AFL Thursday Thought Bubble: Breathtaking Blues good enough, but can they be for long enough?

Carlton’s first half against the Western Bulldogs was nothing short of breathtaking.

Rampant out of the centre, with attacking weapons everywhere you looked in attack and a group of backs capable of switching defence to attack with seamless transition, they ripped the Dogs to shreds in what was, for all intents and purposes, perfect footy.

Caretaker coach Ashley Hansen – a long-time assistant to Luke Beveridge at the Bulldogs – knew exactly what the Dogs fear most: long, penetrating ball use out of stoppages that leaves an undersized and vulnerable defence exposed. He got exactly what he wished.

Whether it was feasting on long, high kicks where he found himself in a serious mismatch or leading hard into acres of space with direct opponent Alex Keath floundering in his wake, Harry McKay feasted. After a quiet game against Richmond in Round 1, he clunked marks from the forward pocket to half-back, led hard, presented strong… and, most crucially of all, kicked truly.

The purists will give him stick the moment he misses one of his now-trademark set shot snaps, but he nailed every one on Thursday with clinical precision.

His previous best career mark tally – 11 – was matched by early in the third quarter. He had 10 in the first half alone – five inside 50. Good luck finding a more complete game from a key forward, even if the opposition gave Keath zero help at all in thwarting him.

Nipping at McKay’s feet, Matthew Owies and Zac Fisher ensured there was no respite for the Dogs’ defence once the ball hit the deck. Together with a tireless midfield, the fleet of smalls regularly – I counted three – would extract the ball from a seemingly endless stoppage before a ball up could be called, whack it inside 50 with a flourish, and let any number of options – I haven’t even mentioned Charlie Curnow yet – finish magnificently.

The backline, too, was superb – even though they conceded seven goals for the half, more than you’d expect in a half the Blues dominated. But it wasn’t their nullifying abilities that caught the eye first – it was their willingness to take the game on from deep in enemy territory, turning defence into attack in the blink of an eye.

Zac Williams and Sam Docherty’s pinpoint passing was a joy to behold, as was the hard work of Jack Silvagni, McKay and Matthew Kennedy in particular to lead hard and present options down the line for them to take. Oscar McDonald stood tall until being medi-subbed out of the game, helping prevent Aaron Naughton taking get-out-of-jail marks for the Dogs – and once it hit the ground, there were only navy blue jumpers in sight. And further afield. And in their own attacking 50.

But you couldn’t talk about the first half at Marvel Stadium without Patrick Cripps being the central character. The Blues captain had 22 disposals and two goals by the main break. More impressive stats still, particularly for him, were his 465 metres gained, and seven clearances and nine score involvements. Yep, more than half of the Blues’ first-half scores were influenced by their star number nine.

No player came close to his influence, while the wayward kicking that took some of the gloss off his superb performance against Richmond in Round 1 was nowhere in sight.

If the Blues won it out of the centre, it’d be Cripps funnelling it out. If the Blues were on the attack, yep, there was Cripps, presenting a wide option for a handpass, drawing Dogs to him like moths to a bug zapper, and then dishing off to a free teammate in an attacking spot. Kick, chest mark, goal.

That’s not even mentioning his pair of goals himself, the second of which was a masterclass in work rate and game awareness. Watch his opponent, Josh Dunkley, get sucked towards the play for only a split second as the Blues march forward. It’s enough. Now without a tail, Cripps finds the space, receives a handball, and finishes clinically.

Together with Sam Walsh, who feasted on his captain’s grunt work inside, Matthew Kennedy, again a match for any of the Dogs’ more highly-touted on-ball brigade, and Lochie O’Brien, who had the best game of his career off a wing, the midfield had both brute force at the contest, and silk and smarts on the outside. In short, the perfect combination.

The key first half stat? The Blues went at 80 per cent disposal efficiency, while getting plenty of the ball. That stat can often be misleading – Essendon’s was ridiculously high in Round 1 considering they were flogged by Geelong – but when you’re playing the high-risk, dash and carry game the Blues were, it’s an outrageously good number.

If the Blues could play like that every quarter of every week, it would take something remarkable to stop them. A dynamic midfield, a defence keen to take the game on and a forward line with attacking options both tall and small – they’ve got all bases covered.

So how, then, did they only end up winning by 12 points?

For starters, look at the disposal efficiency drop-off. From 80 per cent at half time, the Blues finished at 77.8% – lower than the Bulldogs. It felt worse at the game, particularly in the final term. With the Dogs’ pressure and intensity lifted after a presumably fierce half-time spray from Beveridge, clean breakaways from the centre and thumping kicks to the teeth of goal were replaced by quickly hacked kicks that barely made their way inside 50, if at all. That’s where the Dogs’ backline can do their best work, and gives their midfield ample time to swing back and support.

Cripps was the most obvious example of this – he’d finish with 503 metres gained for the match, not even cracking 50 metres in the second half. Suddenly minded closely by Dunkley, he’d have four disposals for the third term, before lifting as champions do in the last. No surprise that it coincided with the Bulldogs wrestling their way back into the game.

It’s something we’ve seen before, too – a dynamic Carlton wrecking a highly-rated opposition with a blistering first half, before falling away and being pushed to the brink in the second as fatigue sets in. That was the tale of the tape in their pre-season match against Melbourne, too.

To their immense credit, the Blues held off the Dogs in the last, despite being largely dominated – the Dogs would end up winning the inside-50 count, 51 to 49, and finish with 25 scoring shots to 22. They’d pile on 2.7 in that quarter, while the Blues, twice responding to Bulldogs’ goals with a steadier of their own through Curnow, grimly held them at bay.

It was, in its own way, just as impressive as the first half, and a sign of maturity that the Blues lacked in regular close games, including against the Dogs themselves, in 2021. As good as anyone was Kennedy, who racked up 15 possessions for the term with the game suddenly up for grabs, and pulling down one telling mark on the wing that spoke of his courage and strength both.

Then, up forward, Curnow showed another trait of his and McKay’s that the Dogs’ tall timber of Naughton and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan lacked: accuracy in front of goal. Finishing nervelessly when a cool head was required twice in the final term – the first an outrageous goal from deep in the pocket that, in the words of Gerard Whateley, ‘never looked like missing!’, Curnow’s bag of five made it 17 for his career against the Dogs – more than double what he’s managed against any other team.

Speaking of other teams, they will take notice of Carlton’s drop-off in the second half – the Blues were far enough in front at the break (31 points) against the Bulldogs to hold off a charge on tiring legs, but the difference from either side of it was alarming.

For a team as experienced, defensively solid and resilient as, say, a Melbourne or Geelong – and make no mistake, it’s a huge achievement for the Blues to be drawing those comparisons after just two weeks – the plan is simple on paper: hold firm while the Blues surge, shut down centre bounces, stack numbers behind the ball when possible, and try and minimise the damage. Then, when they tire, capitalise the other way.

For all their faults – and there were plenty – the Bulldogs could, and possibly even should, have won in the end. Safer kicking in front of goal in the final term during their hot patch, and more crucially, a stauncher defence in the second when Carlton were rampant, and the four points would most likely be theirs.

Stopping a fully-fit Cripps, though, is clearly going to be easier said than done even for the competition’s premier teams – and let’s not forget, the Bulldogs are still probably one of those, at least for now. Equally, though, the Blues now have ample weeks to work out a solution to their four-quarters issue themselves, ahead of a finals run that now seems more likely than not. Get that right… and by golly, they’ll be hard to stop.

Charlie Curnow and Jack Silvagni of the Blues celebrate. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Amazingly, despite the drop-off in the second half, the Blues’ 337 effective disposals for the night is the club’s highest since the stat was recorded. If that isn’t a sign of how far they’ve come in so little time under Michael Voss (and Hansen), then nothing is.

To finish, a quick word on the Dogs, who at 0-2, are already playing catch-up as far as the eight is concerned. You can’t pin all the blame on the backline, nor their accuracy in front of goal late – it’s been a trend under Beveridge for years that without midfield dominance, a defence constantly punching above its weight division won’t be able to contend, and a forward line too reliant on Aaron Naughton’s marking prowess won’t be able to kick a winning score. Neither of those, both of which came to cruel the Dogs against the Blues, are anything like a new phenomenon.

The Blues’ contested possession hammering – 161 to 123 by the end – is as soundly as the Dogs have been beaten in that stat since the 2019 elimination final, when they lost it 167-125 at the hands of GWS in a 58-point thrashing. The only other match under Beveridge that even comes close is Round 21, 2015, to soon-to-be grand finalist West Coast in Perth – they lost the contested possie count 151-117, and the match by 77.

That, more than a vulnerable backline or wayward-kicking forward line, should be giving Beveridge sleepless nights. For without a dominant midfield, the Dogs will have problems against the best sides. Just like they did on Thursday. As for Blues fans, that’s perhaps the most impressive stat on a sheet laden with impressive stats.

Perhaps a key to addressing that is to, y’know, put some effort into quelling the influence of the opposition’s best midfielder. While still good in the second half, Cripps’ influence was curbed significantly by some close-checking, particularly around stoppages, from Dunkley – while the Dogs’ centre bounce set up as a whole after half time regularly forced the Blues to clear towards the back when they did, rather than waltzing up the front as Melbourne did repeatedly in their famous grand final run. But 35 and two goals from Cripps, just like the 38 and two the Dogs conceded to Christian Petracca in Round 1, is simply too much ball to be giving to the best players going around.

They should – and that word’s doing some heavy lifting – be fine, though, at least as far as finals are concerned. Warts and all, Carlton deserve to be taken seriously in 2022, and pushing them to within two goals despite being largely outplayed was a positive to take out of it.

Blues fans, though, I did promise on Monday that you could take the lid off if you knocked over the Dogs, and in particular their midfield.

Go right ahead.