Opinion The 'Carlton related stuff that doesn't need it's own thread' thread

[Bamboo Harvester]

Was Aunti Marj the famous Norm Smith's wife ?

Yep....she was actually his great Auntie, but was just a beautiful person.

Norm Smith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We can actually thank Ray "Slug" Jordan for Harmesy being at Carlton. Ron Barassi was personal friends with the Harmes family through his association with Norm Smith, and knew how good Wayne was. He sent Slug down to a game that we were playing in as juniors, and reported back to Barassi that he wanted to recruit both him and I (although I was no-where near his standard).

We both lived in the same street which was in the Carlton zone, so North actually couldn't recruit him back in the days when there was zoning....if he was on the other side of the street, he would have been wearing North Melbourne colours.

Slug actually called Carlton to tell them about this kid....the rest is history.

True story.

 

[footyfan1978]

Yep....she was actually his great Auntie, but was just a beautiful person.

View attachment 857980

Norm Smith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We can actually thank Ray "Slug" Jordan for Harmesy being at Carlton. Ron Barassi was personal friends with the Harmes family through his association with Norm Smith, and knew how good Wayne was. He sent Slug down to a game that we were playing in as juniors, and reported back to Barassi that he wanted to recruit both him and I (although I was no-where near his standard).

We both lived in the same street which was in the Carlton zone, so North actually couldn't recruit him back in the days when there was zoning....if he was on the other side of the street, he would have been wearing North Melbourne colours.

Slug actually called Carlton to tell them about this kid....the rest is history.

True story.

Slug Jordan such a super football character we lost. "They got to take the boy off"

 

[Bamboo Harvester]

Slug Jordan such a super football character we lost. "They got to take the boy off"

Just one last story now I'm on a roll.

I can't remember the context, but Wayne and myself went down to watch a North Melbourne training session early in 75' down at Arden St when they became a powerhouse. We were only 14 or 15 at the time.

It may have been pre-season cos it was a warm sunny day, but at the end of the training session, Barassi came over and asked if we wanted to join in with some end to end kicks....back in the days when players did that at the end of training.

I recall that I was up one end alongside players like Briedis and Blight and Greig....totally starstruck. Harmesy was up the other end, and I was thinking "good luck to all you other poor ****ers!!!" He was outmarking and outkicking a number of them...I think they were getting a bit pissed off with this little fat kid after a while

 

[thylacine60]

My sense is, you helped him be the chunky fellow he was.
How many times as a kid, did you say to Wayne, lets grab a donut as we pass the local milk bar? Fess up...

How many times as young adult did you encourage Wayne to have a few more Bacardi's 2 am Sunday morning ?

Did you steal us having a fit Wayne in 1986 ?

Did YOU cost us the 1986 premiership ?

royal commission please......stat......

 

[Accidental genius]

Just one last story now I'm on a roll.

I can't remember the context, but Wayne and myself went down to watch a North Melbourne training session early in 75' down at Arden St when they became a powerhouse. We were only 14 or 15 at the time.

It may have been pre-season cos it was a warm sunny day, but at the end of the training session, Barassi came over and asked if we wanted to join in with some end to end kicks....back in the days when players did that at the end of training.

I recall that I was up one end alongside players like Briedis and Blight and Greig....totally starstruck. Harmesy was up the other end, and I was thinking "good luck to all you other poor ****ers!!!" He was outmarking and outkicking a number of them...I think they were getting a bit pissed off with this little fat kid after a while

These are great stories BH. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Dadda Dave]

That ball was soooo out

What game did you watch ..no where near it ..

 

[Jeremias]

I was lucky enough to speak with Wayne Harmes a few years back.

Of course, asked him about that incident...

He doesn't reckon the ball was out, but he's not sure the bloke in the 3rd row he nearly hit whilst punching the ball agrees.

 

[Aphrodite]

The ball was OUT FFS







Was there!

 

[Aphrodite]

FOXFOOTY put the footage through their footy lab and gave it the full “Matrix” treatment and confirmed it was in, pretty sure Aphrodite posted this footage somewhere a year or so ago.

I would NEVER ever post footage of the ball being in.

It was OUT!

 

[Yubby]

Not sure if this is the right place for it but just watched the 5 min flashback video to 2000 when we played Port. Was great seeing how dominant we were back then!

AFL Video - AFL.com.au

Watch all the latest AFL videos including match highlights, match replays, match analysis and AFL Fantasy

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Just quietly would love to see O'Brien start to play like campo used to... his ball use (kicking) and straight line running such a feature. All O'Brien needs is perhaps some tickets on himself to get there!

 

[Red Bull]

It was a classic Catch 22....he became injury prone largely because he was carrying extra weight...and when he was injured, he tended to eat and get on the Bacardi's too much. You gotta remember it was very different back in those days with diet and recovery....and a different club culture.

He was always chunky as a junior, but I got to see first hand how amazing he was a kid. He went to Carlton Under 19's half way through the season in 1975 as a 15yo, and finished 3rd in their B&F that year in just half a season....AND only missed his junior league's B&F by a few votes for the first half of the season. Scored 3 votes in every game he played that year in the junior league!! That's how good he was....

I won't keep prattling on, but I always remember the day that season before he went to Carlton, when we were playing against Corpus Christi on the Oak Park ground. We were down by 7 odd goals at three quarter time, and he kicked 8 goals in the final quarter to win us the game...from the midfield!!! For those in the know, Stan Gilday was playing for the opposition that day.

 

[thylacine60]

Just one last story now I'm on a roll.

I can't remember the context, but Wayne and myself went down to watch a North Melbourne training session early in 75' down at Arden St when they became a powerhouse. We were only 14 or 15 at the time.

It may have been pre-season cos it was a warm sunny day, but at the end of the training session, Barassi came over and asked if we wanted to join in with some end to end kicks....back in the days when players did that at the end of training.

I recall that I was up one end alongside players like Briedis and Blight and Greig....totally starstruck. Harmesy was up the other end, and I was thinking "good luck to all you other poor ****ers!!!" He was outmarking and outkicking a number of them...I think they were getting a bit pissed off with this little fat kid after a while

How did you allow him to become such a rabid Tigers supporter?

 

[Pablito]

FOXFOOTY put the footage through their footy lab and gave it the full “Matrix” treatment and confirmed it was in, pretty sure Aphrodite posted this footage somewhere a year or so ago.

Matrix pfft, I'll trust the memory of my 50 something year old father over technology and science every day of the week.

 

[Accidental genius]

Five years, four head coaches and two CEOs: The verdict on Carlton’s 66-game rebuild

Five years, four head coaches and two CEOs: The verdict on Carlton’s 66-game rebuild

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Metalcrusher]

Five years, four head coaches and two CEOs: The verdict on Carlton’s 66-game rebuild

Five years, four head coaches and two CEOs: The verdict on Carlton’s 66-game rebuild

www.foxsports.com.au

The summation is spot on (at the end of the article). We are short 3-4 quality midfielders more …. THAT CAN HIT TARGETS IN NAVY BLUE STRIPS.

 

[Gethelred]

The summation is spot on (at the end of the article). We are short 3-4 quality midfielders more …. THAT CAN HIT TARGETS IN NAVY BLUE STRIPS.

I'd argue we always knew we would be, given how SOS structured our rebuild in terms of what positions he got in first.

KPP are harder to get, and harder to get right. We've time to play around with some smalls, provided the new list management team (in the wake of the coronavirus) can finish the job and work towards building the midfield around the talls.

 

[Accidental genius]

The summation is spot on (at the end of the article). We are short 3-4 quality midfielders more …. THAT CAN HIT TARGETS IN NAVY BLUE STRIPS.

I posted it before reading it. Bit of an empty article actually. It was only worth reading the last several sentences re summation. Even then nothing special. Its clear we need midfielders.

 

[Metalcrusher]

I'd argue we always knew we would be, given how SOS structured our rebuild in terms of what positions he got in first.

KPP are harder to get, and harder to get right. We've time to play around with some smalls, provided the new list management team (in the wake of the coronavirus) can finish the job and work towards building the midfield around the talls.

We don't have that much time Gerty. Maybe 2 years max to get the midfield group functioning as a cohesive attacking and defending unit that can hit up targets inside F50..

 

[Gethelred]

We don't have that much time Gerty. Maybe 2 years max to get the midfield group functioning as a cohesive attacking and defending unit that can hit up targets inside F50..

See, that's the funny thing. You'd have thought Richmond were up shit creek in 2016; they'd just gotten rid of Deledio, their best player and match winner, the whole squad couldn't hit a target to save themselves, and their only gameplan was 'Give it to Dusty'.

We're not Richmond, but there's a theme around the clubs that have gone on to become pinnacles of the comp; you look at Geelong, circa 2000-2004, Hawthorn 2006-2010, Richmond 2014-16, and you see clubs that looked like they had their run, and they were done. You look at Adelaide, 2015-18, us 2009-2012, Essendon 2010-2013, St Kilda 2007-2011 and you see these teams falling back down. What's the difference between them and the first case?

The key here is twofold; one, gameplan, and two list management. In each of the first cases, they underwent reviews, they purged coaches who were not up to snuff and they drafted, developed and delisted players that allowed them to take that next step; they each developed gameplans based around the competitive advantage each had over their opponents (Geelong, size and power; Hawthorn quality of disposal; Richmond, repeat sprinting) and they worked towards a specific end goal that wasn't a flag but made flags a byproduct of getting there.

In each of the second cases, each club strove to take the next step purely with the players they had, and got burnt because they stayed stagnant. Retaining what they had out of fear of failure kept them from looking over each step comprehensively, and kept them from taking calculated risks. St Kilda is probably the posterchild of this particular approach; so sure they were that they had 'it' under Lyon, that they comprehensively ignored the draft almost for a 5 year period. Central to Geelong's flag tilts was the development of Taylor, Varcoe, Selwood; we can make these analysis' for each of the three successful clubs. Who can we, or Essendon, or St Kilda, or Adelaide point to from their pushes to add another dynamic, or to move things along?

The timeline has always - in my opinion, Crush - been that this season, we would begin to see a glimpse of what we could do. Give or take either side of 10 wins. We have - to a certain extent - a competitive advantage, one that I've been hammering on about for a while (contested marking). As things stand, we can play our games the way Adelaide did between 2014 and 2017, in which they faked a competent midfield by using flankers; we can cover our lack of forward pockets and outside mids by smashing teams around the ball, and playing chaos ball with every single repeat entry, as we did late last season. They didn't have the cattle, and we don't yet either. But it takes longer to really become that consistent top 4 threat than everyone thinks.

It took Richmond 10-12 years from the first player they got in to their club to build for 2017. It took Geelong roughly that time as well. Hawthorn pinched one in '08, but if you skip that you'll see that it took them about that too from 2004-05 to 2013 onwards. It's about whole club reformation, and that can't be done overnight or fast-tracked.

If we started our rebuild in 2015-16, and we follow the standard timelines, we're looking at breakthrough hopefully in 2025-26, but there are no guarantees in footy. If a silver lining to that particular cloud's what you want, though, there's a fair few wins on the way before that, as all clubs mentioned were consistently in finals for their first tilt. It isn't about how you go the first time around; you could pinch a flag (Bulldogs, Hawthorn) or you couldn't. It's in how your club and your list responds to that first hurdle, and whether it encourages introspection or complacency.

 

[Jeremias]

We don't have that much time Gerty. Maybe 2 years max to get the midfield group functioning as a cohesive attacking and defending unit that can hit up targets inside F50..

Two years max?

Where have you pulled that number from?

In two years our current young key position players will be -

Weitering - 24
McKay - 24
Curnow - 25
De Koning - 22

I'd say we have a lot longer than the next 2 years to get things right. We are incredibly well set up and should be for a while yet, unless we shit the bed or luck completely deserts us.

 

[Accidental genius]

We winning our next flag with Cripps or not? He will be 30 by 2025.

 

[Metalcrusher]

We winning our next flag with Cripps or not? He will be 30 by 2025.

I have told a few people here that Crippa will not wait around that long, take him out of the midfield and then have a good hard look at the stocks.

 

[Metalcrusher]

Two years max?

Where have you pulled that number from?

In two years our current young key position players will be -

Weitering - 24
McKay - 24
Curnow - 25
De Koning - 22

I'd say we have a lot longer than the next 2 years to get things right. We are incredibly well set up and should be for a while yet, unless we shit the bed or luck completely deserts us.

Where is the midfield coming from Jera?

 

[Gethelred]

We winning our next flag with Cripps or not? He will be 30 by 2025.

I certainly hope so, but Richmond thought that they couldn't win one without Deledio either.

Not to say that Deledio = Cripps, but overreliance on a player to rise when you need to rise (St Kilda and Nick Riewoldt, Richmond and Deledio, WC and Matthew Priddis, us and Judd) leads to your team being simple to shut down and your side always looking to them to provide that spark. Richmond look to Dusty now, sure, but they also look to Prestia, Cotchin, Edwards, Houli. Deledio leaving made them a good deal less one dimensional.

It's never going to be a popular thing to say or suggest, but as I said before there are no guarantees in footy. The rough timeline is generally about 10 years, and it really depends on how soon you can get to the first tilt then how you recover from failing. If we can make it to finals and break through ahead of schedule (which can be done) then it could be as soon as 5-6 years; if it doesn't go to plan quite, then it could be as long as 12 and Cripps would be 32.

In any case, he will have been a cornerstone of turning this club around, a club captain and a 300 game player. That's not nothing.

 

[Bamboo Harvester]

How did you allow him to become such a rabid Tigers supporter?

How did you know he was a Tigers supporter? Great pick up!! His grandfather Len Smith coached them back in the 60's so he was brainwashed at an early age.

When we were little kids he wore a Richmond jumper with #29 on the back....ironically his first senior game as a 17yo was an Escort Cup game on a cold Tuesday night, against Richmond. Yep, played back pocket on KB in his first game.

I had a Carlton jumper with #25 on the back....and my first senior game was on....oh, hang on