SEN Broadcaster and Carlton supporter Andy Maher has summed up what he believes is frustrating Blues fans more than anything right now.
Carlton was comfortably beaten by Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday afternoon in a game between the bottom two sides on the ladder.
The Blues only kicked seven goals for the game, while young key forward Harry McKay watched from the Gabba stands.
Maher doesn’t understand why Carlton isn’t playing him, saying it feels contradictory to everything the club is doing with other young players.
“This is the great frustration for Carlton supporters. The messaging out of Carlton that I’m getting is that they are applying a set of standards to McKay in terms of intensity, effort levels, sacrificial acts for teammates and those sorts of things,” he told the AFL Nation pregame show.
“They want to see those sorts of things before they put him in the senior side.
“It appears to me that they’re developing other junior players in the senior team. They realise they’ve got a crop of good young players they’re prepared to give games to.
“I don’t buy their reasoning. I think they’re setting a standard for Harry McKay that’s above others and I don’t think that’s sitting comfortably with Carlton supporters.
“They have nothing to lose by playing him.”
Eric Hipwood was taken with pick 14 in the 2015 National Draft – four picks after McKay – and Maher looks to him for the perfect comparison.
“We saw up the other end of the ground Eric Hipwood playing his 45th game and a lot of the games he’s been a non-event, but Brisbane has bitten the bullet,” he said.
“They have said, providing we’re not burning the kid physically, we’re going to give him game time, we’re going to let him find his feet, because there’s going to be pay off like yesterday.
“He’s going to get massive benefit in terms of self-confidence from yesterday.
“Carlton seem to be doing it the complete opposite with Harry McKay.
“The one thing about McKay that we’ve seen in his short crack at it, is that he actually knows how to kick a goal. He is a two goals per game player from extremely limited opportunities, in an extremely poor team.”
The veteran broadcaster wasn’t happy with Carlton’s team selection going into the match either.
“I think they picked a really unbalanced side,” Maher said.
I’m never a fan of playing two ruckmen, they were always going to try and play Matthew Kreuzer deep forward with Andrew Phillips in the ruck – that seemed to be the plan.”
Key forwards from the first round of the 2015 National Draft
Pick 16: Harrison Himmelberg - 30 games, 19 goals and 10 goals in 2018
Pick 14: Eric Hipwood – 45 games, 68 goals and 27 goals in 2018
Pick 12: Charlie Curnow – 40 games, 51 goals and 26 goals in 2018
Pick 10: Harry McKay – 8 games, 15 goals and 12 goals in 2018
Pick 9: Sam Weideman – 15 games, 8 goals and 2 goals in 2018
Pick 2: Josh Schache – 33 games, 31 goals and 6 goals in 2018