AFL 2024: Blues pull off another heist, defeat undermanned Tigers 86-81
Given little hope after an embarrassing round 0 loss, Richmond came close to stunning premiership contender Carlton. One of the Tigers’ stars takes you inside the frantic finish.
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Carlton’s last six wins have come from a goal or less, by a collective 22 points, with Thursday night’s five-point thriller over Richmond the latest instalment in a clutch stretch for Michael Voss’ team.
Sound familiar?
There is a touch of Collingwood in the way the Blues have been able to extricate themselves out of delicate last quarter situations in recent times.
At the back end of last season there were finals wins over Melbourne (two points), Sydney (six points), as well as a pair of four-point victories over the Demons and Gold Coast which made for a heart-stirring August and September for devotees of the Navy Blues.
The first two games this season have delivered similar scenarios, with a desperate come-from-behind one-point drought-breaking win at the Gabba followed by a late shutdown of the game against a surging Richmond.
The Pies have been the master of that clutch mentality across the past two seasons, and on a few occasions it has been to Carlton’s detriment.
In 2022 Collingwood kicked the Blues out of the finals with a late Jamie Elliott goal and the week before that it was Melbourne who denied Carlton by five points after kicking two late goals.
After that final-round loss to the Pies in 2022, Voss said: “I said to them (the players) ‘look, let’s not forget about this moment, let’s not forget about it. Let’s use how we feel right now as a motivator.’
“When it gets a bit hard through the year or you’ve got to turn up for another session or feel like you need to do an extra recovery, this is what you do it for, because you miss by that much.”
The Blues have clearly gone to school on being either proactive or protective in those final minutes - depending on the scoreline - and it has worked.
As an undermanned Richmond surged forward, Carlton did its best to shut the game down, putting a swarm of players around the ball in order to protect the lead.
Tigers defender Nick Vlastuin said: “We had the ball in our fifty for the last three minutes, they (Carlton) did it pretty well. They got a lot of numbers around the ball and didn’t even try to win possession. They just kept it (the ball) in tight.”
THE ‘PERFECT STORM’
Nick Vlastuin almost personified Richmond’s desperation to win on Thursday night when he launched a diving tackle that caused Charlie Curnow to have a fresh air-shot almost on the goal-line in the frantic final quarter.
Of his own ‘Heath Shaw impression’ in trying to stop Curnow on the goal-line in the last quarter, Vlastuin said he had tried to “sneak up on him .. and got lucky in the end.”
He was outstanding in a makeshift Tigers’ defence that had to be restructured after Josh Gibcus went down with a suspected ACL injury.
“It was like (the perfect storm),” Vlastuin said after losing three players - Gibcus, Dion Prestia and Tylar Young during the course of the game.
“It would have been a bloody good win, given the circumstances - a five-day break, we didn’t really put in a showing against Gold Coast and being three (players) down pretty early when we were versing two guys with Coleman Medals, (Harry) McKay and (Charlie) Curnow.”
“We were kind of running around saying ‘this will be a hell of a story (if we win)’. The pressure was almost off us a bit, it was a bit like a free hit, given the hurdles we had.”
Vlastuin knows the casualty list will hurt, particularly losing Gibcus for an extended period, but he is hoping the lessons learned on Thursday night means a first win for new coach Adem Yze is just around the corner.
“He (Yze) did say he wants his first win, to get the monkey off his back,” Vlastuin said.
“We had a couple of stats up there (in the rooms), we beat them in clearance and we beat them in contested ball and they are one of the best teams in the AFL at that.
“We got smashed in those areas last week, so that (change) is pleasing.
“Even after the game, (the mood) was a lot different. We were heads down last week and really disappointed, but this week we were kind of like ‘we can play good footy and get it together’ and if a few things had gone our way, (we could have won).”
Vlastuin, who had 24 disposals and almost 500 metres gained, said the Tigers still had several areas to improve on heading into next Sunday’s clash with Port Adelaide.
“Obviously we were pretty poor on the kick-ins and we kind of lost our balance and shape a bit at times,” he said.
“We had running defenders as the deepest defenders, and our keys were up the ground, and our forwards were too high.
“We were a bit out of sync at times. But there are lots of things to build on.”
BLUES PULL OFF ANOTHER ‘GREAT ESCAPE’
The navy blue decibels went into deafening overdrive at the MCG on Thursday as a stuttering Carlton finally managed to overcome a battered, bruised and undermanned Richmond to start the season 2-0 for only the fifth time this century.
But in many ways this was ‘the great escape’.
On a wild night of rollercoaster highs and gut-churning lows, the brave Tigers were three men down for a large portion of the night yet they did everything but land the necessary knockout blow before falling heartbreakingly short by five points.
It was the third successive nailbiting win at the MCG for Michael Voss’ Blues for a collective 13 points, adding to last year’s six-point elimination final win over Sydney and two-point semi-final over Melbourne.
This time it wasn’t pretty, and in many ways this strange match was summed up by a bizarre fresh air shot from Charlie Curnow right on the goal-line late in the game after a Nick Vlastuin rundown midway through the final term that kept the game alive.
The ball was deep in Richmond’s attack as the clock ran down towards the end, and even coach Michael Voss would have conceded his Blues were lucky to get away with this one.
On the flip side, Richmond coach Adem Yze could hardly have been more proud of his group given they lost three players to injury in each of the first three quarters, but they never gave in and kept fighting to the line.
The cruel thing is that this ultimately brave performance – and shattering near miss – will cost them dearly, with star young defender Josh Gibcus almost certainly suffering an ACL injury.
Gibcus missed all of last season with hamstring issues and now faces a second season on the sidelines.
Given Yze’s lack of key defensive options, his absence will hurt significantly with plans to play Noah Balta in attack. He stood firm with that plan on Thursday night before Tylar Young went down with concussion and Balta had to be moved back to defence.
Yze said the Tigers were hoping for a good scan result but were resigned to the worst with Gibcus, who was stretchered off with his head in his hands after a nasty landing on his leg during a marking contest in the second term.
“Yeah it is tough – obviously there will be scans, but it’s not looking great at the moment,” Yze said.
“We’re touching all the wood we can well get lucky with it, but if it is what we think it is, it’s obviously gut-wrenching.
“Not only (due to) the season (Gibcus) had last year, but just the type of player and character he is, so we’ll wrap our arms around him for sure.”
Midfield veteran Dion Prestia will also spend more time on the sidelines after suffering his second hamstring injury this year, yet another recurring soft-tissue issue for the 31-year-old.
The Tigers welcomed back its big three returns in Dustin Martin (two goals), Tom Lynch (two goals) and Toby Nankervis, and each will be even better for the runs, but the injury toll just made the Richmond task too difficult to overcome.
The Tigers have more than a week now to prepare for Port Adelaide at the MCG, while the Blues have the luxury of a bye after what was a bruising encounter with the Tigers.
Carlton’s performance posed as many questions as it answered, but a good draw sees them with forthcoming games against North Melbourne (Marvel Stadium), Fremantle (Adelaide Oval) and Adelaide (Marvel Stadium).
The bonus is that Harry McKay’s goalkicking radar seems to have rolled on from the Gabba, as he nailed three goals including a booming 55-metre major that brought the more than 83,000 fans to their feet.
A similar booming last quarter goal from Tom De Koning also brought that navy blue decibel level into raucous levels as the Blues managed to hold onto a game they could so easily have blown.
SCOREBOARD
BLUES 3.3, 6.9, 9.11, 12.14 (86)
TIGERS 5.2, 7.4, 11.7, 12.9 (81)
BOURKE’S BEST Blues: Cripps, McKay, McGovern, Newman, De Koning, Hewett. Tigers: Balta, Nankervis, Short, Martin, Hopper, Vlastuin.
GOALS Blues: McKay 3, Curnow 2, Owies 2, Kennedy, O Hollands, Cottrell, De Koning, Cerra. Tigers: Balta 3, Lynch 2, Martin 2, Short, M Rioli, Baker, Taranto, Campbell.
UMPIRES Findlay, Fisher, Foot, Johanson
INJURIES Blues: nil. Tigers: Prestia (hamstring), Gibcus (knee), Young (concussion).
CROWD 83,881 at the MCG
BOURKE’S VOTES
3. Patrick Cripps (Carl)
2. Noah Balta (Rich)
1. Harry McKay (Carl)
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