Rd 3: Carlton vs Gold Coast: Post Game Pain

[Thryleon]

I'm prepared to judge over a season. I'm prepared to give the club time....but what the club has achieved through the rebuild/reset  statements is that we have been conditioned to accept weekly results as unimportant.

I see that as a clever strategy.
What it's designed to do is buy time.

You see the club really has no idea if the rebuild will actually work.
They can put in plans, and it would appear that there has been considerable thought go into these.... but the success or failure of any rebuild is dependent on so many variable factors such as injury, sound selections, proper development, player satisfaction, team unity etc  that they can't guarantee things will work out as they hope.

The only indication that we're on the right track comes from on field performance....you can accept poor performance while we're in the early stages of building and uniting a team (like now) but we also need to see positive developments as we go along.

At the moment there's a lot of scrutiny on some older members of our list.
How will that play out as the pressure on these players increases and how will those "redundancies" be managed in a way that doesn't upset the apple-cart.

This rebuild isn't easy... and it's not guaranteed.

Im replying to you Lods, because you are talking about philosophy and strategy.
There is something that you have tied to them in terms of success, but there is a problem. 
You didnt define it, and if you have you seem to have tied the success aspect to a premiership.
Now like everyone here, I am under no illusions.  We play football, to win matches and ultimately premierships.

Life is ultimately cruel.  You can try your hardest and make the best decision possible, yet still come up short in terms of being succesful.

This is where our football club has fallen over, repeatedly.

we have strived to become succesful, by winnning.  Quickly.

We need to reclassify success to something different so that we can actually start achieving things and with any luck, premierships will follow.

That is to be the best football club that we can be.  That means making good decisions, based upon the right things.  Developing talent.  Drafting the best players we can.  Engineering the best trade deals we can.  Looking after Carlton people the best we can.  Selling memberships the best we can.  Building a stadium the best we can.  Building a harder, better, faster, stronger football club, AS BEST WE CAN.

This is why Saturday night hurt.  It was seen to not be doing things, as best we can.  But we can learn from it, as best we can, and improve from it as best we can.

Success is never guaranteed.

Premierships are never guaranteed.

All we can do is do what we can with what we have, and get 100% out of it, which is why we are looking at our elder players and moving them on, but there are intangibles we need to be wary of.  Simply replacing whats broken doesnt mean we get an upgrade.  Which is why we need to focus on doing the best we can.

Which is why we dont worry about the results (or at least those of us who have accepted we were and still are a club that is working out how best to move forward don't).

All we want to see is a side that is doing the best it can.  To provide our young players with an education to become the best they can.  To provide an environment where people want to be, to become part of, and then simply become the best they can.  Thats when we can measure our club as succesful.  Richmond and Collingwood wont be winning a premiership any time soon, but they are focussed on being the best football clubs that they can, and for it, they have big supporter bases, and players that want to play for them.

For too long we have searched for an elusive premiership, and simply need to focus on being the best we can, and we start with simple things.  Handballing the best we can.  Kicking the footy the best we can.  Running the best we can.  Tackling the best we can.  Marking the best we can, and scoring the best we can. In time, we will improve.  Will it win a premiership?  No guarantee, but I think we will garner more support if we simply do the best we can and that will ultimately be the only way we will get near a premiership anyway.  You dont get there by not being the best you can be, but it wont hurt your chances.