The Quandary of Carlton

The Quandary of Carlton

GuyWhoLikesSport

One of the least fond memories of my life is the 2013 elimination final between Richmond and the Blues, where Chris Judd tore my heart out of my chest and ate it like Khaleesi in Game of Thrones.

I desperately want them to be bad.

Despite that, and their game against Collingwood on Friday night, I think the Blues are for real. More so than they were last year, at least.

Last year Carlton was fool’s gold. Picking Brisbane in that preliminary final was the easiest tip of the season. To win premierships you need to be in the top third of the league for scoring off turnovers and the Blues were 14th.

In fact, they didn’t score enough in general with their best score source being from stoppage where they were only 5th. They were only 11th in the expected score.

They defended well, ground, scored relatively well from stoppage, and were a strong contested ball side that didn’t score enough. That kind of game style just doesn’t stack up in modern football.

From a list perspective, they were also mostly top-heavy, resembling Australia by pushing away the middle class and fielding a team of haves and have nots.

This year, they’ve remedied their ills in a big way.

They’re still dominant at scoring from stoppage, sitting comfortably on top of the league for that stat. They’re still dominant at contested ball and in the clearance game. Even though they have been relatively poor defensively lately, that will ikely be fixed as players return.

What they were good at last season, they’re as good or better at this season. Stoppage scoring and physical brutishness is still their favourite way to play.

The difference is everything else.

They’re currently fourth in the AFL at scoring from turnover behind only GWS, Sydney, and Geelong. That pressure will only crank up when Fogarty gets back.

They also lead the league in expected score and generate the second-best shots in the AFL by expected score per shot.

More than game style, Harry McKay has become a top-5 forward and players like Matt Cottrell, when he’s playing as a forward, Elijah Hollands, and Jordan Boyd have become really good second-tier players of the kind every good team needs.

Happy learned how to putt. Uh oh.

In some ways, the Collingwood game was microcosmic of their strengths and weaknesses this season. 25 of their 34 first quarter points came off turnover. Their pressure was scalding, and they hunted Collingwood.

More than that, though, they bullied them. The Blues are such a physical side.

The very first ruck contest seemed likely to set the tone for the game. Marc Pittonet bench pressed Mason Cox out of the way, grabbed the ball, farmed it out and the Blues got the first clearance cleanly.

They were the bigger, stronger, meaner, hungrier side.

Then the game changed. In the second term, the Blues pressure dropped off and their contest dominance seemed to fall away. This was a result of two things.

Firstly, Craig McRae almost immediately gave up on Mason Cox in the ruck. He just couldn’t go with Pittonet physically. He instead turned the game over to Darcy Cameron and the Blues’ ruck dominance was halved.

The other thing the Pies did was junk up the stoppages.

He put extra numbers around the ball so even if Carlton got the clearance, the Pies’ post-clearance pressure was so hot that Carlton eventually turned the ball over and the Pies could run with numbers and score how they want to score – from the back half. It looked like Richmond stoppage from 2017 when Kane Lambert would join the midfield. No doubt we can thank Justin Leppitsch for that little gem.

McRae bowled a googly, Carlton couldn’t deal with it, then he bowled nothing but googlies for the rest of the game and Blues didn’t adapt.

In the end, the Pies’ innovation beat Carlton at their own game, with Collingwood doubling the Blues’ scoring from stoppage including Daicos’ match winner.

Carlton’s failure to adapt tactically has been an issue in the Michael Voss era.

They tried, after some Al Pacino level yelling from Michael Voss to get the ball FORWARD.

They cleared the area with dump kicks forward instead of working the ball out of stoppage by handball and that worked for a time. But that as well played into Collingwood’s hands because of the high-risk nature of it. If a Carlton forward took a mark or they were good enough at ground level it was okay, but if the Pies got there first they were off.

Collingwood did sacrifice some scoring by taking the approach of devoting their forward flankers to the midfield but Carlton was so toothless that it was almost a nil-all draw in that quarter until the end of the third term when Carlton started to score from stoppage.

In the end, the fourth quarter was defined by the brilliance of individuals more than anything else. Sometimes it’s as simple as Collingwood’s good players had more moments at the end than Carlton’s did (I think we need to ask if Nick Daicos is underrated?).

The loss itself is not cause for alarm in my view. Collingwood is like a great old fighter. They’ve lost 5 or 10% from their best self, but all of that loss is physical. They’ve lost nothing from their heart or their head.

However, Carlton do have a few issues that need to be looked at.

The first one is Zac Williams. Is he, at this point, an AFL level player? He is stealing a living. He was directly responsible for three goals by my tracking because of sloppy defending before he was subbed with another injury.

It was funny, against Collingwood both teams shone the microscope on the other team’s worst defender like they were a kid frying an ant with a magnifying glass. Collingwood kicked it to whoever Williams was on and Carlton kicked it to whoever Frampton was on, often to great effect.

More than just Williams, if Weitering goes down Carlton is doomed. Their next best defender, even when McGovern gets back, is probably Lewis Young.

Not great, Bob.

The final issue, and one that I’ve been harping on all season, is how hard they make it for their key forwards. I counted a total of 4 uncontested marks inside 50 for Carlton, none taken by Curnow or McKay.

Only two were by way of hit up kicks, the first one from Newman (who is a great architect by foot) to Tom De Koning and one to Matt Cottrell by Charlie Curnow after he won a 1 v 4. The other two were junk kicks in that fell fortunately.

This is not good.

You’re making your stars play on hard mode.

Obviously, it hasn’t mattered as both have been excellent for the entire season, but you’re lowering their ceiling by making them be brilliant in order to be excellent instead of making their excellence routine like Adelaide does with Taylor Walker.

You’re making them be big like Al Pacino in Heat when sometimes De Niro’s quiet brilliance will do.

I recognise that neither of them lead very often, but that seems to be a coaching point and should be fixed. Especially for Curnow who takes about as many marks on the lead (1.2) as Mykelti Lefau and fewer than Tom Papley.

Okay I have one more but it’s short. Why did Cottrell play as a back pocket against Collingwood? I assume it was to accommodate the returning Harry Cunningham, but still. He was brilliant as a forward against GWS and has generally been a brilliant forward this season.

That mould of the short, creative half forward flank players who apply pressure has come into vogue this season with players like Brent Daniels and Gryan Miers. Cottrell can be Carlton’s version of that in my view.

He’s a forward play him there.

In sum, despite the loss, it isn’t all bad news for Carlton. They have wins in the bank and have lost two of the best games of the year to last year’s premier and this year’s premiership favourite.

But they’d want to take another big scalp soon, and make some changes in the coaching box to make life a bit easier for their superstars.

 

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