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Collingwood have strangled the life out of Carlton to keep the Blues to their lowest score of the AFL season, notching a commanding 14.10 (94) to 4.16 (40) victory at the MCG.
The Blues had entered the match on a three-game winning streak and having won their previous three encounters with the Magpies, including a 51-point thumping in round eight.
They could have snatched Collingwood’s spot in the top four with a victory on Friday night.
But in front of a crowd of 84,938, Carlton were never in the hunt, as Collingwood surged to a substantial lead early in the match, with the Blues never looking potent enough to reel them in.
Carlton managed just one goal in each quarter, with small forward Eddie Betts scoring his side’s only two majors of the first half.
Spearhead Brendan Fevola, who leads the AFL goal-kicking tally for the season, was blanketed by in-form Magpies fullback Simon Prestigiacomo, managing just one behind for the first three terms.
He kicked his only goal 15 minutes into the last, by which stage the Magpies were cruising to victory.
Collingwood utility Leigh Brown was also effective in defence, preventing Carlton big men Matthew Kreuzer and Shaun Hampson, who rotated between the ruck and attack, from scoring a goal, with Magpies skipper Nick Maxwell also performing well in the backline.
The Magpies’ win was set up in the first quarter-and-a-half, when they dominated with seven of the first eight goals of the match to build a 34-point lead.
They controlled the midfield during that period, Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan both running rampant with 12 disposals each in the first quarter to ensure Collingwood forwards had the lion’s share of the chances.
And after wasting a few early shots, they made them count.
Small forward-midfielder Leon Davis provided the highlights of the first half, with two magical goals.
His first came early in time-on of the first quarter, when he took a handball from Tarkyn Lockyer tight against the boundary in the right forward pocket and rolled through a sensational goal while being pushed over the boundary line by opponent Aaron Joseph.
That helped the Magpies to a 23-point quarter-time lead.
It was stretched to 29 inside the first minute of the second quarter when Davis produced another goal equally as good, this time emerging from a boundary line pack and shrugging a Ryan Houlihan tackle before snapping truly.
While the Blues worked their way back onto level terms in the midfield battles, they could never make any inroads on the scoreboard.
Their inability to find a winning forward was compounded by their inaccuracy, their final score 20 points less than their previous lowest for the season, of 8.12 (60) against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium in round nine, a match in which they went goal-less for the entire first half.
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