In his past life as captain and on-field leader of the West Coast Eagles, Chris Judd took to quoting from James Surowiecki’s book “The Wisdom of Crowds”.
Subtitled “Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few “, Surowiecki’s work argued a collection of individuals were likely to make some decisions better than individuals or experts.
And so if Surowiecki is right, judging from the reaction of the crowd at Subiaco Oval tonight, Judd should assume he is not the messiah any more – just a very naughty boy.
The debate in Perth all week had been about one thing – to boo, or not to boo.
But when the AFL’s highest profile and highest paid player entered his former home arena to indifference rather than indignation, the hype appeared to have been misplaced.
The Carlton banner reading “We could rub it in but we are better than that” was more inflammatory than the early exchanges, with the understated Adam Selwood given the job on his former teammate.
Then the maestro received his first free kick after a marginally late bump from Beau Waters and the crowd decided it was time to make themselves heard.
The jeers turned to cheers when Judd missed the set shot, but with each of his five possessions in the quarter the catcalls grew louder.
While the battle between Judd and Selwood continued there was actually a game going on, although to call it a contest in the first half would be too kind on the Eagles, who lost the plot as painfully as they lost Judd in the summer.
A raft of free kicks, 50m penalties and general ill-discipline led directly to six of Carlton’s eight unanswered second-term goals, which equated exactly to the Blues’ 48 point halftime lead.
That led to the jeers being shifted from Judd to the umpires – although the parochial Subiaco crowd would have been within their rights to give their own players a piece of their collective mind.
In his 134 games with the club – which included 84 wins – rarely if ever would Judd have seen the Eagles so downhearted, with Andrew Carrazzo’s 24 possessions to halftime an indicator of how far and how fast the Eagles have fallen.
But Judd’s third term mirrored his team’s with a re-strap to his right ankle leading to six possessions while the Eagles kicked six of the term’s last seven goals to give the home fans some hope there is life without their former great white hope.
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