AFL Round 13 Carlton v Essendon: Chris Cavanagh looks at where it went wrong for Carlton again and the young Dons leading the way
The Bombers appeared to be undermanned with some of their veteran midfielders missing – but it’s proven to be a silver lining as the next generation show their worth.
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Essendon used eight players at centre bounces in the 34-point win on Sunday night.
Among them were four players under 23 – Archie Perkins, Ben Hobbs, Jye Caldwell and Nic Martin.
Against a side whose strength often lies in its contest and clearance ability, the Bombers won centre clearances 13-7 and overall clearances 29-26 against Carlton.
Injuries to Darcy Parish (calf), Will Setterfield (foot) and Dylan Shiel (foot) have forced opportunities for the next generation of Bombers midfielders and they have grasped those opportunities with both hands.
Perkins started at the first centre bounce on Blues captain Patrick Cripps, who he ran with for a large portion of the night – and beat.
Champion Data statistics showed Perkins spent 48 minutes opposed to Cripps and had 11 disposals to Cripps’ seven during that time.
Perkins finished with 18 disposals, while Caldwell (25 disposals, four clearances), Hobbs (24 disposals, two clearances) and Martin (30 disposals, seven clearances) also impacted.
Bombers coach Brad Scott labelled the opportunities a “silver lining” in the midst of the injury issues.
“We’ve never talked about, ‘Gee, we’re undermanned,” Scott said.
“We always talk about system over personnel. It’s just really exciting for our club that we’ve got those young boys coming through. The opportunity for Archie Perkins to play more midfield minutes mostly on Cripps (was great).
“(Perkins is) already really strong and powerful now and he’s only going to get stronger and more powerful.
“To go head-to-head with Cripps, you think as a coach ‘Are you doing the right thing?’. But the opportunity that a couple of really good players being out has given others has been significant.”
Wright move
Peter Wright was declared medically fit to return from a shoulder injury against North Melbourne in Round 12, but Essendon decided to hold him back one more week to get him cherry ripe.
The 2022 best-and-fairest did not disappoint in what was his first game of the season, with a five-goal haul spearheading the Bombers’ big win over Carlton.
Wright looked dangerous in the forward 50 from the opening minutes of the match, proving more than a handful for Blues defender Lewis Young.
He had two goals to half-time before booting three in 16 minutes during the third quarter.
While Kyle Langford and Sam Weideman held the fort well for the Bombers in the first half of the season, the return of Two-Metre Peter is a huge boost ahead of what is a favourable run home in the charge to September.
Don’t forget that Wright won Essendon’s goalkicking with 53 goals from 22 games last season.
“It was really impressive what Pete was able to do individually, but the flexibility of that forward half now (is better),” Scott said.
There’s few defenders in the competition that can match Wright in the air when he’s up and about and unlike a lot of other key forwards in the competition, he doesn’t waste many opportunities.
His goalkicking accuracy stood at 62.4 per cent last season.
Merrett magic
When Carlton named its team on Thursday night and included Ed Curnow, Essendon knew exactly why.
A veteran run-with player, Curnow went straight to Bombers captain Zac Merrett at the first centre bounce on Sunday night.
Merrett had been averaging 35 disposals and 9.3 score involvements during a hot run of form over the previous three weeks.
Curnow put the clamps on that sort of impact – at least for the first half.
At halftime, Merrett had just eight disposals and one behind to his name.
Essendon decided to switch him forward after that and he kicked a goal in the first 44 seconds of the third quarter.
Merrett finished his night with 18 disposals, seven score involvements, two goal assists and 1.1 – along with the second-most pressure acts of any player on the ground with 29.
The move proved a coaching masterstroke and showed an element of selflessness from Merrett.
“If he wasn’t the highest-rated pressure player in the first half, I’d be surprised,” Scott said of his captain.
“It was pretty obvious the opponent he was going to have coming into the game.
“You get to choose your attitude and how you’re going to deal with this. He personifies our mantra of system over personnel and I think he’s an All-Australian player but he just does what the team needs and he did that last week too. Even though he had an unbelievable first half against North, we highlighted all the team things he was doing. It’s not just getting the ball.”
More woes for non-functioning Blues
In many ways it was the same old story for the Blues.
They generated plenty of inside-50s against Essendon but a non-functioning forward line couldn’t put them on the scoreboard in the 34-point loss on Sunday night.
Carlton logged 56 inside-50s to Essendon’s 41 for the game.
Yet, the Bombers booted 13.8 (86) from 23 shots on goal and the Blues managed 6.16 (52) from 28 shots on goal.
Carlton has slumped to the worst team in the competition for goalkicking this season.
Over the past four weeks, the Blues have had 88 shots on goal for a return of 25 goals, amounting to an accuracy of 28.4 per cent.
Some shots are coming from the wrong spots, others are being rushed and some culprits still seem confused with their routine.
Harry McKay elected to snap around the corner from 25m out on a slight angle during the second quarter on Sunday night.
He didn’t make the distance, with the ball being touched on the goal line.
As much as Voss has taken some heat for his side’s performances, he can’t do much about some of the poor execution from his players.
“We played some dominant football in periods of the game but we’re putting enormous pressure on ourselves by not being able to finish our work,” Voss said.
“That puts pressure on your system because you don’t have your way the whole time in this game.
“Essendon were able to put the foot to the floor in the third quarter and they scored 7.1 and in the second quarter when we had the dominance in our half we kicked 2.5.
“Sometimes the game’s simple like that – you’ve got to finish your work.”
Cripps’ form slump
Carlton coach Michael Voss says there is nothing wrong with his captain, Patrick Cripps.
“Yes, he is,” Voss responded when asked if Cripps was currently fully fit.
“Sometimes players get out of form. Sometimes they do.
“He’ll be okay. He’s completely fine, guys. Sometimes you lose a bit of form and he’s running through a little bit of that and there’s been a couple of players that have been in the same boat. So he’s got a little challenge ahead of him to be able to rectify it and I’ll back that man in.”
At half-time against Essendon, Cripps had registered 17 SuperCoach ranking points, making him the fifth-lowest ranked player on the ground.
He lifted a little after that but finished with just 19 disposals and no effective kicks.
Over his past six games, Cripps has averaged 75.7 ranking points – all of which Carlton has lost.
During his Brownlow Medal year in 2022, he averaged 111 ranking points across his 21 games.
His scoreboard impact has also dried up, with average score involvements dropping from 6.7 to 6.2.
Cripps averaged a goal a game last season but has managed just one major from his 13 games this season.
Carlton has far more problems than Cripps and his form, but there’s no doubt he is critically important to his side’s success – and the statistics show that.
In the Blues’ four wins this year, Cripps has averaged 120 ranking points.
In the side’s eight losses, the captain has averaged 83 ranking points.
Tonight was the first full-length game of Patrick Cripps’ career where he didn’t record an effective kick
— Ethan (@ethanmeldrum_) June 11, 2023
Blues’ burning question: Where have they improved?
The last time Carlton lost six games in a row, Brendon Bolton was still in charge.
That was in early 2019 and four years and two sacked coaches later, the Blues have lost six on the trot again.
It raises the question – what progress has Carlton actually made?
The age profile of its list suggests it should be playing finals, if not challenging for a premiership.
The side the Blues rolled out against Essendon on Sunday night was 10 months older in average age than that of their arch rival.
But for fans who hadn’t already cut apart their membership cards this season, they can safely book their September holidays now.
Chief executive Brian Cook moved to calm growing tensions and guarantee coach Michael Voss’ position in a pre-game radio interview last night.
“Michael Voss’s future with us is a three-year contract and he will be with us at least until the end of next season,” Cook said, adding that Voss would “absolutely” be at the helm in Round 1 next year.
A few hours after that interview, Essendon kicked eight unanswered goals on Carlton between the 20-minute-mark of the second quarter and the 19-minute-mark of the third term on its way to a 34-point win.
Voss is just halfway through his second season, but the numbers don’t make for good reading.
The Blues’ previous coach, David Teague, was given the flick after 50 games, during which he held a 42 per cent winning record.
From 34 games, Voss’ win rate now sits at a worrying 44.1 per cent.
Since Round 11 last season, Carlton has won eight of 25 matches – just 32 per cent.
Players being booed off the ground by their own fans at a home match showed that this situation is only getting uglier by the week.
Granted, Voss foreshadowed “change” in his press conference last Thursday.
He hinted that the memo to his side had been to “embrace the chaos”, after they were the go-slow Blues across the first half of the season.
That change, we saw.
The team with a Hyundai logo on their jumpers used the ball with the pace of a Ferrari in the opening quarter, playing on from their marks and looking to use the corridor.
The problem was, there was little method to the madness.
When then Blues went inside-50, there was no one home in the first term.
Key targets Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay would be up on the wings, leaving a vacant attacking 50.
Carlton did not take a mark inside-50 in the opening quarter and at one point during the second term it had logged 28 inside-50s for only two marks inside the arc.
Phone towers in the outback provide better connection than that.
The frustration is clear to see.
During the third quarter, Jack Silvagni ran down a wing and place a perfectly-weighted ball inside-50.
The ball went in the direction of Matthew Owies, with Charlie Curnow just behind him.
Neither went for what would have been an uncontested mark, the ball spilt free, a turnover eventually ensured and Essendon chained the ball to the other end of the ground with ease for a Peter Wright goal seconds later.
Silvagni clapped his hands in anger as the crowd collectively groaned.
It was symbolic of the wasted opportunities from a forward line that simply can’t hit the scoreboard.
In seven of its past nine games, Carlton has failed to score more than 62 points.
Against an undersized Essendon defence, it put six goals on the board from 56 inside-50 entries.
The problems at the Blues go beyond their failure to score.
The inconsistency of the midfield group is also hurting.
The Bombers blitzed the Blues in centre clearances, particularly in their third-quarter purple patch.
That was Carlton’s one-wood early last season.
And when the Blues weren’t winning the ball during that period, they weren’t tackling, either.
Across the second and third quarters, they laid a combined 10 tackles.
It’s been acknowledged that Cripps did not stay in a different hotel on a trip to Sydney last month, but he’s playing on a different planet to what he did in his Brownlow Medal campaign last season.
During the first 44 minutes of play against the Bombers, Cripps recorded four disposals – three of which were clangers.
At halftime, he had 17 SuperCoach ranking points – only four players on the ground ranked worse.
While the skipper lifted a little in the second half, his performances over the past five weeks have been a lot like his side’s – not up to expectations.
The Blues face an improving Gold Coast side – which will be fresh off a bye – at the MCG next Sunday.
It’s a dead-rubber as far as this season goes, but Voss and some of his players won’t want to treat it that way.
Scoreboard
BLUES 1.5 3.10 5.10 6.16 52
BOMBERS 2.4 4.6 11.7 13.8 86
JAMES MOTTERSHEAD’S BEST Blues: Cerra, C. Curnow, Walsh. Bombers: Martin, Wright, Hobbs, Stringer, Caldwell, Perkins, Redman.
GOALS Blues: C. Curnow 2, McKay, Cincotta, Martin, Owies. Bombers: Wright 5, Menzie 2, Langford, Snelling, Merrett, Guelfi, Phillips, Caldwell.
INJURIES Blues: nil. Bombers: nil.
83,638 at MCG
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
JAMES MOTTERSHEAD’S VOTES
3 Nic Martin (ESS)
2 Peter Wright (ESS)
1 Ben Hobbs (ESS)
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