Eighth – Carlton
My partner informed me in September that Robbie Williams had just tweeted your column about Michael Voss along with an emoji of a poo. Pardon me? I truly need to find another career. Robbie made a valid point when he said that Voss and his Blues made mugs out a lot of us, even if he hasn’t had a good song since “She’s The One.”
The possibility of a Collingwood-Carlton rand final, and all that it implies for our society, was very much on the table for around twenty minutes last September. The vibe was like a Princes Park fixture from the early 1980s. But when the fever broke, the Lions got to work, and the red cordial ran out. Carlton had the throng, twice as many people as inside the 1950s, and an aura of history. Keidean “Kiddy” lived in Brisbane.
Now the Blues have to catch that wave once more. Their draw is open for several months following a challenging first assignment against the Lions. But the secret to their season will be to keep Jacob Weitering and Sam Walsh on the field.
Brisbane comes in seventh.
On the day of the grand final, nobody left the MCG with anything but admiration for the Lions. At the main dance, so many renters who aren’t affiliated with MCG have stepped up. It was taken from them with a slip here, a dubious advantage call there.
Chris Fagan says the same things every September. We’ll get better each year. We’ll fix the problems. We’ll take learnings’. We’ll fail our way to success. Every year, it feels like the rest of us say: ‘this is their best chance’. They’re always competitive. They’re always hard to toss at the Gabba. And they improve year on year. Five years in a row now, they’ve won more than 14 games. They’ve won 42 of their past 47 at the Gabba, and all 13 last year. I reckon they’re due for a slight correction, but they deserve another shot at it.
Melbourne comes in sixth.
Melbourne had “what ifs” for six months. Imagine that Caleb Marchbank’s fingernails had been filed. What if they had looked down at Collingwood? Imagine if Angus Brayshaw hadn’t been rendered unconscious. What would happen if Clayton Oliver wasn’t a mess? What if they had kicked without error?
