Some would’ve labelled a fixture between two teams well out of finals contention as late in the season as Round 19 as a dead rubber, myself included. And to be honest, that dead-rubber-ness is probably the reason the game was still available for me in the Mongrel Chat to assign myself to on the morning of.
But, to their credit, Carlton and Melbourne put on an engaging, if error-ridden, spectacle, and I found my enjoyment increasing with each passing minute, particularly once the tempo rose in the third quarter with Steven May’s ‘hit’ on Francis Evans. The most apt comparison for this game I can think of is one of those foreign films that acts as a slow burn through the first half, then suddenly flicks the switch in the second half, causing you to find yourself very much absorbed in events to which you were calling for a conclusion only half an hour earlier. Wages Of Fear from 1953 comes to mind. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour, click off this review, and give it a watch. You will gain more love from me than any readership figure or comment, though HB might disagree.
I’ll put it on my list to watch – HB
Victory ended up, probably rightfully, in Carlton’s hands, by a slim eight-point margin, but it was the way the game played out rather than any results-based consequences that I’ll try to analyse here, because let’s be honest, these teams make up part of the peloton, and will have at least one eye on the coming pre-season (and preceding European holidays). Let’s dive in.
CHARLIE’S BACK… KIND OF?
It was something of a return to form for Charlie Curnow. Having looked meek, shackled and ineffectual over the last month or so, he kicked his team’s first two right off the bat, in a rather ominous sign to the Demons’ defenders. Now, a trademark dominant performance was not to transpire from him, as I think it’s obvious to most of us now that this year will not receive a special mention in the chronicling of his career. Nevertheless… his effort and endeavour to tackle, to harry, to contest in what were some pretty brutal marking contests, and to bring teammates into the game, was absolutely first class.
It was a blunter and less refined Curnow than footy viewers have become accustomed to, but nonetheless entirely effective. He kicked three goals in the end, including the eventual sealer from a dodgy umpiring decision, which I will elaborate on later. But it was a much grittier performance than his statline of one tackle and three contested possessions would have you believe. I reckon Blues fans would be tipping their caps to him, as long as said caps were still intact and hadn’t yet been thrown into that waterway on Brunswick Rd abutting Ikon Park.
PICKETT UNSTOPPABLE
Kozzie Pickett kicked his team’s first, and two for the first term, and Jesus bloody Christ, there’s not a lot I can say here that would do his performance justice. 23 touches, five goals, and two goal assists was his final statline, but it was the way in which he scored his goals and the buzz that he played with which were the notable aspects. One goal was a snapped set shot from the boundary, one goal was a checkside set shot from the boundary (both in the third quarter), another one was an act of dark magic in the last term where, in a sea of about six Carlton players, the ball somehow fell to him to soccer through to keep his team within touching distance.
He makes things happen. It’s that simple. There’s nothing that even Darren Glass could’ve done, short of scragging him and likely infringing. From a loyalist’s point of view, I love too that he’s stuck around at Melbourne, even if the contract raises questions down the line. For now, worth every cent.
THE BLUES HAVE FOUND ONE. MAYBE TWO
Ashton Moir was to be the most dangerous-looking Blues forward for the game, and that was something else which was made quite clear early on. With a whole lot of scuffling, hack kicks, and scrums taking place, he fortuitously found himself in the right place, and after what could be described as a half-baulk to just offset the Dees defender marking him, snapped it from very close range for his first. This wasn’t a landmark event in itself, but it opened my eyes to his class around goal, as someone who’s watched absolutely bugger all of him. Blokes who know to do those little movements at such times are born with it, and they are valuable commodities. Moir carried on his merry way, with three absolute pearler left-footed set shots (is he left-footed? All I can find on him online is ‘dual-sided’ but for some reason I had it in my mind that he was right-footed) from 40-45m out throughout the game. He’s got serious class, this lad, and if not for a masterpiece of a shank in the final term, it would’ve been a flawless impact forward’s game.
Matt Carroll looks the goods. Between him, (now-delisted) Jack Carroll and Matt Cottrell, you’d have a solid Three Stooges tribute act, but, having watched stuff all footy this year (including of my own team), his class with the ball, the weighting of his kicks (including his first career goal), and his fleet-footedness all scored big ticks from this quarter. An extremely measured and composed performance. There’s just something about left-footers. There’s more silk about their kicks, even if the inaccuracy records are absolutely littered with lefties.
Shoutout to Carroll’s teammate Flynn Young here too; another leftie, who nailed his first in the big league with an absolute corker of a set shot.
THE HALF-BACK ONE-SIDERS
Jake Bowey and Lachie Cowan play slightly different roles to each other; one’s more of a two-way defender (a fast-emerging one, at that) whilst the other one is too short to be bothering with such trivialities as defensive accountability, but there were some similarities between the two that I, correctly or incorrectly, observed. One is that they play with dare; quantify this statement how you wish, but they’re always trying to open up gaps and thread balls through rather than approaching the moment with the blunt long-kicking force of some other similar types. More to the point, though, they each need to do a ton of practice on their non-preferred.
Bowey had about three rushed checkside rebounds; I think one of them might’ve worked out, but the impression one got was that he was panicking. Cowan had two, I believe, and while he got distance on one of the two, the pressure that that kind of weakness invites in that part of the ground is significant. As a non-key defender, your job is to clean up in the defensive 50 and jettison the ball out of there when under severe pressure, with penetration if possible. If you learn to use your non-preferred, suddenly your options open up. You don’t have to contort yourself in tight situations in order to find power, and you can run either way when corralled and effectively hoick it out of there no matter what. I found it a precarious move, and I doubt the respective coaches were feeling much differently to me on it.
WEITERING SUPREME
Jacob Weitering spent a lot of time on a red-hot Jake Melksham and absolutely blanketed him. Where in the previous few weeks, during his goal-fest renaissance, Melksham had been matched up on players that either didn’t have the smarts or the strengths to nullify him, Weitering had both in spades. His reading of the play is and was first-class, and he was there to cut the ball off or kill the contest with unerring accuracy. It’s no exaggeration to say that he was the main reason his team won the game, and his performance was rewarded with some icing in the final couple of minutes, with a frustrated Melksham giving away a needless holding free.
SKILLS, PRESSURE, AND THE LACK THEREOF
There’s something missing about Melbourne’s play at the moment. They’ve had a mixture of really solid and absolutely diabolical results this year, and whilst this one fell somewhere in the beige middle area of that spectrum, they should be better than they are. The only area they’re really lacking in is the key forward department, and while that is arguably in the top two most important positions on the ground, it shouldn’t be enough to hinder performance to this extent. When they move the ball, they move it brilliantly. And their forwards, when kicking it inside 50, know EXACTLY where to kick it to, because that’s where they’d want it in their teammate’s position. And yet, through subpar execution, or a frail mentality, or a dodgy curry eaten that afternoon, they fail to produce to their fullest potential.
The Carlton pressure during the first half was immense. It dropped off during the third quarter when Melbourne got back on level terms (they’ve obviously got some unresolved juju issues in this regard, because their third quarters have been god-awful this year), but returned with verve in the last. It was a pleasure to watch a team run at and harass its opponents in that vein. It was an almighty shock to check the stats post-game and see that they only laid 48 tackles, because it felt like 1.5x that. A credit to whatever defensive work they’ve been doing at training.
This segues into the flipside of Carlton’s football; the skills. The ball was apparently slippery at times, but still, the amount of fumbles and missed disposals did not befit a professional sporting organisation. Fortunately, Melbourne weren’t much better, but where Melbourne were able to hit their top gear in the third, albeit briefly, Carlton just kind of… slogged their way through the entire thing, with their trademark dour low-ceiling approach. It was effective, especially given they lost the contested possession count by 21, but at some of those skill errors I couldn’t help but shake my head. They’ve been singled out in the media this year as an unskilled team, and I doubt this showing dissuaded those notions. And I’d hope too that someone in the coach’s box is witnessing the team’s penchant for bombing it long inside 50 and considering the suggestion of some alterations to this strategy, because I can tell ya, if it doesn’t work the first twenty times, it’s unlikely to work the twenty-first.
THE SPARK THAT LIT THE FIRE
The tempo of the game, as stated, increased with May’s hit on Evans. I personally don’t think he should be rubbed out for it, as it was a split second incident where a taller man competed in a contest against a smaller man, but he’ll receive the bad-boy tax, and who knows in what direction the bozos at AFL House will be lobbing their darts as they navigate the rigorous and scientific process of adjudicating the punishment. To that point, the crowd had been relatively sedate, though I suppose Melbourne’s post half-time comeback did buoy the fans in attendance a tad, so one could argue that the atmosphere was projecting upward at the time of the hit anyway. Throughout the entire last quarter, the crowd were in full voice, and hanging on to every knock-on, smother and dodgy free kick. And unfortunately, there were a couple of these, and one of them essentially led to the game being sealed.
It was a holding free against Oliver on Curnow, and was the type of incident that is let go a few dozen times a game. It’s irritating when the umps reach in and select a random instance in which to pay an infringement, especially at that stage of the game. No one, apart from maybe Andrew Dillon, ever said that a close footy game could be improved with a winning goal from a line-ball free kick. It leaves you feeling so empty as a neutral. Let them play, sir/madam.
The salt in the wound for Oliver’s 200th was that about a minute prior, he’d caught a Carlton opponent stone cold with the ball, and was unrewarded. On replay, it looked like the ball mayyyy have been knocked out as he laid the tackle, but when a player with the ball dithers as the Carlton player did (one of the new blokes; White, maybe?), generally the fact that the tackle is laid at all will incur a free kick. It was a harsh non-call in my opinion, and the cherry on top which sent Oliver ballistic was a holding free against him in the final minute, upon which Patty Cripps took the liberty of pouring a bit of mayo.
So that’s that. Carlton 12.6.78-Melbourne 10.10.70. An absorbing struggle between two middling teams, both probably looking back on their seasons as somewhat wasted, both no doubt now daydreaming of beachside martinis and unspecified substances in Ibizan clubs. A bit to hang onto for Carlton fans, even though it’s not clear whether Voss and co. will be able to pull them above the status of ‘honest battlers,’ and the Melbourne fans that are left in the city will be able to console themselves with some Mersey Valley Gouda and the fact that Max Gawn is still producing top-tier football output at the ripe old age of 34.
Till next time.
