AS THE countdown to this year's free agency, trade and draft periods continues, we're looking back at how some current Blues arrived at the Club.

Continuing on, we rewind seven years to look at the deal which brought Sam Docherty to the football club.

The deal

After nominating his boyhood club after returning home to Victoria, it was a long wait for Docherty’s deal to go through.

Taking place on the penultimate day of the trade period, Docherty arrived at Ikon Park in exchange for pick No.33.

Carlton gained that pick earlier in the week from Richmond in exchange for Shaun Hampson.

How it has transpired

Very, very well.

While all at Carlton were pleased to welcome Docherty through the door, we’re not sure they would’ve envisaged his impact in totality.

After all, he was just two years and 13 games into his AFL career at Brisbane after arriving in the system as a pick No.12.

Three years into his Navy Blue career, Docherty was a John Nicholls Medallist, and just a year after that was named as an All Australian for the first time.

Since then, he has gone on to become one of Carlton’s first AFL co-captains, joining good mate Patrick Cripps — who also happened to be part of the 2013 intake alongside Docherty.

Of course, there’s no telling exactly what Docherty’s impact would have been had he not missed two seasons with a knee injury.

It was a sight for sore eyes when Docherty was back in action in 2020, fronting up and leading for the Club  he loved.

Their best moment

Take a pick, it’s a pretty handy trifecta: joining Carlton greats as a John Nicholls Medallist, being handed his first All Australian blazer or leading the Club as captain for the first time.

Purely for recency bias, we’ll go with the latter.

Given Docherty’s journey, the man himself said nothing could wipe the smile off his face when he returned as captain after two years out of the game.

Labelling it the game “he’ll remember forever”, Docherty was absolutely back in business when he led Carlton out alongside Cripps in the 2020 season opener.

It was an even more poignant moment for the man who came from a Carlton family, mentioning how significant it was that the Docherty name would be remembered among the Club’s captains.

Sam’s late father Eddie was a Blue through and through.

Where to from here?

If you’d ask Docherty this question, the answer would be pretty clear.

Playing football, and lots of it.

The self-proclaimed ‘footyhead’ reached a century of AFL games in 2020, and his next considerable milestone is just five games away.

Docherty will get his name on the locker when he plays his 100th Carlton game in 2021, currently sitting on 95 games in total.

Having finally led the Blues out for 16 times this season, Docherty - and Cripps - will be as determined as ever to lead their team back to a position to play finals football in the near future.

By the numbers at Carlton

95 games
13 goals
2016 John Nicholls Medallist
2017 All Australian
Co-captain (2019—present)
Seven Brownlow votes
No.1 at Carlton for rebound 50s in 2016, 2017 and 2020
No.1 at Carlton for marks in 2016, 2017 and 2020
No.1 at Carlton for kicks in 2017 and 2020
No.1 at Carlton for metres gained in 2017 and 2020
No.1 at Carlton for intercepts in 2016 and 2017