First-year Carlton CEO Brian Cook has stated that while the Blues have bounced back to become an early finals contender so far this season, the former powerhouse still has some road left to travel before reaching their zenith.
Akin to another fellow newcomer in head coach Michael Voss, Cook inked a three-year agreement at Princes Park ahead of Round 1 and claimed that the Blues would be back at their "peak" when the pair's initial agreements were coming to a close.
โIf you are talking about myself or Vossy, we are eight games into a 75-game contract, thatโs the way I am looking at it,โ Cook told The Herald Sun.
โWeโve been here for six months and we have a long way to go. I hope we are at our absolute best during that period in our 75th game. Thatโs the peak.โ
With premiership successes littered across his resume from his time spent at West Coast and Geelong across the previous three decades, Cook undoubtedly has the nous to steer flags to the tip of poles.
And with Carlton enjoying a 6-2 start to their current campaign, the club's recently tortured fanbase has, once again, found their bravado under both him and Voss.
Though unwilling to pinpoint exactly when the specifics of the Blues' rise would take place, Cooks' estimate of Carlton playing 75 games across the course of the next three seasons would require them to make deep September runs in each of the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Still, in spite of the fact that this marker will have Bluebaggers bullish, the 66-year-old delineated that there was still plenty of work to be done before a flag could be won.
โIt is going to need three years of list management โฆ it is going to need three years of working in the new facilities โฆ it will take a while,โ Cook added.
While Carlton fans of a certain age had previously been accustomed to seeing Septembers of years gone by capped with a cup, supporters of other sides within the competition were often left dodging the accompanying arrogance that comes with a Princes Park premiership all summer long.
However, in a shift from the identity forged under the stewardship of blue-blooded administrators such as George Harris, Ian Rice and John Elliott, one of the key pillars of Geelong's contemporary facelift explained that the flexes of yesteryear were not likely to be rekindled.
โWe are developing some really good values at the club. I want everyone to take ownership," Cook explained.
โIโve got a belief that you develop a set of values for your club and it is for the whole club. It is all the men and women (players), itโs the staff, itโs the fans, itโs about everyone heading in the same direction.
โOne of the values will be around humility and another one will be around respect. We will also have excellence (as a value) and a few others.
โHumility is important because there has to be an air of confidence, but it has to be mixed with humility.
โWe want to win games but we want to do it with respect and humility.โ
Though this pivot from the past is unlikely to be made seamlessly by sects of the Blues' soon-to-be 85,000 strong membership base, should Voss' charges continue reigning supreme on the scoreboard and those wearing studded boots do so with grace, Carlton fans who have never tasted success will have every right to uncork the attitudes of the past.
Still, with a potential banana peel awaiting them on Sunday afternoon in the form of the GWS Giants, these same individuals so accustomed to heartbreak are sure to be giving their fingernails another work over before the big-noting of old makes a permanent return.
