It would have been no real surprise, and certainly no disgrace, if Carlton had gone down to West Coast. The Eagles had been playing well and the Blues took a bare-boned team to Perth. They selected 11 players who had played less than 50 games, and very few who needed extra leg room on the flight back home.
It was a team almost unrecognisable from the Carlton of earlier in the year, the Carlton that drew four crowds of more than 80,000, the Carlton that dismantled Port Adelaide in 10 minutes, the Carlton that pulled off one of the great comebacks against Brisbane, the Carlton of Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay and Tom De Koning.
It’s hard to pinpoint the precise moment where it soured. Was it quarter-time of the game against the Giants? Was it when they lost De Koning, who provided so much verve and unpredictability? Was it Mitch McGovern’s post-siren slice? Was it the first 90 seconds of the Hawthorn game? Was it Curnow going down like he’d been tasered? Or did those wild, highwire finals wins paper over the reality of the list – a list still carried by one of the great captains and a handful of generational players, a list lacking in pace and depth?
Last year was an exhilarating ride. This year, even when the Blues were eyeing off a top-two finish, it always seemed more laboured. They were cruelled by injuries, their manic forward pressure was absent, they struggled for consistency within games and their midfield was especially reliant on Patrick Cripps, whose output through the middle of the year was remarkable, even by his lofty standards.
The trip to Perth was a chance to salvage their season. But they were going to have to do it with a bunch of kids, Collingwood six-footers, the few remaining players with functional hamstrings and their captain Cripps. It was a completely different Carlton side to any other in the Michael Voss era. Kicking long down the line was out. Bombing long to their forwards spelt disaster, particularly with Jeremy McGovern prowling about. They would have to play small, use handball a lot more, and try to manufacture a forward or two.
It helped that the Eagles barely gave a yelp. And it helped that Cripps was still standing. No matter how deep in the quagmire they are – and the club has been in far more perilous positions than this – he’s always there, rummaging, bludgeoning, distributing. He played the sort of game where three Brownlow votes seems patently insufficient. He clearly had a plan to handball forward at every opportunity and it gave them the propulsion that has been sorely missing this past month and a bit.
It was some of Carlton’s lesser likes that also stood up – Brodie Kemp, Lachie Cowan, Corey Durdin and Marc Pittonet. The latter is a blunt instrument of a footballer, a pure stoppage player who mauled West Coast. And Ashton Moir’s first AFL goal (naturally set up by Cripps) was reminiscent of Mark Viduka in the mixer.
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This season refuses to settle, but the Carlton result and easy wins to the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn provided a bit more clarity after the (now weekly) madhouse results on Saturday. The big losers in all this were Fremantle, who were desperately hoping for an Eagles victory, and Collingwood, who’d been so admirable in running down Brisbane just 24 hours earlier.
At times, one is inclined to ask – does anyone actually want to win this premiership? Both Brisbane and Geelong will rue coughing up such big leads. And Port Adelaide, who’ve been excellent since losing to Brisbane, will now almost certainly be without one of their best players for the rest of the season.
As for Carlton, they now have a date with St Kilda and Ross Lyon, who is not the sort of man you want to be dating in the dying days of August. The Saints have been a dangerous floater in the back quarter of 2024, having taken down the Swans and Cats, and running the Power right to the wire. They are always hard to toss in an indoor game, and Lyon would take great delight in scuppering the Blues’ season. But the Blues will take great heart from their win in the west. While several other clubs hovering around the top eight have curled up their toes when things got tough, the Blues dusted themselves off, dug in, and won back a lot of admirers.
