Blues Play The Part Of Wooden Spooners Very Well
Blues v Saints
By Rick Latimer
July 23 2002
How do write about the game that defines your season and where you are as a football club? How do you write about a game that finally resigns you to the first 'wooden spoon' in a previously proud and envied history? It beats me but I will attempt to put fingers to keyboard anyway.....
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St Kilda kicked the first eight goals of the game and nine to one for
the quarter, while Carlton failed to recognise the opening siren as a
signal to play anything resembling football .... review finished! But wait there's more. Having finally recognised the positional nightmares they had created for themselves, the Blues coaching panel decided to boost the midfield stocks by allowing Davies, Campbell and Doering to inject some youthful enthusiasm and sorely needed pace. With Corey the Colossus showing more heart than anybody this season and the middle aged exuberance of Craig Bradley engineering the play like a modern day general, the Blues kicked nine goals of their own in the second quarter and despair turned to excitement in the blink of an eye. Adrian Hickmott's vice like hands enabled him to bag three of his four goals in the comeback. When Murphy goaled after a fantastic Wiggins tackle turned the ball over the Blues way, the margin was back to one goal and it seemed a matter of time before Carlton overhauled the Saints and ran away with the game. After being tagged out of the game by Baker, Camporeale watched on helplessly as his opponent scored two quick goals to kill the Blues momentum. The swing in the game coincided with an injury to Corey McKernan who was first to play forward as his leap had deserted him and the return to the field of Fraser Gehrig who had been important in the Saints flying first quarter. Carlton has returned to sloppy ball handling and costly turnovers and the Saints who were panicking only minutes before smelled blood. The first five goals for the last quarter and it was showtime for the Saints with the only saving grace for Carlton being the superb exhibition by first gamer Callan Beasy which included a brilliant one armed 'drag' mark befitting the best of basketball. It mattered not though, the slow sinking feeling and the realisation that the wooden spoon was ours was too hurtful. The manner in which it happened was worse. But the way the whole game was orchestrated with players out of position, in form players benched, woeful players persevered with and the reaction to the state of play as slow as it possibly could have been was the final insult. If the club have a hidden agenda or if they have simply decided to throw in the towel, I have no idea but from a fan's perspective and believe me I have heard a lot of it in the past few days and beyond, the rumours of deeper troubles within the Carlton inner sanctum are too horrifying to contemplate. Let's not talk about restoring pride. The damage is done. Let the players go out and play their own games, no instruction, no interference, no coach favourites, no benching of performing players and above all no selection faux pas this Thursday.
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« Round 16 21 July 2002 Colonial Stadium |
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| Carlton | 1.1 | 10.4 | 13.10 | 14.13.97 |
| St Kilda | 9.2 | 12.3 | 16.5 | 22.8.140 |
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