President Mark LoGiudice Captain(s) Marc Murphy | ||
Home ground Melbourne Cricket Ground(Training and administrative: Ikon Park) | ||
The 2017 AFL season will be the 121st season in the Australian Football League contested by the Carlton Football Club. The club's women's team is also contesting the inaugural season of the AFL Women's competition.
Contents
Club summary
The 2017 AFL season will the 121st season of the VFL/AFL competition since its inception in 1897; and, having competed in every season, it was also the 121th season contested by the Carlton Football Club. Carlton continued its alignment with the Northern Blues in the Victorian Football League, allowing Carlton-listed players to play with the Northern Blues when not selected in AFL matches.
The club will also field its women's team in the inaugural season of the AFL Women's competition, running in February and March. Carlton was one of four Victorian clubs granted a license in June 2016 for the eight-team competition.
Senior Personnel
Mark LoGiudice continued as club president, a role he had held since June 2014. Marc Murphy continued in the role of captain for the fifth season; Kade Simpson remained vice-captain. There was one change to the club's seven-man leadership group, with Dennis Armfield elevated to the group to fill the position left by the retirement of Andrew Walker, and Ed Curnow, Bryce Gibbs, Patrick Cripps and Sam Docherty holding their places. Former Western Bulldogs women's exhibition series senior coach Damien Keeping joined the club as the coach of the women's team.
Squad for 2017
The following is Carlton's squad for the 2017 season as of 31 October 2016, partway during trade period.
Statistics are correct as of end of 2016 season. Flags represent the state of origin, i.e. the state in which the player played his Under-18s football.
Playing list changes
The following summarises all player changes which have occurred since the conclusion of the 2016 season. Unless otherwise noted, draft picks refer to selections in the 2016 AFL draft.
Two high-profile players requested trades away from Carlton in the lead-up to the trade period: Zach Tuohy and Bryce Gibbs. Gibbs was two years into a five-year contract, but sought a return to Adelaide for family reasons, nominating the Adelaide Crows as his preferred destination. Tuohy, out of contract but not a free agent, nominated Geelong as his preferred destination. Carlton was also linked to young out-of-contract Greater Western Sydney defender Caleb Marchbank, who was seeking to return to his home state Victoria and nominated Carlton as his preferred destination. In the end, deals were secured for Tuohy and Marchbank, but Carlton and Adelaide could not come to an agreement on a trade for Gibbs and he remained on the Carlton list.
Practice matches
The club will play three practice matches as part of the JLT Community Series.
Squad
Under the competition's player recruitment regulations, each of the eight clubs was entitled to sign two marquee players. In July 2016, Carlton recruited St Kilda Sharks key position/midfielder and former Australian international soccer goalkeeper Brianna Davey and Darebin Falcons full forward Darcy Vescio as its marquee players. Darebin midfielder Lauren Arnell also signed with the club as a priority signing due to her pre-existing relationship with the club as its Female Football Ambassador. The club drew most of its remaining recruits from the inaugural AFL Women's draft, with Cranbourne forward Bianca Jakobsson taken with Carlton's first round selection at No. 3 overall. Arnell was made the inaugural captain of the team, with Davey and Madeline Keryk serving as vice-captains.
Season
The club will play each of the other seven clubs once in the home-and-away series of the inaugural AFL Women's fixture over February and March. The main highlight of the fixture was the Round 1 match against Collingwood, which saw the two traditional men's rivals play the first match in the new competition's history. The match, for which admission was free, drew a lockout crowd of 24,568 at Ikon Park, after having originally been scheduled for Collingwood's 5,000-capacity Olympic Park training oval then being transferred due to the expected crowd. The team's Round 4, 5 and 6 matches against Melbourne, Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs will serve as curtain-raisers to the senior team's pre-season practice matches against the same clubs.