Carlton president Mark LoGiudice admits Blues’ rebuild is at its ‘toughest point’
CARLTON president Mark LoGiudice admits the Blues’ ongoing rebuild is at its “toughest point” and has been “hard to take” but is backing his team to lead the club out of the woods.
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CARLTON president Mark LoGiudice says the club is at the “toughest point” of its long-term rebuild of the football club.
But he has urged fans to trust the process.
“We’re at the toughest point of our strategy,” LoGiudice told the Herald Sun.
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“This year has been a little bit tougher than expected because we’ve had injuries as well, not excuses, these are just reasons.
“It’s not a surprise and performances like that at the weekend are hard to cop.
“But we are backing our plan and the people in it 110 per cent.”
The embattled Blues have won one game in 2018 and just two of its past 22 matches, prompting fury from fans and past players at the weekend, led by premiership player and coach Robert Walls and former captain Mark Maclure.
The Blues kicked just seven behinds in the first half and rallied to finish with 6.10 against Fremantle on Saturday. They lost by 57 points.
Their only win came against Essendon in Round 8.
“I feel it as much as everyone does, our board feels it as much as everyone else does, we’re all Carlton supporters and members, we all feel it, but we must back the plan we started with,” LoGiudice said.
“It will all turn around and we will be writing a different story at some point in time in the future.
“But it is hard to take in the meantime.”
Two of Carlton’s most influential players, Sam Docherty (knee) and skipper Marc Murphy (foot) have missed a bundle of games. Docherty will be out for the season.
Murphy’s future at the club remains a strong talking point as he weighs up free agency.
At the weekend, Maclure called the first-half performance against the Dockers one of the worst he had seen by a Carlton side, while Walls was critical of the majority of journeyman players recruited to support the youth.
LoGiudice described the first half as unacceptable.
“There is no doubt Saturday’s performance was unacceptable, it was disappointing,” he said.
He also acknowledged the frustration from fans and some past players.
“I’m frustrated, too, as a member, but we have to stick to our plan and strategy,” he said.
He said he never questioned whether the club had the right people in senior positions.
“You can’t look at one game … and that was tough by the way, that game was tough.”
To the fact the Blues had won two games in their past 22 matches, LoGiudice said: “That’s also tough, very tough, absolutely.
“But we always said we were going to three drafts. We always knew this year was going to be the toughest year because it’s the year that we would have the most amount of new players on our list.”
The Blues will go to the national draft again this year and have also earmarked being aggressive in free agency, headlined by West Coast pair Andrew Gaff and Jeremy McGovern.
“We will get the right balance between the draft and free agents,” LoGiudice said.
“That is the strategy and we’re not budging.”
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