The Wrap Up | R14 V GWS Giants

Written by Ari Stamatakos

Each week, Blue Abroad’s “The Wrap Up” takes a different perspective on Carlton’s post-match review. “The Wrap Up” provides insights and stats supporting the key trends, moments and patterns of the game that held the most influence over the final result. This is your Round 14 Wrap Up following another disappointing loss, this time against GWS  

MATCH SUMMARY:

The week after the Bye, the Blues travelled to Giant Stadium in search of their 5th win of the season and in the wake of Harry Mckay resigning, the spirits were high. The Blues have never won away against the Giants so that is a hoodoo they were looking to break as GWS were looking to continue their finals charge.  

The first 90 seconds were a complete stalemate as repeated contested from the centre bounce gave the Blues hope that they were switched on and in the zone ready for a hard-hitting contest. However, in typical Carlton fashion, they gave up the first 3 goals in the first 10 minutes and all Blues fans knew at that point, it was game over. The Blues managed to stem the flow for the next 5 or so minutes before kicking two of their own through Matt Owies (2 goals, 5 score involvements) and Lachie Fogarty (1 goal, 4 tackles, 4 score involvement). The Giants got one back immediately before Toby Greene (4 goals, 11 score involvements, 8 marks) launched one from 65m out after the quarter-time siren to give the Giants a 20 point lead at the quarter time break. Harry McKay (3 goals, 8 marks, 3 inside 50’s) got his first early in the second before once again, the Blues fell apart at the seams as the Giants trampled all over us and kicked 3 to 0 to end the second half. The dominance continued after halftime as Jeremey Finlayson (5 goals, 10 marks) and Kieren Briggs (1 goal, 15 hitouts, 6 tackles) got the first two for the Giants and it was slowly becoming a massacre. Then the fightback (when have we heard that before….) Owies found some space in the goal square and marked, went back and kicked his second. A nice strong overhead mark from Harry 1 minute later who played on to slam his second from an empty square. From that centre bounce, the ball goes long inside 50 and Harry wills himself to the second ball and takes a strong grab, goes back… Bang. 3 in a row. 3 turned to 4 as another centre clearance got the Blues another deep entry. The ball found its way to the back and Tom De Koning (1 goal, 10 hitouts, 3 marks) slammed home his first and all of a sudden, the Blues were back within 12 points. However, just like always, Finlayson responded with a goal and halted their momentum in its tracks. A 5 goal to 2 last quarter put what all Blues fans knew was going to happen into stone as they went down by 36 points. 

DIFFERENT WEEK, SAME RESULT.

Normally here, this spot would be a stat breakdown of the match, see where the Blues won or Lost the game. However, I felt that it would be redundant due to the sheer level of domination from top to bottom from the Giants. Uncontested ball, Contested Ball, Inside 50's and Tackles all went to the way of the Giants and just retorting that would be irrelevant because all the analysis has already been done. Let's contrast that with a chat that does not include statistics, just emotion and what did we, as a fan base, see on Saturday night. 

From start to finish, barring a good 5 minutes late in the third, we saw another pathetic performance from this once proud club. After all the talk that “Tough Conversations” had been had mid-week and that the extra week was going rejuvenate the boys, to turn out another poor display hurts supporters. As a collective, if the boys had gone out and been competitive from start to finish, hard at the contest and playing to a clear, effective game plan, but just fell short; nearly all the Blues faithful could look at themselves in the mirror and thought, "Ok, we have somewhat turned a corner". By no means would we have accepted that, but it would've been easier to stomach than that pitiful display on Saturday Night. We have been told for too long that "we are coming" and that the 'Old Navy Blue" will return. With performances and body language like what we saw on Saturday night, I guess the Carlton faithful will need to wait even longer for something to change. I hope the players realise that, for all the criticism that they get, sometimes unfairly, sometimes very fairly, the fan base will get behind you, if you give them a reason too.

FINAL SCORES

GWS Giants:                             5.3 (33), 8.4 (52), 11.4 (70), 16.6 (102) 

Carlton:                     2.1 (13), 3.4 (22), 7.10 (52), 9.12 (66) 

Carlton Goals:               McKay (3), Owies (2), Pittonet, Fisher, Fogarty, De Koning 

Carlton Best:                Kennedy, Owies, McKay.