CARLTON 4.1 7.4 8.7 10.11 (71)
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 2.6 5.8 7.9 9.16 (70)
Goals: Carlton: D Cuningham 2 M Wright 2 B Gibbs E Curnow J Lamb J Silvagni L Casboult M Kreuzer. Greater Western Sydney: D Shiel 2 J Patton 2 C Ward J Cameron L Whitfield M De Boer T Taranto.
Umpires: Jeff Dalgleish, Robert Findlay, Mathew Nicholls, Robert O'Gorman.
Venue: Etihad Stadium.
Second last beat second. By a point. A day after the bottom team beat a top eight side, in this ridiculous season, this result should have been predictable.
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Carlton pip Giants by slimmest of margins
There was a massive difference between the two teams on the ladder but it appeared no one had told the Blues that as they held on in a tight finish.
But there was nothing predictable about Carlton winning, or about Liam Jones starring for the Blues and Toby Greene missing five shots at goal for GWS.
The Blues didn't win by outgunning the Giants; they won because they stopped them from scoring.
Carlton only kicked three goals in the second half. They had just 41 inside-50s to 56. They lost clearances by 20. But defensively, this was a superb victory.
Jones, for so long a whipping boy up forward, returned to this Carlton side as a defender, and aside from losing big Giants forward Jon Patton in play to permit Patton the first goal of the game, he played well in his new role. In fact, he was an architect of Carlton's victory. He read the play well and attacked the ball in the air better than the Giants' forwards.
Alex Silvagni was out of the game early with a knee injury, which multiplied the pressure on the other defenders. Lachie Plowman partly subdued Toby Greene, and in part Greene did the work by his inaccuracy. Greene again had the chance in the last quarter to be the player to win the game but this day his five behinds were a telling indicator of where the game was lost.
No player on the ground was better than Sam Docherty, who was superb in running out of the Blues' defence. Soon a team will realise that stopping Docherty's creative run is a good idea.
Matthew Kreuzer was excellent all day in his 150th game. He missed a couple of regular set shots he should have kicked but he booted one and more importantly it was his soccer kick off the ground – a deliberate toe poke that carried 40 metres – in the last quarter that gave the goal that punished the Giants' early quarter misses and set up the margin to give the Blues some breathing space.
Football has a perverse humour. Levi Casboult, the man with the once-flukey foot who had not missed a set shot for five weeks, now missed a shot early then had the ball in his hands late to kick the goal to put his side back in front. He missed. The scores were level. Fisher soon after gave them their one point lead and with two minutes and eight seconds on the clock they held on.
GWS had more of everything early except goals – clearances, inside-50s, contested ball and behinds. Both sides wanted to be fast and aggressive in moving the ball and consequently sought out players in high risk-high reward positions.
Carlton's second goal came from just such a kick across goal by Tom Scully to open the play but Levi Casboult's finger tips denied him and created the goal for Matthew Wright. Ordinarily turnovers indicate skill errors but some of these turnovers were forgivable because they were the product of an attempt to be creative. The skill errors were born of aggressive ball use and Carlton pressure.
In the first half, Carlton absorbed three Giants goals in five minutes and rallied to recover the lead by scoring from the Giants' errors. Every one of their first seven goals was kicked from a Giants turnover. They needed to be because around each stoppage the Giants were winning the ball, getting their hands on the ball first from the clearances. So Carlton's game had to be built on winning it back in the field.
At half-time there was a sense that with so many of the numbers weighing heavily in GWS's favour it would be a matter of attrition and the Giants would prevail.
Yet it didn't occur. Most numbers began to even out except clearances – GWS routinely won the ball but then Carlton won it back in play.
Carlton was able to do in the third term what they had not in the first half, they kept the ball inside their forward 50 and GWS could find few avenues out.
Giants captain Phil Davis was on one leg but he stayed on the ground – literally, for he could not jump – and filled space if nothing else.