"History, values and culture": Inside Parkin's private lunch with Fraser

Legendary Carlton coach David Parkin has detailed a private sit-down meeting initiated by now senior coach Josh Fraser before taking on the interim role.

Fraser’s caretaker tenure at the Blues has been nothing short of perfection, winning 10 of his 13 matches at the helm.

Following the Blues’ draw over the Western Bulldogs and the confirmation of the club’s place in the inaugural Wildcard Round, Fraser was officially offered the senior job on a permanent basis, signing a three-year deal on Monday this week.

However, before stepping into the spotlight, Fraser organised a one-on-one meeting with Carlton’s last premiership coach, taking him deep into the history behind the club he now leads.

“It’s been an interesting time, and Josh certainly is a very, very interesting bloke,” Parkin told SEN Whateley.

“When he took the job on, I think I can probably say this, one of the first conversations he had was to ring me and come and take me to lunch.

“I spent three or four hours with him. He was looking into the history and traditions and cultures of the club in which he was trying to understand having taken the job on.

“I thought, there’s a bloke who is doing his homework in the best possible way to give him some understanding of what is a very complicated history and cultural place.

“(A culture that is) second to none – I’ve worked in four or five of them, and nothing quite matches what the Carlton Football Club is able to produce.”

Identifying the cultural changes enforced over recent years, Parkin took Fraser through the leadership personalities heading the club’s transition, crediting the interim for his ability to add to the change in such a positive manner.

“It’s been interesting because of the leadership – and I mean in terms of the presidents that we’ve had - they’ve been a various group of what you would call, ‘personalities,’” Parkin continued.

“In the last couple of years, they have got themselves well and truly organised by a couple of blokes coming in.

“One from Collingwood (Graham Wright) who is leading the place, and one from Port Adelaide (Chris Davies) who I’ve had a long relationship with because my son has been employed by Port Adelaide for the last 20-odd years.

“I had some understanding of the people that they’ve now got in to, what I think are the critical leadership roles within the day-to-day administration - running the club but also in terms of the board and the membership of that, and the leadership that they provide.

“Carlton has gone through a massive cultural change in probably the last three or four years, and I think Josh has, without me knowing because I didn’t know him at all, what he has been able to provide has been a breath of fresh air in the manner of which he has gone about it.

“There is no doubt that that group is committed and playing for him in a way that those who are members of the Carlton Football Club and those who follow and are passionate about their future should be very happy or pleased about the direction they are taking and the leadership that he is providing.

“It’s been an absolute lesson for me and a lesson for all of us.”

After meeting with the soon-to-be senior coach, Parkin was left admiring his willingness to advance his learnings ahead of his upcoming task.

“(He struck me as) somebody who was an absolute student of the whole exercise,” he said.

“Trying to learn as much as he could about the previous history, the values and culture of the place.

“I didn’t learn so much about him and his experiences, but he was trying to find out and learn as rapidly as he could about what actually made the Carlton Football Club the place that it is right now and has been in the past and learning from that.

“The current demeanour of the place and the way the team is playing and the vision that we have at the moment from the things that they might even do in the next few weeks, it’s been what I would call an incredible turnaround.

“From where they were, to where they are to where they might be within the next four of five weeks, it’s been incredible.”

Fraser and the Blues will take on Fremantle in their final home and away bout before a Wildcard Final determines their fate ahead of September football.