In the final fight of Skyfall, James Bond learned the same lesson that the U.S. military learned in Iraq: “Sometimes, the old ways are best.”
Outgunned and outtechnologied, Bond and the Iraqi resistance to the American occupation alike went back to analogue weapons of war in a digital age and emerged victorious.
Carlton did the same thing.
Josh Fraser got in his 1963 Aston Martin DB5 and booby trapped the house full of Michael Voss’ methods of pressure, contest, and surge. They ended up beating Melbourne in an extraordinary game the old-fashioned way with a few Fraser sprinkles on top.
The Voss principles, familiar to anyone who knew Carlton under Voss were pressure, contest, front half, and surge. You didn’t need to watch a Blues game under Voss, because you could feel it. They just got it forward and tried to keep it there without much in the way of science. Crowds reacted more often to forward 50 tackles than the astonishing disposal of Sam Walsh.
As a result of that style of play, Blues under Michael Voss were bottom-6 in ball use equity points in three of Voss’ four years. The clearest change for Fraser has been in ball use, but this game was his side’s second worst ball use equity game with him in charge.
In the second quarter particularly, as the Blues worked their way back into the game, you felt it. The Blues put away the ball movement PhD they’ve got under Fraser and went back to wielding the Voss knife. They pressured and harassed and harried. While they’ve been good contest and metreage teams for the Fraser-era, the brutality of this game at stages felt more Voss like. In an era of helicopters and drones, this game was a few sticks of dynamite, a knife, and your dad’s old hunting rifle.
For the night, the Blues were +24 in contested ball, +80 in metres gained, spent 54% of the game in the front half, and won scores from both front half and turnover. They also had an astonishing amount of run from behind tackles.
But it wasn’t all the Michael Voss way. While Carlton was content to bomb from stoppage and win and contest thereafter, there were still some Fraser elements that helped put the Blues over the top.
For one, Carlton tried to hit a few targets inside 50. Sam Walsh in particular was intent on trying to hit targets rather than the Voss method of popping it on Charlie’s head all the time. Because of the ability to shift angles at around 70 metres out and look for good launch angles, the Blues took 19 marks inside 50 on the night. No Voss team ever averaged more than 12.
But the Fraser-sprinkles went beyond just how they entered 50. Melbourne knew that Carlton was probably the best short kicking, control team in footy outside of Brisbane in footy over the Fraser-era. Without his best interceptor, Steven King went back to his Geelong roots. The Dees teased and begged Carlton to try short kicks out of their back half, and preyed on them when they were millimetres off. They forced intercepts then ran hard forward off the intercepts on their way to a hot start.
Fraser adjusted massively at quarter time. He knew that Melbourne’s style of play was inherently taxing and decided to do a Denmark and tax some more, having his charges spread the field to the point of absurdity in terms of both length and width.
This forced Melbourne, who was still playing almost pure man-to-man, to run hard to defend the entire ground. The Blues then honoured the wide leads and took advantage of the space that was created by their men vacating the corridor, with runners like Jagga Smith and Sam Walsh getting on the end of 26 handballs between them, and launching attacks from that space.
While their skills often weren’t perfect, the extra running alone was a benefit to the Blues.
When they got corridor, the Blues then spread hard to the boundary again, taking real advantage of the hyper aggressive way Melbourne likes to defend especially without Jake Lever. They knew that the Dees would come off their man to try and chop off the corridor kicks that Carlton was trying, and they won off that too. The goal Ben Ainsworth kicked with 50 seconds left in the third term to put the Blues in front was the best example of that for the night.
Adam Cerra, after a wide exit from defence as was their mode, got the ball and looked inward to Taylor Byrne on a lead. Ainsworth was leading to a similar spot but as soon as Byrne marked it near the centre circle, Ainsworth hit a flat sprint to the forward flank as his man and Disco Turner both got sucked up to try and stop the corridor kick to Byrne. By the time Byrne got it to Ainsworth, it was nothing but green grass and he strolled in to kick the goal.
The tired Dees, without their organiser Lever, just couldn’t keep up with the aggression of the run and the width and length of Carlton’s positioning, nor could they keep up with the brutality of the game at contest.
It was stretch then stab footy.
While the Blues were still down at half time, and while they were more about contest than the kind of ball movement, those running patterns are like a boxer chopping wood with body shots through the early rounds: it was an investment in the future tiredness of the Dees.
And it was like buying Nvidia in 1995. In the last term, Carlton was +22 in contested ball, +6 in clearance, and +11 in ground balls. They outran, outtoughed, and ultimately outgunned the Dees on their way to a famous victory.
It’s been an extraordinary ride for Josh Fraser at the helm. It’s been marked by, more than anything else, change. But in this game, Fraser understood that his pet style that relies so heavily on ball skills wasn’t going to work at least in patches as the pressure of the finals got to a youngish group, so he adapted. He went back to a style that he markedly shifted away from, and he won as a result.
I have no doubt that Michael Voss watched that proudly.