Magpie delight, Blue despair: Wildly contrasting reactions to Collingwood’s Round 23 win last year. Photo: AFL MEDIA
This is some sort of conclusion to the 2023 home and away season, Round 19 having featured the match of the season to date and no fewer than five games decided by less than two goals.
With five rounds to go and seven teams around the fringes of the eight separated by just one win, the big ticket games are several per week and the genuine blockbusters keep coming, few if any bigger than this Friday night’s Collingwood-Carlton clash.
“Everything has changed and nothing has changed” is the line which keeps resounding in my head as I ponder this critical game which could well draw more than 90,000 to the MCG. For the Blues in particular.
Superficially, things do seem pretty different to when the Pies and Blues met in round 10 just a couple of months back. While Collingwood was flying then and now, Carlton certainly wasn’t.
The Blues’ 28-point defeat that Sunday afternoon in late May was the third in a string of six consecutive losses which had the Princes Park natives restless indeed. Collingwood had 10 goals to four on the board by half-time and contemptuously held them at arms length thereafter in a win which left Carlton 11th.
The Blues are a pretty different proposition now on the back of five consecutive wins, the smallest margin in any of them a whopping 53 points. And a win over the Pies, whom they’ve beaten just once in their last nine attempts, will put them back inside the top eight.
And yet even that scenario may for Carlton elicit a nightmarish sense of déjà vu. Yep, THAT final round clash last year. Against an opponent for whom the stakes weren’t quite as high and with finals on the line.
OK, so not quite with the finality of that brutal Round 23 loss last season, when the Blues, having been in the top eight literally all season, fell out of it only at the final siren of the final game.
But with three of its final four games against top eight teams in St Kilda, Melbourne and GWS, and the other at the always-challenging Gold Coast environs of Carrara, defeat against Collingwood will at best leave Carlton on a knife’s edge.
The other bit of déjà vu here is that for all the progress the Blues have made over the past five games (and they were coming from a pretty low base, remember) there is still a considerable question mark over just how high is their ceiling against quality opposition.
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Yes, Port Adelaide is a considerable scalp. But the Power Carlton beat the weekend before last was significantly weakened without Charlie Dixon, Jason Horne-Francis, Trent McKenzie and Willie Rioli and perhaps ripe for the picking. The other wins have come against Gold Coast, Hawthorn, Fremantle and West Coast. It’s hardly cream of the crop stuff.
None of which to say an upset is not seriously on the cards here. And that’s with Collingwood arguably in even better nick than it was in Round 10. Jamie Elliott certainly is. And the Pies look a more imposing side up forward for Dan McStay’s return, also.
Carlton will rightly argue you can only beat what’s put in front of you, which on Saturday, was a West Coast side which for the entire first half did a fair impersonation of witches hats.
The numbers back it up, but the Blues’ new-found wont to run and carry, to break the lines and to move the ball at greater speed is obvious enough even to the naked eye.
There’s good rebound being generated by Sam Docherty and Adam Saad, an already solid backline is being shored up further by the emergence of Brodie Kemp. Nic Newman and George Hewett are solid. Blake Acres is offering more. And all those little incremental improvements are being capitalized on better where it counts most.
It’s a bizarre theory that Charlie Curnow is flourishing partly because of fellow key forward Harry McKay’s absence. But the athletic big man does look better for a bit more space in which to work, and that quicker transition from defence certainly helps.
As big a key, though, might be Carlton’s improved defensive work in that forward 50. I always thought the Blues looked at their best last season when small forwards Matt Owies and Corey Durdin were doing their best work. Right now, though, it’s Jesse Motlop and Lachie Fogarty performing that similar role, and doing it well.
Even at their lowest ebb this season, the strange thing about the Blues was that many of their statistical markers were good, far better than all their rivals around those lower reaches of the ladder they came to occupy. It suggested that massive change wasn’t needed, more the odd subtle tweak. And recent results back that up.
Personnel will be a real issue against Collingwood. McKay is missing, surely Sam Walsh doesn’t recover from a hamstring issue in six days, and Jack Silvagni also has to be doubtful. But skipper Patrick Cripps and Adam Cerra are pretty handy “ins”.
And winning against an opponent this good, particularly with the Blues missing a few big names, would be a huge boost to their confidence and their finals credibility. It really is a fantastic test.
Is Carlton the real deal? Get back to me around 10.30pm on Friday night.
This article first appeared at ESPN.
