Is Carlton, Port Adelaide and Melbourne’s recent form revival sustainable?

Carlton and Port Adelaide are back in finals contention and Melbourne isn’t far behind. The question supporters are asking though — is their resurgence real?

As Harry McKay put the finishing touches on Carlton’s best win of the season against Geelong, Blues fans may have been ready to declare their team is back.

A 0-4 start to the season had talkback lighting up and the Blues have now won three on the trot, albeit the first two came against battlers North Melbourne and West Coast.

As Michael Voss said post-match, “we’re 3-4, we’re fighting from a fair way back”.

Yet the Blues do appear to be fighting back, and fellow early strugglers Melbourne and Port Adelaide have similarly hit form of late.

So is this rebound for real and a rise to the top eight on the cards, or is it a mirage?

THE BLUES BOUNCE

Carlton’s midfield has, fairly, won praise in the last three weeks.

The Blues destroyed the Eagles and Roos around the ball, then belted the Cats for much of Sunday’s 18-point win.

Sam Walsh was back to his leg-pumping best, George Hewett is in career-best touch and even skipper Patrick Cripps hasn’t had to dominate for his team to play well.

Up forward, McKay delivered on his proper return to action, and Charlie Curnow played the best game of his year so far.

But it is the defence that has been clearly Carlton’s best feature this year.

Charlie Curnow and the Blues are on the charge after losing their first four games.

With Jacob Weitering on All-Australian pace again, Jack Silvagni relishing playing in defence and Nick Haynes and Mitch McGovern seemingly impassable on Sunday, the Blues are right up among the best defensive teams in the game.

This year so far, the Blues rank third for points against, fourth for allowing teams to score in their attacking 50.

And the Blues rank second for blanketing scores from clearances and are No. 1 for scores against from intercepts.

That is an elite profile and Voss always knew he could rely on that.

On Sunday, the Blues held the Cats to their lowest score of the season – outside of a soggy night in Brisbane – and allowed only 16 scoring shots.

“I think the most pleasing aspect of all is we kept a very strong offensive team to a low score,” Voss said post-match.

“That is what we have all tried to buy into and we have tried to get that job done.”

Wingman Blake Acres said on Monday that Carlton always knew it could bank on its backline.

“Our defence has been huge for us all year and it has always been a given for us. We knew we had that in our back pocket,” he said.

Carlton still has only one serious scalp this year, Geelong, and that win only really made up for the disaster that was a round 1 loss to Richmond.

The Blues face a high-scoring Adelaide on the Crows’ home turf, which should again test that defence.

The Blues know they need to be better in the front half to match their back half.

“Obviously our skills and our scoring wasn’t there in the first four weeks, we are slowly improving that,” Hewett told Triple M on Sunday.

If that attacking style matches the defence, Carlton is back to being real.

Port Adelaide has surged back into the mix for the top eight. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

POWER BACK ON?

Ken Hinkley’s Port Adelaide has won three on the trot to now be knocking on the door of the top eight.

Those wins were hardly convincing, a brilliant first half against Hawthorn was not replicated after the main break, and the next two wins came against battling Sydney and North Melbourne.

But the Power have got back to playing hard Hinkley footy.

The veteran coach loves to win the contest, get the ball forward and play ‘front-half footy’.

So far this year, the Power ranks fifth in the league both for forward-half intercepts and points from those intercepts.

Winning the ball back from opponents in the front half comes after getting it there in the first place, and the return of bull Zak Butters has helped Port Adelaide win more around the ball and set their field up.

It’s an interesting month ahead for the Power.

They will not start favourites in Ballarat against the Western Bulldogs on Saturday, face the famously tough Showdown the week after, host Geelong in round 10, then travel to meet Fremantle.

Port Adelaide needs to win at least two of those games to keep in touch with the eight.

Do that and the Power may be for real.

The Demons have eased the pressure on Simon Goodwin in recent weeks.

MELBOURNE MYSTERY

Look beyond a form resurgence from stars Max Gawn, Christian Petracca, Jack Viney and Kysaiah Pickett, and two things have gone right for Melbourne in the past fortnight.

Most pleasingly for Simon Goodwin, pressure is up, having recorded strong pressure ratings of 187 against Fremantle and 193 against Richmond.

“What we have been able to fix is some of our pressure and that is the biggest thing we have fixed,” he said after the Tigers win.

Tom Sparrow hasn’t put up huge numbers, but his pressure up forward was crucial against Richmond and that has been a winning magnet move.

The second tick is in Melbourne’s attacking style.

Long derided for winning a contest and just banging the ball forward blindly, the Demons have controlled the game much better in the past two weeks.

Combined across the two wins, the Demons have had 163 more disposals, 127 more uncontested possessions and 57 more marks.

That is elite control of the ball.

It’s no coincidence, the Demons have kicked their two best scores of the year in those games.

Goodwin has been working on turning around his side’s attacking style for 18 months and has made some progress, even if opening the game to score against Fremantle meant Melbourne conceded 97 points.

After two wins, it’s too early to declare this for real.

West Coast in Perth looms this weekend, then tests against Hawthorn and Brisbane.

That new attacking style will be put under pressure there.

Originally published as Is Carlton, Port Adelaide and Melbourne’s recent form revival sustainable?