How Stephen Silvagni has helped drag Carlton’s list out of a deep dark black hole
CARLTON could have been on its knees if not for two successful drafts. JON RALPH on the man helping turn things around, and how the Blues are tracking to success. SEE THEIR RECENT DRAFTS
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IT is the recruiting black hole that could have brought Carlton to its knees.
Eight years of drafting and trading that secured the Blues a collection of list cloggers, draft busts and the odd star.
Fittingly, when all else failed they turned to a club legend with the nickname “SOS”.
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Carlton needed saving and in just two trade and draft cycles, list boss Stephen Silvagni has done extremely well to begin turning the ship around.
And yet Carlton’s latest bout of delistings this week laid bare the dramatic extent of the list overhaul.
The Blues have turned over 64 players in five years, effectively turning over their entire list one and a half times in that period.
In the national draft and trade periods from 2007-2014, Carlton recruited 58 players.
Stunningly, only nine of them remain on their list.
They are players who should be filling out the middle core of the list in the perfect age bracket of 21-28.
Of the 33 rookies taken in that period only Levi Casboult, Ed Curnow and Ciaran Byrne remain at Carlton.
Thank goodness for the last two drafts and names like Jacob Weitering, Charlie Curnow, Jack Silvagni and Sam Petrevski-Seton.
But while Carlton still has several years of development before it challenges, the surprise is that it is as close as it is to respectability.
In the past two drafts Carlton has drafted 11 players who all have a chance at being 150-game players or more.
The Bryce Gibbs trade hands the Blues a draft hand with picks three and 10, plus Greater Western Sydney midfielder Matthew Kennedy and Geelong’s Darcy Lang.
The optimists will say under Brendon Bolton success isn’t far away, the cynics that the Blues are still a mile off finals.
What is not in question is the train wreck that was Carlton’s 2007-2014 period of list management.
Blaine Boekhorst’s delisting this week made official the 2014 national draft as an unmitigated disaster.
Famously the Blues traded pick 7 for Giants swingman Kristian Jaksch and pick 19, used to select WAFL midfielder Boekhorst.
The Blues then took Dillon Viojo-Rainbow (pick 28), Clem Smith (pick 60), Jayden Foster (pick 71), free agent Matthew Dick, traded pick 46 (Caleb Daniel) for Mark Whiley and Jones.
Now only Jones remains.
Since then Carlton’s team has nailed two drafts that also included bringing in eight more GWS players apart from Whiley, since delisted.
They clearly bring depth in a team crying out for bodies that can execute Bolton’s game plan.
Caleb Marchbank looks a 10-year centre half back, Jarrod Pickett a livewire crumber, Jed Lamb and Lachie Plowman solid role players.
Whiley, Jaksch, Rhys Palmer and Liam Sumner are gone, with Phillips injured for much of this season after a serviceable 16-game 2016 season.
So how far is Carlton away from surging up the charts?
The defence is clearly the strongest line, with Jones, Jacob Weitering, Marchbank, Kade Simpson, Sam Docherty and Sam Rowe all mixing and matching.
Gibbs’ departure leaves the midfield a little thin, but if Matthew Kreuzer, Patrick Cripps, Marc Murphy, Kennedy, Ed Curnow, Petreveski-Seton, Lang and Kerridge stay fit it is at least building in momentum.
The front six is clearly the line in most need of patience, with Harry McKay a two-gamer, Curnow a freak who still needs time and Levi Casboult’s best year in footy still only bringing 34 goals.
With two more successful drafts this will be a list Blues fans believe is going places.
jon.ralph@news.com.au
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