Carlton's stars shine
Greg Baum | April 2, 2007
The Age
THE new dawn came at twilight. Between the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon last night, Carlton consolidated all the gains of the last month with a redoubtable win over Richmond, an old and fierce rival. When you consider that Bryce Gibbs goaled with his first kick in league football, it is clear that sun, moon and stars have aligned over Princes Park. Sunrise today will feel good.
At first, it was misleading. Carlton frittered away an early advantage as the Tigers kicked 10 of 12 goals to lead by 27 points early in the third quarter. The Tigers' massive advantage in possession weighed then on the Blues. But it was a rare example of a false twilight. Seizing control of the midfield, Carlton kicked nine of the last 12 goals of the match. This was a team that has hit the ground running.
More than anything else, after a tumultuous off-season, the AFL needed football to be seen in a new light. This was the first of 10 scheduled dusk matches for the season as the AFL revisits a timeslot that in a previous experiment proved unpopular. Television dollars have put a gloss on it again.
For the MCC, planning for it was not as simple as night following day. Without precedents, it had no idea how many to expect, but guessed at 50,000. These clubs have a long history, it is school holidays, the weather was autumnally beautiful, the match was not on free-to-air television and besides, who does not want to see their club in round one if they can? Blues fans especially saw this as a well-lit turning point.
The MCG precinct was overrun. In the carpark, there were stragglers from Storm's midday game at Olympic Park as well as patrons from the flower and garden show. On the footbridges, families streamed towards Living With Dinosaurs at Vodafone Arena, the swimming at Rod Laver Arena and the Ian Thorpe press conference at the Lexus Centre, which drew such a crowd it was a wonder the State Government did not acclaim its economic benefit to Victoria.
Inner Melbourne was alive as it only can be at the start of a new football season. The people lunched, frolicked, sightsaw and came late to the MCG, unnerving officials, but came they did. Eventually, they numbered nearly 60,000, the biggest crowd for the weekend. For their effort, they were rewarded with a thumping game, played initially at such a frenzied pace as to suggest the players had been chafing at the bit all weekend, not to mention all summer.
In the first half, a flock of seagulls — dispossessed of their turf — flew up and down and around and around, imitating the movements of modern football. It was as if there was a third team out there. The sun set, the shadows lengthened, but the pace scarcely slackened.
Gibbs, kept on the bench for the first 10 minutes as he acquainted himself with ground and game, soon made his presence felt, first with a slick handball, then a shepherd, then — slipping between two defenders — a coolly taken goal. He was not a major force, but his class shone. He scarcely was called to the bench again.
Richmond dominated possession in the first half, but was inefficient. In the modern style, it sought to run at the Blues, rugby-style, inviting contact and slipping the ball from one to another by hand. It is a style that looks spectacular when it works, abject when it comes undone. Carlton's fierce tackling eventually undid it.
The Blues squandered chances, though perhaps not as indictably as the scoreboard suggests, for eight of their 25 behinds were rushed by Richmond. Brendan Fevola was the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. In the second quarter, from three sets shots a few minutes apart, he managed a single behind. But in the last, he twice marked powerfully for goals; they proved gamebreaking.
The only Blue who could not force his way into the game was the captain; this night, he was Lance-a-little. None the less, and remembering that this is round one, by lights out at the MCG, Carlton folk will have been encouraged to think that their darkest hour has passed.
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