If Carlton does not make the finals in 2025, they will have nobody to blame but themselves. They certainly cannot blame the AFL, who have done everything in its power to give the Blues every chance of September action.
After coming off a win against the Bombers, the Blues now sit in 11th spot on the ladder, and have already picked up two wins against the bottom two teams in the competition, West Coast and North Melbourne. They received this leg-up at a point where they were really struggling, sitting 0-4 and staring down the barrel of a disastrous start to the year.
Their first win came against the Eagles in Round Five, and the very next week, they picked up win number two, against the Kangaroos. The cumulative margin of those wins was a whopping 153 points, and suddenly, Carlton did not look as inept as they did across the first month of footy.
Since then, their season has been a series of ups and downs. A big win over the Cats signalled that Carlton may have been back, but they were towelled up by the Crows the following week. They knocked over the Saints, but fell to the Swans and Giants in consecutive weeks, before taking down Essendon this week. A rollercoaster – wins scattered amongst disappointing losses.
In reality, that is the form line of an average-at-best team. Yes, they’re battling injury worries, but show me a team in the league who isn’t.
The Blues have been ordinary, and really, are lucky to remain in contention for a finals spot, but hang on a second… it’s the AFL to the rescue.
As we enter Round 14, and really start ramping up the run toward September, Carlton have been given a second gift from the league – a second back-to-back schedule of two of the competition’s worst teams. It’s as though the league forgot they already gave the Blues a present and sent over another one.
A big win for Carlton. Not such a great deal for other teams fighting to make the eight.
In Round 14, the Blues fly to Perth to take on West Coast again, before coming home to face the Kangaroos at the MCG.
Here you go, Blues… have two wins to help you out!
Now, I know what Carlton fans are thinking – it’s a fixturing anomaly, right? Other teams play the Eagles and Roos twice during the season; the Blues just happen to play them back-to-back.
Twice.
Now, I have read several theories about this, but given I am only an occasional conspiracy theorist, I haven’t given them too much thought. I mean, things like this don’t occur on purpose, right? It’s just one of those weird little quirks of the fixture that just happens to favour one team… twice.
In real terms, what a fixture like this does is arrest, or helps create momentum. If the momentum is swinging away from a team, as it was in Round Five, when the Blues got their first leg-up against West Coast, it halts the downward spiral they’re stuck in. As it stands now, in Round 14, it will help build on the marginal momentum the club has created with a win over the Bombers.
The big question is – how can this happen?
How can Carlton be gifted what basically adds up to 16 premiership points by playing four games against the bottom two teams, when there are other teams they have not even played once?
Assuming they can beat West Coast and North Melbourne, again.
Carlton are yet to play Port, Brisbane, Melbourne, Gold Coast, or Fremantle. But they get the other two teams twice?
We often hear about the competition being so even, but this is an incredibly uneven aspect of the AFL. I am sure it will happen for other teams at some stage, but right now, that is not the case. Right now, the Blues have a dream run in 2025, and if they do end up making the finals, they need to send a nice bottle of wine to the people assembling the fixture, because they’ve done their best to gift this mob a chance to play in September.
And if they cannot make finals with this draw, it might be time to blow it all up at Princes Park, because they can’t be kissed on a certain part of the body like this again in 2026…
… can they?
As always, massive thanks to those who support this work. You can see the amount of care that goes into it. I love footy, I love writing about it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Without you, this whole thing falls over. Sincerely… thank you – HB
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