SINGING THE BLUES AS THE SUNS GO DOWN AGAIN
It’s time. For one, to awaken from being the AFL’s sleeping giant, and for the other, to reset and start again – and get it right. Carlton and the Gold Coast Suns have been the competition’s strugglers over the past five seasons, battling away at the foot of the ladder.
It has been grim: 16th and 18th, 18th and 17th, 16th and 17th, 14th and 15th and 18th and 16th. Between them, 49 wins in five seasons. Richmond alone had 56 between 2017 and 2019.
Yet, Carlton and Gold Coast find themselves at different stages in their rebuilds. The Blues last played finals in 2013, but had more than 64,000 members last year.
Carlton is the AFL’s sleeping giant, starved of success and seemingly still recovering from salary-cap punishments handed down to it at the end of 2002, but with the tools to dominate the competition.
“They are the sleeping giant because on their day they can play,” says Carlton great Anthony Koutoufides, part of the Blues’ last premiership team in 1995.
“There’s so much non-success for so long. Is it embedded into the guys – or are they finally going to say, ‘Nah, we’ve had enough’ and produce something special? That’s the big question, isn’t it?”
Suggestions of disunity and factions – claims the Blues have denied – have continued to follow Carlton amid its lack of success, and the departure of club great Stephen Silvagni as general manager of list management and strategy in December did little to silence critics.
Carlton pointed to the “increasing complexity” of Silvagni having two sons, Jack and
