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Since Round 14 last year, we stats nuts have been waiting for Matthew Kreuzer to kick the one goal he needed to take his tally of goals to 90, meaning he would draw level with the two Chrises – Judd and Yarran – in 100th position on the Blues’ all-time top 100 goal-kickers.
Injury had restricted him to three games in that time, and in those three games he had failed to score a goal.
That all changed late in the first quarter of the Round 6 game against Hawthorn in Launceston when Kreuzer – the No.1 draft pick in 2007 and just 15 days short of his 30th birthday – slotted an impressive goal on the run.
It was one of six that the Blues scored in a quarter that signalled the beginning of Carlton becoming a respected opponent again.
Harry McKay and Mitch McGovern had already dobbed two goals each in the quarter and despite Kreuzer’s big lead in the goal-kicking charts, it looked like both players were capable of beating him into the elite goal-scorers list.
At 90 goals, Carlton has the highest bar to entry of any club, and new entrants have not been common in recent times. The three most prominent – Brendan Fevola, Eddie Betts and Jarrad Waite – all moved to other clubs to finish their careers.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
It will be interesting to see who among the newer players has the resilience and the ability to raise the bar even higher.
The goal-kicking this round has been consistent, with Essendon’s Joe Daniher becoming the clubhouse leader with four goals on Anzac Day.
This was progressively matched by Sam Gray (Port Adelaide), Taylor Walker (Adelaide) and Stephen Coniglio (Greater Western Sydney) before being trumped by Fremantle’s Brandon Matera with five in Docker David Mundy’s 300th game.
In each club’s goal-kicking charts, the gap narrowed to four goals at St Kilda with Tim Membrey kicking two goals and Josh Bruce none.
At Port Adelaide, Justin Westhoff reduced the gap to three goals as Robbie Gray failed to score any.
At Sydney – but further down the order – Isaac Heeney has 89 goals and Tom Papley 88, and at West Coast, Chris Masten moved one ahead of Andrew Gaff.
In the elite AFL top 100 goal-scorers, Lance Franklin (Sydney) was injured, Taylor Walker (Adelaide) got four goals, Tom Hawkins (Geelong) bagged three and five others – Jack Riewoldt (Richmond), Eddie Betts (Adelaide), Josh Kennedy (West Coast Eagles), Jarryd Roughead (Hawthorn) and Gary Ablett (Geelong) – all scored two goals each.
This means that Betts remains five goals ahead of Josh Kennedy and they now no longer sit next to each other on the goal-kicking ladder.
Betts has moved ahead of Simon Madden (Essendon) and Simon Beasley (Footscray), and three others – Richard Osborne, Stephen Milne and Norm Smith – separate the pair.
Jarryd Roughead sits two goals back.
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