Carlton review: Sam Petrevski-Seton has fight on his hands to resurrect career at Blues
Sam Petrevski-Seton’s future hangs in the balance with the Blues, but it’s a lack of action elsewhere which is hindering the midfielder’s prospects of staying at the Blues.
Carlton
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Sam Petrevski-Seton’s future at Carlton is uncertain amid a continued absence from the senior team and a lack of midfield opportunities.
The No. 6 selection from the 2016 national draft has not played seniors since Round 8, with his last two games played off the bench as the medi-sub.
The Blues had attempted to rejig his role by pushing him into the half forward-midfield rotation but he has fallen out of selection favour.
While Carlton wants to maximise his strengths they also believe he needs to get fitter to play in their permanent midfield rotation.
A player who averaged 10 centre bounces per game in Brendon Bolton’s side last year then attended only six in total from Round 1, 2020 to Round 5 this year under David Teague.
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It is understood Petrevski-Seton loves Carlton and is happy in Melbourne but in a contract year is being starved of chances to shine as a midfielder.
The 23-year-old was moved into the half-forward-midfield rotation from his customary spot off half back and took his chance when he impressed when replacing the injured Paddy Dow in Round 7.
But he played 18 minutes as the medi-sub the following week and has not been seen at AFL level since then.
His hope had been to remain at Carlton but if his situation does not change in the next 10 weeks there is a real prospect he could be elsewhere next year.
Rivals will consider whether they can kickstart the career of a player who took part in 64 of a possible 66 games in his first three seasons.
As clubs hit the mid-season bye and consider players lacking opportunity at rival clubs his name will be sure to feature.
The Blues are starting a whole-of-club review that will focus on every area including maximising the development of their top 10 picks, including Petrevski-Seton, Paddy Dow and Lochie O’Brien.
Petrevski-Seton is one of many players across the league who are being robbed of chances to break back into senior teams given the lack of VFL football.
No Melbourne teams will take part in the VFL again this weekend, which was cancelled on Thursday for a second straight week.
Apart from his 18 minutes as a medi-sub he has played a single game in the VFL since that Essendon contest five weeks ago.
Just as players found it hard to break into teams last year in hubs playing 14-a-side scrimmages the last month has provided few chances for Victorian sides.
Have bumbling Blues cost themselves key target?
Carlton will attempt to broker a mega-deal with Harry McKay in coming weeks while saddled with an extraordinary $4 million contract for Mitch McGovern that has two seasons to run.
The Blues are set to kick off contract talks with McKay’s manager David Trotter this week, with the star goalkicker’s camp dealing exclusively with Carlton despite outside interest.
While terms and tenure are yet to be thrashed out, a two-year deal of up to $2 million would take him through to free agency — eight seasons served.
He has so far rebuffed a four-year contract at the Dockers, and would likely only sign a two-year extension if he remained out west.
But the full scope of McGovern’s contract can be revealed, with confusion about the length of his contract when he signed at Carlton.
The deal extends to a full five seasons and while some of that money is front-ended, he is due an average of $800,000 per season across the five-year deal.
Carlton list boss Steve Silvagni was forced to offer a five-year deal when a disgruntled McGovern wanted out from Adelaide, with the high-leaping forward going from a contender to a rebuilding team.
The Blues always believed they would take time to build a midfield that would help service McGovern, Charlie Curnow and McKay.
But after the best pre-season of his three years at Carlton McGovern battled back and hamstring issues, returned in Round 5 and then suffered a serious hamstring injury after four goals in three games.
Carlton list manager Steve Silvagni said when the club recruited him he would complement the club’s existing forwards.
“He’s got a great pair of hands and we’ve all seen how accurate he is in front of goal, so we’re excited to see what he can produce alongside our young forwards that we’ve drafted in Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay and Tom De Koning,” he said.
“After going to the draft for the past three years, we’ve been vocal about our need to start recruiting players within that 23- to 27-year age bracket and Mitch fits that profile. At 23 years old, he’s got a lot of footy in front of him and we hope he’ll be a long-term player for our club.“
McGovern is back running and attempting to ramp up his training for a return in coming weeks.
The Blues secured Zac Williams on a five-year deal that is worth more than $800,000.
The Blues have always maintained that deal is closer to $800,000 per season.
But North Melbourne was the underbidder and was told their $800,000 offer was $100,000 short of the Carlton offer if incentives and bonuses were factored in.
Carlton has been able to front-end many of those deals given it had ample salary cap room, so while its cap is tight this year it has the capacity to bring in another player.
Players on more than $600,000 a season would include Jack Martin, Adam Saad, Patrick Cripps, Charlie Curnow, Williams, and likely best-and-fairest winner Jacob Weitering.
Sam Walsh is in the third year of a current two-year extension but as the club’s most dynamic player will surely be set for a massive extension well before his contract expires in 2023.
Carlton traded its third-round pick to Gold Coast as part of a pick swap last year but otherwise has its first and second-round picks, currently at No. 5 and 23.
360 VIEW: TEAGUE IN DANGER IF BLUES SLIDE CONTINUES
David Teague’s Carlton are playing the kind of football that will get him sacked at the end of the year if he doesn’t arrest the tailspin.
The time to make changes is now.
The coach is always the one in the gun, and history shows the vast majority of coaches in Teague’s predicament ultimately take the fall.
But Simon Goodwin didn’t last year, and Damien Hardwick didn’t at the end of 2016.
They made significant changes to the way they did business and their team played, and lived to fight another day.
Goodwin’s changes came after the side slumped to 3-5 last year, albeit in a team that has more talent than Carlton.
But no one truly believes Carlton’s issues are purely talent-based.
Not with players of the calibre of Sam Walsh, Jacob Weitering, Patrick Cripps, Adam Saad, Liam Jones and Sam Docherty in their side.
Melbourne are 17-4 since those honesty sessions where the players truly committed to a defensive mindset, and truly committed to being selfless on the field.
So what can Carlton do right now and in the off-season to save its coach and set itself up for a 2022 resurgence.
1. DEFENSIVE INTENT
Teague admitted the club had to review its brand to see what held up after the West Coast loss, saying the coaching department was “tweaking” its style all the time.
Time to get fair dinkum.
As he said in his press conference, “no doubt our fans are flat and frustrated”.
So much of it revolves around watching a talented team bleed scores by the week when the individuals in that side – Weitering, Jones, Saad, Docherty (now on a wing) have so much talent.
The TV shows feast on clips of Carlton players being outworked in transition run, while they show similar vision of Essendon players like Mason Redman absolutely busting a gut to sprint back and get in the leading lanes of the opposition.
It starts at the top, because Patrick Cripps is featured in many of those clips.
The fish rots at the head.
Is he prepared to give up 3-5 possessions as a pure ball hunter to lead by example with defensive intent.
Carlton often defends one-on-one, while rivals have sophisticated grid/zone/cluster formations that mean a single mistake or defensive breakdown doesn’t cost a goal.
If Teague can’t coach it, then the Blues have a serious problem.
2. WHO IS PETRACCA-FIT IN THIS TEAM?
Perhaps it’s all the hype surrounding their summer that allowed a sense of complacency to erode the program.
But Carlton has the best fitness man in the business in Andrew Russell, and yet even Teague admitted his side “hasn’t improved as much as we would have liked”.
Massive improvement comes from the kind of individual devotion to program transformed Petracca from a handy half forward to an aerobic beast.
Sam Walsh is that player at Carlton, but he arrived almost fully formed.
But Paddy Dow isn’t. Lochie O’Brien isn’t. Liam Stocker isn’t, with the hard ball-winning midfielder not yet fit enough to play big midfield minutes.
Will Setterfield changed his body shape and averaged 90 ranking points last year but has gone significantly backwards again with an average of 67 ranking points and 16 possessions in seven games.
Zac Williams isn’t, and maybe his body and achilles issues will never allow him to be that player. But apart from Harry McKay, it is hard to put a finger on which players have improved at Carlton this year.
3. GET TOUGH OR GET OUT OF THE MIDFIELD.
Carlton was beaten in the contest by a quasi-WAFL side with five of its best eight players out of the line-up.
They lost total clearances by an astonishing 37-24, centre clearances by 15-9 and the stoppage clearances by 22-15.
Teague said Subiaco … apologies, West Coast were “harder and tougher”.
What an indictment for a Blues side playing for their season.
Paddy Dow at least improved with six clearances (four in the centre square).
But a Blues team that has invested so much into early picks Stocker and Brodie Kemp, plus ex-Giants Matt Kennedy and Setterfield, has got very little bang for buck from that quartet.
Carlton remains a low-tackling, low-pressure team.
Sam Docherty is now playing wing, but he’s had two tackles in two weeks.
Teague said when Lachie Plowman was suspended he would cop those kinds of absences so his players kept playing hard.
But while Saad’s contest that saw Brad Sheppard concussed was exceptional, Carlton doesn’t exactly have a long list of tough players.
4. TIME TO POACH MARK WILLIAMS AS AN ASSISTANT.
It might bust the football department soft cap, and it might remind Blues fans of the audacious raids of yesteryear.
But what Williams has done at Melbourne this year is exactly what Carlton needs.
Skill acquisition, individual coaching, personal development, a ruthless determination to improve the kicking skills of each player.
Carlton is shoddy by foot – as Teague admitted – and has kicked 146.140 for the year which is well short of lethal in front of goals.
No clubs wants to pay over the footy soft cap, and the penalty is 100 per cent in the first year and more in subsequent years.
But the Blues could make him a senior assistant and give him a promotion which allows his release from Melbourne.
No point boasting about vast profits and infrastructure spend if you can’t get the right people to your club.
5. WHILE THEY ARE AT IT, WHY NOT GIVE GREG WILLIAMS A CALL AGAIN?
It is nonsense to suggest clubs shouldn’t allow outside mentors to help players even though St Kilda wasn’t keen on allowing Matthew Lloyd to have a kicking session with Max King.
Williams isn’t at Carlton any more, but his pupils include the likes of Lachie Neale, Patrick Cripps, Jobe Watson and Tom Mitchell.
Williams was one of the part-time specialists coaches squeezed out by Covid cuts early in 2020.
He has a manner about him that players respond to.
Carlton has a welter of mids who might get there and might not. Dow, Matt Cottrell, Josh Honey, Sam Philp (out for the year with injury), Sam Ramsay, Kemp, Stocker, Jack Carroll.
Luke Power is highly rated as a head of development, but the proof isn’t there on the field.
6. DO CARLTON HAVE TOO MANY YES MEN AS ASSISTANT COACHES?
Surely not, given the calibre of the assistants – Jon Barker, Cam Bruce, Dale Amos, Brent Stanton.
But it’s time for them to get busy, or get heard by Teague.
The Blues seem to lose the same way every week.
The season is done from a finals perspective, so trial a zone defence that might take weeks to execute, or commit to playing Dow and Sam Petrevski-Seton in meaningful roles in the midfield.
Just don’t let the season drag along in the continuing pattern of mediocrity.
7. IS IT REALLY WORTH THE RISK TO PLAY CHARLIE CURNOW?
As his brother Ed told Nine newspapers last week, Curnow is in full training and perhaps 4-6 weeks away after his latest comeback from knee issues.
Curnow has had at least six individual incidents and surgeries with the knee.
Every time we hear he is burning up the track before another incident, delay or surgery.
Carlton can’t make finals, and by the time he is ready that will be mathematically certain.
It would be lovely for Curnow’s frame of mind for him to get some footy under his belt.
But Hawthorn made a business decision on James Sicily and warehoused him early, adding a mid-season player in Jackson Callow as a bonus when Sicily went onto the long-term list.
Is the best decision for Carlton’s next 6-8 seasons to give Curnow another six months of recovery, or is to play him in the last six weeks of dead rubbers?
8. TEAGUE STARTED THE PAGANISMS, SO IT’S FAIR GAME.
He said only hard work would turn Carlton’s fortunes around, because as his old coach said the players couldn’t go down to the confidence shop in Puckle Street.
As Pagan often said, don’t pee down my back and tell me it’s raining.
Teague’s press conference on Sunday was full of truth bombs with no feeling spared.
Good. Brilliant. Time for the unflinching truth. Carlton fans have watched their games and then seen Teague’s positivity in what seems a parallel universe to the 120 minutes of football that preceded it.
Coaches like to protect their players, with Chris Scott one coach in particular who will always stand up for players in public and hit them between the eyes when it is needed behind closed doors.
Is Teague doing that? Or are Carlton’s players lulled into a false sense of how they are actually performing?
At Melbourne and Richmond, honesty and authenticity won out. Time for more of it at Carlton before it is too late.
What else do Carlton need to do? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
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