just the easiest to take the piss out of. But in Carlton terms its like ..... Without fevola they will struggle to kick any goals, they have no defence at all, their mids are all downhill skiers there is no player on the list over 195 cm. Everyone has an opinion just like me but honestly guys most of this stuff is out of our control, you'll live longer thinking positive rather than negative. It also helps to understand no matter how much we all love it at the end of the day its a game. No one hurts more than the 22 guys in those blue jumpers when 'we' kose, when THEY lose. I do it to but as much as we hurt and cry (4th qtr final flashbacks coming back) the boys wearing those jumpers hurt 100 fold. So that reason ....
I think we have a very high number of A-B grade footballers on our list with the potential to have more develop in the upcoming premierships years.
This is as unbias as i can be. Opposition supporters can just piss off. LOL. or at least be constructive.
A+ : Chris Judd
A: Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs
A- : Jarrad Waite
B+ : Matthew Kreuzer, Brett Thornton, Kade Simpson
B: Paul Bower, Eddie Betts, Andrew Carrazzo, Brock McLean
B- : Michael Jamison, Jordan Russell, Andrew Walker
C+ : Shaun Grigg, Simon Wiggins, Dennis Armfield, Mark Austin, Setanta, Richard Hadley
1-3 yr players not rated but could easily make the grade in next 1-2 seasons (Kreuze is a freak ok) : Robert Warnock, Aaron Joseph, Kane Lucas, Rhys O'Keefe, Marucs Davies, Mitch Robinson, Jeff Garlett
Special mention to Sean Hampson IMO he's prob a C atm but this kid could be anything. The agility and speed he has for someone with his body. Its a very very big call but I can really see Hammer in another 1-3 seasons blossoming into a Kouta type Ruck Man. This guy can run down the fastest mids in the comp, has 3rd and 4th efforts, Runs and leaps like a gazelle. Once the marks start sticking and kicks start coming off the boot nicely Sean Hampson can revolutionize the definition of agile big man.
Special Special mention to one Chris Yarran. I believe Chris Yarran will one day be an A+ footballer not only for the blues but in the whole a.f.l comp.
He just has it like when u saw cyril for the first time do something and you were like 'how'd he do that?'. just like when u saw nick riewoldt take his first mark running back into a pack at 19 years old. Its the constitution ... Its Mabo .. Its the vibe. Chris Yarran just has it. He glides across the turf he doesnt run. If ever i was ready to wait and see the finished product it is Chris Yarran. Think the excitement of Leon Davis with the poise and class of Andrew Mcleod combined. He just offers us something different from what we have already. I'm sure we're just waiting for him to have a few good pre-seasons before he starts getting big stints in the midfield. But with the ball winning powers of our current mids being able to feed it to the likes of a Yaz or O'Keefe to put it on the chest of our forwards. That's our bright future.
If u actually read this cheers. Thoughts?
Regardless where you sit in the KPP debate I think it is tough to not acknowledge our list is def top 8 in the a.f.l with no limitations on where it could end up. Talent wise we could easily have a top 4 list but just as easy as it is for me to imagine guys like Paul Bower and Shaun Hampson taking the next step for arguments sake I'll just rate them on their current progress as players.
I personally do not believe we have a shortage of talls/KPP players. No more than any other club in the competition. As many long time posters have pointed out, the fact is we have a number of KPP players, particularly down back. So much so I see our backline being a major strength for us once they've hit that 80 - 100 game mark TOGETHER. With continued development of our midfield defensive pressure its not crazy to assume within 2-3 seasons we could have the #1 defense. That is also taking into account the current best defensive units (cats, aints) will be on the downward slide by that time.
The argument about who will kick our goals I find one of the most ridiculous going around atm. Sure Brendan Fevola was a superstar of the game, but while fevolution was doing his thing we had a 1 dimensional forward line. How do the doggies ever win games? Going by the logic of some of the posters on this board they're all a bunch of short people. They may as well just give up at centre bounces because they don't have a 205cm guy to play ruck. How did collingwood get to a prelim last year without any KPP forward talent? John Anthony + Travis Cloke more effective then the fev? How on earth did the cats win the flag without anyone kickong 60+ goals? 50+? nope. 41,39,30. Top 3 season goal kickers for the cats. All forwards. Murph kicked 30 goals mostly in the midfield. Ratts will be prepared for life AD (after ********). We will have 4-5 options up forward rather than 1-2. Fev had the ball delivered on a platter 8/10 times the last couple of seasons but it would seem like a lot less by the way he carries on when a kick doesn't go lace out to his chest. We will have ALL forward players committed to the defensive pressure that's required by forwards in the modern game, not just when chasing suits them. FWIW Fev chasing down Andrew Mackie vs cats last year was one of the greatest feelings I had during the season, prob because the fev pulls one of those TEAM acts out twice a year just to let u know he can do it, when he wants to. But acquiring a young, highly rated KPP forward Lachie Henderson at least gives us the replacement piece for our forward line. Yes he hasn't played much senior football yet but when you are considered the long term replacement for one of the modern great centre half forwards you gotta have something going for you. By all reports and pictures the kid will be fine. Its exciting to not quite know what we're going to get next season. Sure we could LOSE some games (god forbid) but even if we still had #25 we we're prob still only 4th-6th in line for the cup. With a new structure and young players we may fall to 6th-10th for the cup but you know what? Come prime time 2012-2016 our boys are going to be like a navy blue machine crushing any that dare to stand in the way. Hey I'm not against us stealing the 17th before then but looking at how young our list is we still got to give the boys time to fully understand their capabilities/limitations.
I would like to thank the club with how we used our 3 #1's and high draft picks in recent seasons but I think our rookies would give all those 1st round picks a run for their money. Aaron Joseph, Michael Jamison, Andrew Carrazzo, Sam Jacobs, Setanta, T-Bird. O.k maybe not but taking into account Mitch Robinson (#40) Kade Simpson (#45) Dennis Armfield (#46) M. Davies and so on and so forth. Just typing this up and researching the info I see this pattern with our first round picks we just go for the talent, the guys dripping with class etc etc But in our 3rd round - Rookie selections we actually have the guts of our team. The guys we want to go into the trenches with, the tough guys. Obviously there is a lot more in-depth explanation to do with our reasons for drafting every player on our list, something a lot of you guys prob know a lot more about than me. All in all IMO I couldnt be happier how we've drafted + traded recently.
Just briefly on the trade situation there will always be some trades that work and some that dont. Thats the nature of the beast, only in video games can u always get the better of the trade. Clubs like Man U, Real Madrid, Lakers, Yankees etc These teams have made some of the worst trades/deals in history yet they still manage to find themselves at the top of the tree. Besides having limitless credit and different salary cap restrictions what the Carlton Football Club has in common with the world super sporting clubs and has shown the other 15-16-17 clubs is that, We do business. We want the best and are willing to make a deal for the right price. What makes the opposition supporters fear us, thus leading to the hate we have been receiving again in recent times (damn it feels good) is that Carlton seems to be viewed by a good number of players as the club to be at. We lost that I believe when we were winning spoons and arguing in the boardrooms amongst ourselves. Enter Dick Pratt and true Carlton soldiers like Stephen Kernahan who have dug in for the long haul and a small event that happened Oct 2007. Not just the fact that the once-in-a-generation player of his generation CHOSE our wonderful club over some smaller inferior clubs. It was when asked why he chose carlton, besides he couldn't say no to Dick (lol) I remember him stating he was really excited by the prospects of playing with such a young and talented list, being able to be part of something special from the start. Following year the big fish or big docker on the table was the #1 target of most clubs. He didn't want to go anywhere except Carlton. Some more hardball but we got our man. This year everyones talking about luke ball for #30. He can still consistently be a good player but he won't learn any new tricks at this stage of his career. Now Brock for #11. Risk? Yes. But you need to take a punt sometimes to get ahead. To hear he is training the house down and winning time trials makes me think it was a risk well worth taking. Obviously the kid has been injured and Ratts and Mark Riley would know the whole bio on the bloke and rate him high enough to give up our first round regardless if it was a weak draft or not. But throw in 2 potential 250+ gamers (KL, LH) and 2009 draft/trade week seems like once again the blue boys did well. The fev thing was out of our hands, he signed his own death warrant and we were left to try and get anything out of this mess. Well maybe not next season or the season after but when we're holding up the 17th cup with Lachie Henderson and Kane Lucas in the team and fev and the lions still don't have a premiership then I think they will finally understand we r*ped them on that deal.
Finally the whole reason I wanted to start this thread which ended up turning into a venting session after reading post after post about how we stuffed this up or we need that. Honestly some 'supporters' make it sound like we will struggle to kick 5 goals a game next year and Jarrad Waite is the only KPP player we have but do we put him up back or forward? Really the tigers board is where all the melodramatic attention seekers go. According to them I think they're gonna sneak into the 8 because over 3-4 months Hardwick is going to turn them from the biggest bunch of soft-***** in the a.f.l into this contested-ball winning/hard at it/tigers of old bunch and then Richo is going to come out of retirement to double his finals tally. Dustin Martin is going to win the brownlow and trent cotchin will play 1 game for the year but it will be the granny and he will win the norm smith. They will then rest him till 2011 granny where after 1 full season under hardwick they will be like twice as tough as geelong....
sorry guys more venting. But thats what some of you guys make yourselves sound like. Richmond is just the easiest to take the piss out of. But in Carlton terms its like ..... Without fevola they will struggle to kick any goals, they have no defence at all, their mids are all downhill skiers there is no player on the list over 195 cm
. Everyone has an opinion just like me but honestly guys most of this stuff is out of our control, you'll live longer thinking positive rather than negative. It also helps to understand no matter how much we all love it at the end of the day its a game. No one hurts more than the 22 guys in those blue jumpers when 'we' kose, when THEY lose. I do it to but as much as we hurt and cry (4th qtr final flashbacks coming back) the boys wearing those jumpers hurt 100 fold. So that reason ....I think we have a very high number of A-B grade footballers on our list with the potential to have more develop in the upcoming premierships years.
This is as unbias as i can be. Opposition supporters can just piss off. LOL. or at least be constructive.
A+ : Chris Judd
A: Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs
A- : Jarrad Waite
B+ : Matthew Kreuzer, Brett Thornton, Kade Simpson
B: Paul Bower, Eddie Betts, Andrew Carrazzo, Brock McLean
B- : Michael Jamison, Jordan Russell, Andrew Walker
C+ : Shaun Grigg, Simon Wiggins, Dennis Armfield, Mark Austin, Setanta, Richard Hadley
1-3 yr players not rated but could easily make the grade in next 1-2 seasons (Kreuze is a freak ok) : Robert Warnock, Aaron Joseph, Kane Lucas, Rhys O'Keefe, Marucs Davies, Mitch Robinson, Jeff Garlett
Special mention to Sean Hampson IMO he's prob a C atm but this kid could be anything. The agility and speed he has for someone with his body. Its a very very big call but I can really see Hammer in another 1-3 seasons blossoming into a Kouta type Ruck Man. This guy can run down the fastest mids in the comp, has 3rd and 4th efforts, Runs and leaps like a gazelle. Once the marks start sticking and kicks start coming off the boot nicely Sean Hampson can revolutionize the definition of agile big man.
Special Special mention to one Chris Yarran. I believe Chris Yarran will one day be an A+ footballer not only for the blues but in the whole a.f.l comp.
He just has it like when u saw cyril for the first time do something and you were like 'how'd he do that?'. just like when u saw nick riewoldt take his first mark running back into a pack at 19 years old. Its the constitution ... Its Mabo .. Its the vibe. Chris Yarran just has it. He glides across the turf he doesnt run. If ever i was ready to wait and see the finished product it is Chris Yarran. Think the excitement of Leon Davis with the poise and class of Andrew Mcleod combined. He just offers us something different from what we have already. I'm sure we're just waiting for him to have a few good pre-seasons before he starts getting big stints in the midfield. But with the ball winning powers of our current mids being able to feed it to the likes of a Yaz or O'Keefe to put it on the chest of our forwards. That's our bright future.
If u actually read this cheers. Thoughts?
