Hanging on for survival when hope is gone by: Patrick Smith
From: The Australian
July 25, 2012THIS season began as all seasons do. Full of optimism, bravado-drenched supporters, fresh and fancy footballers and declarations that corners had been turned, lines drawn in the sand and other banal predictors to swell the membership numbers.
Opening round pitted Richmond against Carlton as always. And, as always, Carlton won. The crowd was huge - some 78,285 on a Thursday night at the MCG - and the 44-point margin emphatic.
Two rounds later Carlton would wallop Collingwood by 60 points - this time in front of 84,259 spectators - and be turned in by bookmakers to premiership favourite. Richmond would win only one of its first five games and that was against Melbourne, at the time the competition's most dysfunctional club. Might still be.
Carlton appeared on course to reach its pre-season target of a final four position. And even the ultimate glory was not considered the mad plottings of bookies and cheer squad members alone.
Things changed quickly. Richmond would win five of its next seven games. The likes of Sydney, Hawthorn and St Kilda could not resist the Tigers.
A first finals appearance in a decade was penciled in. The theme song had never sounded better in recent years. Yellow and black ...
In the same period Carlton would win only three games. Two of those victories were against GWS and Melbourne so they were no wins at all, really, but walkovers.
Carlton and Richmond meet again on Saturday night. Again at the MCG and again the crowd will be daunting. But the round one optimism is now just a faint hope. A fingers crossed.
It is not always the massive blows that hurt. It can be an accumulation of knocks, of jabs that eventually become just as debilitating.
The Carlton team that beat the Western Bulldogs last Saturday did not look much like the team that opened the season against the Tigers. Not much at all. Kade Simpson, Matthew Kreuzer, Chris Judd, Mitch Robinson, Shaun Hampson, Kane Lucas, Jeremy Laidler, Lachie Henderson, Jarrad Waite and Zach Tuohy played against Richmond in round one but not against the Bulldogs in round 17.
Coach Brett Ratten's summary was this: "Sometimes when it's not going quite right with your list or you get some injuries you get to find out about a few players.
"Sometimes through adversity you find opportunities and people keep their careers going or even elevate their position at the football club because of what they did," Ratten said.
"They're things that come out of the game that make you go, 'OK we've got some kids on our list who can really play' and we'll put a lot more time into them.
"At the end of the day we came here to win four points and that's what we did. Those kids playing, they'll be better next week, they'll learn from the experience and they'll come out of it a lot better." This is not the language or sentiment of a premiership coach. Football is very much about adjusting your aim and changing targets.
The Tigers team that lost to North Melbourne on Sunday was not greatly different to the side which crashed in round one. Nathan Foley, Dylan Grimes, Brad Miller and Tyrone Vickery played Carlton but not the Bulldogs. Not much will change to either line-up between now and Saturday night.
Not many people forecast a finals finish for either side now. The coaches will not admit defeat, not yet. Not until the mathematicians do. This is how Richmond coach Damien Hardwick explained it after the game: "Once the door shuts it shuts, but as far as we're concerned it's well and truly still open," he said. Not sure what door he has his eyes on. Trap door?
If football was nothing but sport that would be the story. The win-loss journey. But in Melbourne, in the AFL and other codes and cities, it is much more.
Ratten must wake up each day and know that the radio buzzed with calls that he be sacked. If he read the newspapers, worked the social media, Ratten would have a full body twitch. Being involved in football is a scarring environment without stepping on to a field.
Club greats tell it straight the Carlton way. Premiership player and former captain Mark Maclure said this month that the Blues only tolerate success. He did not expand on how that might be reviewed or achieved. It was a verbal pink slip for Ratten.
At Richmond, Dustin Martin was suspended for two matches because the young and gifted mid-fielder, along with teammate Daniel Connors, slept in thanks to some sleeping tablets and arrived late for training. The erratic Connors was sacked immediately because he was considered to be past his useful date.
So this is no replay or rematch or second time around on Saturday night. The team line-ups are different, lives have been changed, reputations enhanced and hurt. Ratten coaches not just for Carlton but his future. Hardwick can balance restocking the team and potential with lack of success but not for much longer.
The ramifications of losing in round 17 are very different to that of round one. Expectation has soured into self-preservation. Black and blue ...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/hanging-on-for-survival-when-hope-is-gone/story-e6frg7uo-1226434242565
