Analysis: Carlton’s heavy reliance on Harry McKay, Charlie Curnow exposed again in loss to Collingwood
Carlton pride themselves on their fast accurate ball movement but on Friday night in losing to Collingwood, they were anything but. CHRIS CAVANAGH has a look at what the Blues need to address.
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Carlton’s small forwards had been calling themselves ‘The Skeeters’ in recent years.
It was a reference to the Blues’ famous ‘Mosquito Fleet’, which included the likes of Wayne Johnston, Ken Sheldon, Jimmy Buckley, Wayne Harmes and Rod Ashman and helped power the club to premierships in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 2024, The Skeeters aren’t bothering anyone.
Most of the ‘fleet’ appear to be lost at sea and opposition sides aren’t having to try too hard to swat them away.
At the MCG on Friday night, Carlton and Collingwood each kicked 12 goals — but compare the pair.
The Blues had five individual goalkickers to the Magpies’ 11.
Talls Harry McKay (four), Tom De Koning and Charlie Curnow (two each) combined for eight of Carlton’s majors.
Small forward Matt Owies (three goals) and wingman and half-forward Matt Cottrell (one) were the only other goalkickers.
It’s been a similar story all season for Michael Voss’ side, which is heavily reliant on the big boys firing.
Of Carlton’s 114 goals this season, Curnow has 25 and McKay has 22.
Owies (11 goals) is the only other player averaging more than a goal a game across the first eight rounds.
Corey Durdin and Orazio Fantasia have each featured in seven games this season for returns of five and two goals respectively.
Lachie Fogarty has one goal from four games and David Cuningham has one major from three games.
The problem is, the smalls as a collective are not providing much without the ball, either.
Fantasia, Cuningham and Durdin all rate only ‘average’ for forward-50 pressure applied, while Owies has an ‘above average’ rating and Fogarty is the sole player in the ‘elite’ pressure category.
As dangerous as Curnow, McKay and De Koning can be, it’s not the profile of a top-four forward line at the moment.
Injuries aren’t exactly helping.
Jack Martin — who found some good form in the second half of last year — has been unsighted so far this season, as has Jesse Motlop.
Martin is likely to return from a hamstring injury against Melbourne on Thursday night, while Motlop (hamstring) and Fogarty (wrist) shouldn’t be far behind.
The trio will certainly give Carlton’s match committee some more options to find a fix to their glaring problem.
However, the small forward mix isn’t the only issue that Voss has to address.
AFL analyst Mick McGuane wrote in the Herald Sun on Friday that “slick ball movement” would be the key if the Blues were to topple their arch rivals — who were also undermanned.
The had to move the footy at speed, change angles and look for both shallow and deep options when going inside-50, McGuane wrote.
Carlton didn’t appear to get that memo.
When they did move the ball at speed — particularly in the opening quarter — the Blues looked dangerous and created scoring opportunities through one-on-one contests or getting over the back of the Collingwood defence.
But far too often they either moved the ball far too slowly, succumbed to pressure and dump kicked or predictably went down-the-line which the Magpies were able to repel.
As Fox Footy commentator Jordan Lewis put it: “Their ball movement was boring and slow and wide”.
As a result, Carlton generated only 38 inside-50s — their equal-fewest under Voss.
Collingwood — which was much more willing to take the game on at speed through the corridor — had 64 entries.
The Blues best and most creative ball user across halfback is Adam Saad, another player who has been sorely missed over the past three weeks.
But Saad is still another three weeks away from returning from a medium-grade hamstring injury, which means others simply have to step up.
If there was one positive out of Friday night, it was a slightly improved defence — which is expected to be bolstered by the return of Mitch McGovern against the Demons.
Having publicly whacked his team for the way it defended against Geelong the previous week, Voss was left a little more content after the defeat to Collingwood.
“To be able to hold a side with (64) entries and get looks like that forward of the ball, that can probably go into the basket of improvement that we wanted to defend harder and we did that,” he said.
“But it still wasn’t good enough to be able to get as a result.”
Some of the defensive actions of Zac Williams are likely get a run in this week’s review, including a pair of free kicks he gave away for holds on Jamie Elliott in the first quarter and a sloppy effort on the boundary line in the second term which resulted in a Pat Lipinski goal.
The defensive-50 stoppage from which Nick Daicos kicked the winning goal in the last quarter will also be heavily analysed in the wash-up.
Adam Cerra got sucked into the contest as the defensive sweeper and Sam Walsh — who was on Dacios at the stoppage — seemingly got caught ball watching.
Defending stoppages has been a major issue for the Blues over the past month and they again conceded 44 points from the score source in what is another clear room for improvement.
One of the early-season premiership favourites, Carlton has now lost three of its past four matches.
Voss says the run has provided “some really important feedback” and it “really clear” where his side is falling down.
Games against fellow top-four fancies Melbourne and Sydney await over the next fortnight so there is little time to try and turn the tide.
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