THE chances of Carlton's home ground returning as an AFL venue appear to be slim following the Blues' announcement of an $18 million re-development of Princes Park.
The ground will be known as Visy Park as part of former president Richard Pratt's long-running financial support of the club.
The Blues will now have state-of-the-art training facility but the ground's capacity had to drop from 32,000 to around 20,000 to allow the re-development to proceed.
The AFL recently said it was interested in establishing a third ground in Melbourne but Swann said it was 'highly unlikely' that Princes Park would be used again for AFL matches.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for the club and it brings our facilities up to equal of any in the world," he said.
"But it's a training facility, with a whole lot of community facilities within it and that has been the emphasis of the re-development."
"As you can see from that area (which has been demolished) we have lost quite a bit of seating," he said.
"And while it's not beyond the realms (of possibility of the ground again being used as an AFL venue) it's highly, highly unlikely that we would be hosting games here (in the future)."
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CARLTON coach Brett Ratten is likely to win a contract extension sooner rather than later, according to Blues chief executive Greg Swann.
Ratten was only given a two-year contract but has been impressive in his first season as coach, steering the Blues to 10 wins from 21 games.
Swann said the club had already held preliminary talks about extending Ratten's contract in light of his performance as coach this season.
"We spoke about it yesterday and at the end of the season we do a review like we do every other year and part of that is what we do with the senior coach," Swann said.
"And we will be certainly looking very favourably at extending Brett's contract because the club has improved tremendously and we think there is more improvement to come so that (extending Ratten's contract) will be done in due course."
Ratten admitted that he would love to get a contract extension but said it was not his focus at this stage.
"I think it would be great," he said.
"But I am not really worried about all that until the year is finished."
"If the club thinks I deserve an extension I would love to get one but we will sit down and see what happens."
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CARLTON has all but ended Brisbane's season with a thrilling six-point win at the Gabba on Saturday night.
The Blues trailed by more than five goals heading into the final change but lifted in the last quarter to prevail 18.7 (115) to 16.13 (109).
Both the Lions and Carlton now need need St Kilda to lose to Adelaide and Essendon in its last two games and Richmond to lose to Melbourne, while they need to win themselves in the final round to be any chance at all of sneaking into the eight.
Carlton skipper Chris Judd and Nick Stevens were instrumental in the win with 33 and 35 possessions respectively while Jordan Russell did a superb blanketing job on Travis Johnstone, restricting the former Demon to just eight disposals.
Cameron Cloke starred up forward with four goals, two of which came in the final term while Brad Fisher and Ryan Houlihan chimed in with three majors apiece.
For Brisbane, Bradd Dalziell continued his impressive form with a team-high 32 possessions while Simon Black and Jared Brennan were busy contributors with 23 and 24 disposals respectively.
Daniel Bradshaw was damaging up forward with six majors while Jonathan Brown chimed in with four goals.
The Blues started brightly with Houlihan and Cloke booting three and two goals respectively in the first quarter to help their side to a 22-point lead at the first change.
Brisbane hit back with early goals to Brown and Luke Power but two majors to Fisher in the space of a minute ensured the Blues remained in control, taking an 18-point advantage into half-time.
It was the Bradshaw and Brown show in the third term with the pair booting four and two goals respectively as the Lions opened up what appeared to be a match-winning 32-point lead heading into the final change.
But the Blues took control of the midfield in the final term, racking up 115 disposals to 56 as they slammed on six unanswered goals to record a memorable win.
BRISBANE LIONS: 3.4, 7.9, 16.12, 16.13 (109)
CARLTON: 7.2, 11.3, 12.4, 18.7 (115)
GOALS: Brisbane: Bradshaw 6, Brown 4, Corrie 2, Power 2, Hooper, Rischitelli
Carlton: Cloke 4, Houlihan 3, Fisher 3, Waite 2, Fevola 2, Murphy 2, Stevens, Walker
BEST: Brisbane: Dalziell, Bradshaw, Brennan, Patfull, Black, Brown
Carlton:Judd, Stevens, Murphy, Cloke, Russell, Houlihan
INJURIES: Brisbane:
Carlton:
REPORTS: Nil
CHANGES: Browne and Jamison (Carlton) replaced by Anderson and Bentick
UMPIRES: Stewart, Meredith, Ryan
CROWD: 34,327 at Gabba
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CARLTON still has plenty to play for according to coach Brett Ratten.
The Blues' finals hopes ended last Sunday with a 51-point loss to the Kangaroos but Ratten wants to finish the season on a high note.
If the Blues manage to win their last two matches against Brisbane and Hawthorn they will have won 11 games for the season - the first time they would have at least broken even in a season since 2001.
Ratten admitted his side has improved but said last weekend's loss to the Roos showed that the club still had a long way to go before they could challenge the competition's elite sides.
But he believes a positive end to the seasn will set the side up for an even better 2009.
"I suppose what we did learn on the weekend (against North) was regardless of playing in the eight, that was the standard we have to match," he said.
"And we could let ourselves down if we think that's it (now the club can't make the eight) and we put the cue in the rack thinking we have done a good job."
"This competition goes for 22 weeks and the standards we have set will have a big imprint on 2009 and you never want to leave a season, regardless of whether you are going to play finals or not, with a sour taste in your mouth and hopefully we don't."
"And I have seen it at our club before (as a player) where we have finished off a season well and translated it into the following season because it helps your belief over the pre-season."
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CARLTON has ruled out switching its round 22 home game against Hawthorn from Telstra Dome to the MCG.
With Hawthorn star Lance Franklin on 94 goals and Carlton spearhead Brendon Fevola on 90 goals with two rounds remaining, the pair could go into the round 22 showdown within reach of bringing up their first century of goals each in a season.
Such a scenario would mean a potentially enormous crowd if the match was played at the the MCG instead of the much-smaller Telstra Dome.
The MCG is available on the Saturday night of the Blues-Hawks match but will host a match between North Melbourne and Port Adelaide earlier that day.
But Carlton chief executive Greg Swann said it would be difficult for the games to be switched at such late notice and said the club had not even considered approaching the AFL.
Carlton coach Brett Ratten admitted such an occasion was worthy of being played at 'the home of footy' but said it would be up to the AFL to decide whether the match should be played at the MCG.
Ratten also said it was important for his side to remain focused on improving and winning games of football rather than helping Fevola bring up 100 goals.
"We still need to get improvement through the other players and if Brendan is good enough to kick 100 that is fantastic and hopefully he can achieve it because it would be a fantastic individual achievement but at the end of the day I'd rather win the game than maybe him kick ten goals because that is what we are about," he said.
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CARLTON midfielder Andrew Walker has avoided jail after being charged with driving while his licence was suspended.
Walker was yesterday sentenced in the Melbourne Magistrate's Court to one month in jail, which has been suspended for 12 months.
He was also fined $500 without conviction and his licence was suspended for two months.
Police prosecutor Sen-Constable Jaci Steiger said police intercepted the 22-year-old on Rosamond Rd in Maribyrnong in March this year.
A second serious driving offence carries a mandatory minimum one month jail term
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CARLTON will not make the eight if it continues to rely on star forward Brendan Fevola, according to coach Brett Ratten.
Ratten said the Blues would ignore other forward options in preference to Fevola, who at times had as many as five opponents against him.
"If you go down that path you probably won't make the top eight," Ratten said.
"I think sometimes we went out of way to kick the ball to him."
But Ratten said it was not Fevola's fault the Blues searched for him.
"Brendan just leads. He's a big forward, who's quick. He usually gets a bit of a gap so he looks like the best option most times and we seem to honour that a fair bit," he said.
The Blues coach said the blame lay on the ball-carrier and other forwards who Ratten suggested were playing selfish football.
"But we need to move our direction and kick the ball to other people to bring them into the game," he said.
"I think it's the bloke, he's virtually captain of the team when he's got the ball in his hands, and he just needs to use it a little bit different at times."
"I think sometimes we do, and we've had a focus going forward to try and do that but today was really obvious that we didn't use too many other forwards."
"We said to play at home a bit more, maybe blokes worrying about some possessions … instead (of) about what they were doing for the team. I think it might have taken some pressure of Brendan, maybe given ourselves a chance of getting more on the scoreboard."
Besides Fevola, only two Blues have kicked more than 20 goals this season - Brad Fisher and Eddie Betts, who missed the clash against the Kangaroos.
Ratten said the Blues would improve as a side as soon as the workload was shared up forward.
"Until other players start to kick threes and fours, no one's going to worry about playing on them," he said.
"And they'll just keep pulling back into the hole, in front of his space. That's the whole team debate that we need to get better as a team to honour these players. If someone's got three behind their name the opposition starts to look a little bit closer."
Ratten said shifting Fevola from the goal square would be considered this week while moving utility Jarrad Waite from defence into attack was also an option.
"Jarrad gives us great counter attack so that's the conundrum; whether we reduce our counter-attack and we might not get it in our forward 50 as many times," he said.
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