Dr Jones and Mr Jones: A tale of two sides

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in Perth a long-limbed man in a navy blue jumper will leap out onto the football field for his first game of AFL in far too long.

If, as a collective, Carlton supporters are anything like me, two thoughts will come to mind.

The first is overwhelming and punctuated by anger. We’ve seen Liam Jones before and he was a thorough disappointment. He was inadequate and innocuous. There are players on and off our list who are desperate to play professional football, and their position had been taken by a guy who doesn’t seem to want it enough.

From an outsider looking in (the veracity of this might be totally inaccurate) he hadn’t worked hard enough on his fitness to capitalise on his natural talent and run through an entire game. Too often, he had chosen to take the ball on his chest rather than mark it at its highest point with outstretched arms, making life much too easy for the defender.

Mentally, he wasn’t willing to work himself into the game. He’d reached the top level, an incredible achievement, and for all the world to see he just didn’t have it in him to make it.

More disappointing is the ability is ostensibly there. It’s been shown in brief patches. However, due to a sense of lassitude or apathy catalysed by a healthy contract, Jones never turned it into output.

Exacerbating this is the fact that we traded him in from the Bulldogs for pick 54, which was converted into Caleb Daniel. Luckily players with good skills and an excellent football brain weren’t a prerequisite for the Carlton Football Club.

The second thought is more of an undisclosed whisper. This was the Liam Jones of the past.

Here comes LIAM JONES! The new Jones is an explosive, irrepressible, irresistible barbarian! Just, for a moment, take a look at him. He’s absolutely massive, and a full forward who could kick up to fifteen goals if it all goes his way.

He’ll allow Levi Casboult to move up the ground so he can take superb marks and not kick for goal. Things have actually gone Jones’ way recently, kicking an endless stream of goals in the VFL.

He gets it now, on his last legs he knows what is needed, required, demanded of him. The metaphorical switch has been turned, he’s embodying the spirit of Passover and has been hardened through a diet of Matzah and Horseradish.

The naysayers who are expressing the first thought, and repressing the second, are ready to be proven wrong.

So, on this sunny Sunday afternoon, which Jones will we see?

Most people won’t see either. Carlton versus Fremantle looks to be terribly boring, and they’ll probably do something else.

But for those watching, the heroic Carlton supporters and grotesque, oleaginous Fremantle supporters (sorry), we’ll hopefully see the latter, but will probably see neither of these two extremes.

What I expect of Jones is effort that persists not in spurts but throughout the game. A brutality at the contest that screams to the opposition “prepare to get absolutely smashed if you’re in my way.”

Something to hold onto for next week, that puts a bit of doubt in the conclusion that the Liam Jones experiment, a relic of the Mick Malthouse years, wasn’t a complete failure.

But, all of this is out of my control. It’s out of everyone’s control except the Carlton midfield and Liam Jones. It’s for us to wait and for him to prove us wrong.