AS SCOOPS have long been the richest currency of newspapers, it's good to begin a new column with one that is topical.

Exactly why Carlton chose to treat Brendan Fevola so leniently for his recent alcohol-fuelled indiscretion was revealed to me at the MCG on Thursday night.

I'm happy to share it with you, although, in truth, this was no confidential disclosure. It was also conveyed to 72,552 first-hand witnesses, while another 657,000 television viewers might be onto it as well. The explanation that follows was delivered with brutal honesty over 2½ hours.

The bottom line is this: so bereft of goal-scoring options were the Blues against Richmond, even with Fevola, that the thought of them taking on any of the AFL's other 14 clubs without him is too awful to contemplate.

That's how desperate it is for Carlton. Its temporary dearth of big bodies is chronic. It has problems as both ends of the ground and suffers the conundrum of many a struggling team: whether to rob Peter to pay Paul or vice versa.

Carlton's commitment to persevering with Jarrad Waite in defence brought back memories of a friend whose 1970s' new year's resolution to give up smoking was broken during the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

In the pre-season competition, Waite was thrown forward by the second quarter of round two. When the real stuff started on Thursday, Brett Ratten's resolve wasn't that strong.

Carlton has been accused of cowardice and social irresponsibility for allowing the gormless but gifted Fevola to avoid suspension. If it dumped him, though, it could almost stand accused of, well, tanking!

So what does a club do? The critics point to Geelong's experience last year with another habitual offender, Steve Johnson, and it all seems so gloriously simple. The Cats ostracised Johnson for a time and when he came back, he won the Norm Smith Medal and they won the flag. A new disciplinary template had been established.

The difference was this was a team of such talent that it won 19 games out of 20 on its way to the title. Carlton, without Andrew Walker, Brad Fisher and youngsters Shaun Hampson and Matthew Kreuzer against the Tigers, could not possibly have won without Fevola. The Blues will battle for every win this year with him.

Through the Denis Pagan years, Fevola missed nine games and Carlton won one, a six-point squeeze against Hawthorn in 2005. That Waite and Lance Whitnall kicked seven goals between them that night is almost enough to have Blues' fans pining for the good old days.

The confronting reality for Carlton is that it remains unhealthily reliant on Fevola, whose unreliability is now well documented. Over the past five years, it fell to him to be the celebrity face of the club, a disaster that might have been his ruination as a mature footballer.

Now, as a senior and talented member of a young group aspiring to make something of its collective self, it falls to him to consistently give of his best and lead by example.

It appears a forlorn hope. Even as the sun was rising this week, the club acknowledged its uncertainty about Fevola with an admission that he was included in the leadership group largely out of fear at what the alternative may have meant.

The Blues hoped that Chris Judd's arrival this year would inspire a new level of professionalism from every player. It particularly would have hoped that this be true of Fevola. There now will be fear that the reverse could be the case.

The lurking concern is that with his persona as wayward club favourite now an established part of the Fevola self-image, he may struggle to accept a reduced rank. Now, for his latest folly, he has been dumped from the Carlton leadership group and is further diminished.

It leaves him on the knife's edge. On his record, it is hard to envisage him finding the maturity to put his head down and dig in for the long haul. This is his moment of truth.

The long and the short of it is that Carlton can't afford the Fev in its ranks as he has been, but — for the time being at least — it can't afford to be without him.

The club will desperately hope its shape-up or ship-out ultimatum might solve both problems: delivering a life-changing message without banishing him from the field of play.