Well it doesn't matter now because it looks like the good old Blues have managed to do it again...Maguire in mix to join Carlton's pre-season
By Jason Phelan
4:37 PM Mon 02 November, 2009
CARLTON is poised to throw discarded St Kilda defender Matt Maguire a lifeline with newly-appointed assistant coach Robert Harvey revealing his former teammate is under strong consideration for the club's pre-season program.
A small group of Blues players kicked off the club's 2010 campaign at Visy Park on Monday and while Maguire is a chance to join them further down the track, no other experienced uncontracted players - including former Demon Russell Robertson - are on the club's radar.
"We'll consider maybe asking Matty Maguire to train with us, but [as for] the rest I think we're pretty happy with the list we've got," Harvey said of the club's intentions for December's NAB AFL Pre-Season Draft.
"We cover most bases with young guys, we think, and the holes that we have got we think we're capable of covering them.
"I think we'll probably have some talks [with him] this week. He may well be invited down, we're not sure yet, but it is something that has got to be discussed."
Harvey, who recently made the jump from development coach to full-time assistant, is excited rather than daunted by Carlton's on-field prospects despite the loss of Brendan Fevola and Nick Stevens in recent weeks.
"The list is so young so there is going to be a bigger responsibility on the young guys to step up and take more of that on board," he said.
"There'll be some experience lost so we are expecting those guys to step up a bit quicker than we would have.
"We all see that as a positive thing. The leadership from some of the younger guys we've got now, we're really excited about it, and it's a great opportunity for them."
The loss of the Coleman Medallist from its forward line was always going to require a major attacking rethink by Carlton's coaches, but Harvey maintained it wasn't a question of simply replacing one player with another.
"It won't be one guy," he said. "Obviously you can't just replace a guy that kicks the amount of guys that he does. It will be more of a restructure of the whole set-up and that's another thing that we're excited about.
"You don't replace that guy. You can't replace 100 goals a year, but three or four guys possibly can and that's what we'll be looking at. It might make us more unpredictable and we hope that's a good thing.
"We'll need some height down there so there will be some restructuring, but who or what that is we don't know yet."
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