Carlton's time is now, the years of rebuilding and planning for tomorrow are over.
After what has seemed like an endless rebuild, the Blues look ready to finally make the leap and have a meaningful impact on an AFL season for the first time in nearly a decade.
2020 saw the Blues make great strides but ultimately fall short of a first finals berth in seven years.
Heading into the new season with much optimism, Carlton CEO Cain Liddle believes that the club's fortunes are about to change.
Speaking on SEN on Tuesday morning, Liddle said the Blues remain on track for their plan of delivering a 17th premiership by 2023.
โAbsolutely (we want to win a flag in the next three years) and youโll find that in our strategic plan which we launched in 2019 and letโs be honest, we didnโt exactly launch that from a position of strength, weโd just finished on the bottom in the menโs and the womenโs,โ Liddle said.
โWe launched that plan to win premierships, to double our membership, to clear $7 million in debt and a whole range of another initiatives and not from a position of strength.
โPart of this plan is to put ourselves back in that position of strength, not only on the field, but equally off the field.โ
Carlton announced on Monday that they were debt free for the first time since 1996, as well as announcing they had broken their membership record for the third straight season.
The feat was made all the more impressive by the fact they didn't play a home game in front of fans for all of 2020.
โTo clear almost $7 million of debt in just three years is an incredible effort by our Board, made even more incredible when you consider the challenges of 2020. Itโs been a total unified club effort, by our board, our players, our staff, our members and our commercial partners and sponsors. A totally united club,โ Liddle said in a statement on Monday
โWe have now surpassed our all-time membership record of 67,035 (set in 2020), to achieve that this early in the season is almost unprecedented."
Carlton have started off February with great news ๐https://t.co/tYpNOtI0B0
— Zero Hanger (@zerohanger) February 1, 2021
The Blues have made some big financial moves to bolster their squad as well, bringing in Zac Williams and Adam Saad on big deals in the 2020 trade and free agency period.
These acquisitions were a signal of Carlton's intent to no longer build through the draft but to bring in ready-made talent going forward.
Liddle said the Blues would continue to target the free agency market at the end of 2021 as the Blues look to bring success to their loyal members.
โAfter going to the draft for those few years weโve taken a more balanced approach and that balanced approach suggests if you can trade away picks for players who we think are going to add to our list and improve our on-field, then weโve been more than prepared to do that,โ he said.
โGiven the fact that we underspent for an extended period and were only spending 95 per cent of the salary cap, we actually have some underspend weโre able to take advantage of both last year and this year, which puts us in a really strong position.
โIt enables you to maneuver contracts in a way because youโve got that extra five per cent and in some instances you can front-end some of those contracts.
โThereโs absolutely no doubt that we will continue to be a strong player in free agency and weโve got (Head of List Management) Nick Austin and (National Recruiting Manager) Mick Agresta overseen by (Head of Football) Brad Lloyd who are as focused on free agency and bringing in players from other clubs as they are the draft.
โIf we have a draft pick and weโre confident we can bring a kid in who is going to develop into a good player, we wonโt hesitate to go to the draft as well.
โUntil that period comes at the end of the year I couldnโt comment because thereโs a lot of water to go under the bridge.โ
While there is plenty of money in the salary cap according to Liddle, there are also players currently on the books at Ikon Park that will require some heavy compensation on new deals at season's end.
None of those names are bigger than captain Patrick Cripps.
The Western-Australian has long been linked to a possible move back to his home state and those whispers will only grow louder as Cripps plays out the final year of his current deal.
The 25-year-old recently moved to pledge his loyalty to Carlton and Liddle believes it's a case of when not if the skipper re-signs.
โA lot of our staff have been away and only just come back and itโs been a little complex to dive too deep into any long-term negotiations for players the ilk of Patrick Cripps given the uncertainty around TPP (total player payments) last year and even the uncertainty moving forward now.
โThereโs absolutely been conversations going on all along. Never at any stage have we been told by Cripps or his management that they donโt want to talk to us.โ
The Carlton superstar has made his intentions very clear๐ #AFL https://t.co/AEFMIWy23h
— Zero Hanger (@zerohanger) January 25, 2021
Liddle lauded the commitment and passion Cripps has for the Carlton Football Club, saying it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
โDavid Teague and Brad Lloyd and myself often comment that given all of our experiences at a number of different clubs, we canโt ever recall a player being so invested in improving his football club like Patrick Cripps,โ he said.
โGiven the fact that heโs our captain and does have that strong investment weโre really comfortable with where things sit with him right now.โ
Cripps has commonly spoken about his desire to bring success back to Carlton having never played in a final and has said he believes success will taste much sweeter knowing he has done it the hard way.
The Blues open their 2021 campaign in the traditional season opener against Richmond on March 18.
