09-14-2020, 03:28 AM
Winners win because they win, losers lose because they lose. Carlton brought Barassi over to instill a winning culture into the Blues in the 1960's. This culture prevailed for three decades as Carlton became the League's power house. Elliot and his cronies destroyed the culture by instilling the belief that the only way you can win is by cheating. (Essendon followed that lead by instilling the belief that you can only win by being drug cheats.) We have addressed the cheating side of the cultural issues but we have yet to address the winning side of the is equation. We have got our administration right whereby we are financial viable and profitable even with a team producing crap results on field. We have built a squad that is young and talented with enormous potential, but we have yet to instill the desire to win. It is easy to have heroic defeats and the occasional come from behind incredible victories. It is hard to turn up week in week out and play to win. While it was great that Simpson and Murphy chaired off Gibbs at the end of the game, it would have better if they chaired him off after we had beaten Adelaide. I think Teague was a bit frustrated by this.
Back in the late 80's, a guy named Ian Herman kicked four goals in his first or second game for Carlton, he was dropped the following to allow a named player a game. We subsequently lost the next match. I always wondered about the message that was sent whereby it didn't matter how well you played, Carlton was always going to play the name players. That was the start of the drift in my book. It is the same with Cottrell. He takes the big mark, kicks the winning goal and doesn't play the next week. I understand he was probably starting to tire due to the work load, but what is the message we are sending to the playing group. Winning the game isn't important. Once again we played the name player, Docherty, with the dodgy leg who doesn't last out a quarter.
There is nothing wrong with our administration, there is nothing wrong with the playing list and there is nothing wrong with the coaching, what is wrong is whether the culture is focused on winning.
Back in the late 80's, a guy named Ian Herman kicked four goals in his first or second game for Carlton, he was dropped the following to allow a named player a game. We subsequently lost the next match. I always wondered about the message that was sent whereby it didn't matter how well you played, Carlton was always going to play the name players. That was the start of the drift in my book. It is the same with Cottrell. He takes the big mark, kicks the winning goal and doesn't play the next week. I understand he was probably starting to tire due to the work load, but what is the message we are sending to the playing group. Winning the game isn't important. Once again we played the name player, Docherty, with the dodgy leg who doesn't last out a quarter.
There is nothing wrong with our administration, there is nothing wrong with the playing list and there is nothing wrong with the coaching, what is wrong is whether the culture is focused on winning.