Round 7, 2008

Pre-season, all the talk was about how frail Carlton's defence was expected to be, yet shortly into the year our defence is proving to be on their game through a combination of experience in Waite and Thornton plus the combined height and running power of Jamison and a young Paul Bower. Bower's last month of football has been nothing short of brilliant, and for his run-at-all-costs attitude which in the at least partially informed view of Mike & Dan that turned the Blues on in the last, he wins this week's Play of the Week.

Paul, you win this week’s Play of the Week for your take and hard running in the last that led to Kade Simpson’s welcome goal and the game. What can you tell us about that play?

The ball was bombed forward and I just waited for the ball and marked it. I thought we really needed to score and keep attacking. So I got the ball to Carrazzo and it got to Simmo who luckily kicked the goal.

It seemed like we’d just stopped running – what was happening?

The Eagles got a couple of quick ones in the third and were winning almost all the centre clearances. We were disappointed because we’d stopped running and working for each other. We had to get back to what we’d been doing in the second quarter – and we did get back to it and playing good footy and ended up winning by a fair margin.

Do you have a mandate to tear down the field, or is it just instinct?

Natural instinct – if I think I’ll get the ball I just run hard – and I make sure I get back quickly if I don’t think I can get it. That’s really important.

Sometimes you put our hearts in our mouth with your runs - do you sometimes get going and think 'Oh heck, what have I done?'

I just back myself in to get the ball and if I don’t get it then I get back as quickly as I can.

Many supporters are looking at the Collingwood game where you beat Travis Cloke as your break-out match. How did you feel after that game and are you eager to get more stopping roles on key forwards?

In the lead up to the game I was really happy for Ratts to give me Cloke because he is such a good player. The job I did on him has given me a lot of confidence, and I have been getting more key players since then – it has been good.

Your 2008 has been pretty impressive. Was there anything specific that you focussed on over the pre-season? Do you think you have improved or have you just been given more opportunity this year?

In particular, I’ve been working on my spoiling skills. Tailing our opponents hard and fast has been a really key focus for all the backmen during the pre-season. We need to focus on staying right on the opponent and not drop off. This allows for more spoiling, and I think that’s come through from many of us this year. Don’t drop off!

What was it like playing against Josh Kennedy this week? Did it feel like a training match at any stage?

Good – I’ve played on him before and I know he’s a really hard worker. He’s a talented player and has such a good work ethic. He was tough to play on.

A lot of the young midfielders we've interviewed have spoken about Judd's arrival as a bit boost to their confidence. As a defender, does a stronger midfield give you more confidence to rebound?

Yeah, I suppose it does – with his experience and workrate – the midfield is a lot more disciplined and is working back to help the defenders. That’s been the main thing I’ve noticed this year, that the midfield has been there to help out the defence. It has been a major difference from last year and the year before.

We have an inexperienced backline who are holding together really well so far this year. Who is the "leader" in the back 6 who steadies the side down and leads by example?

We look towards Waite and Thornton. Jamo, Grigg, and myself try to learn off them as much as possible. If we make a mistake, then they always come over to us and tell us just to settle down.

Generally we like to finish these things off by asking whether any of the Blue boys are embarrassing in any way – which of your teammates deserves a spray?

Nah… they’re all pretty good.

And despite trying a number of times, Paul just wouldn’t dob in a team mate in a true sign of support for the Blues (or disregard to the question!). So far, there is no doubt that Bower's 2008 has been welcomed by all & sundry at Carlton, and now that he has tasted not only his first win at AFL level (Round 4 this year) but his first 3, Carlton fans all over the country will be looking towards many more of his trademark runs.

Remember them? All heat and sublime joy, smiles and eager telephone calls, whispers, and held hands, then a party and she’s with someone else, or you’re with someone else, an argument and its all off, cold shoulders, angry eyes and a flick of the head, lead in the belly, a wailing in the bedroom when it feels like the world is about to end, then suddenly its back on again, new smiles, sunshine, denial there was ever any problem in the first place and a belief, a reckless, shoulder hugging, belief that it could never get be any better than this – repeat through several mad, frantic years of shoe shines, hairdos and discos…

That’s how Friday night was. A love affair, a teenage love affair, on and off and on again… The rise and fall and rise again, the Everest, thin air and lungs expanding, then heavy shoulders, fear and darkness. Now I remember why I grew up! The old ticker stumbled between its ticks and tocks; we had the staggers, went from dancers to tumblers, from birds of prey to fodder for the vultures. A praying Mantis had hold of my guts; I prayed to the Football Gods, switched between the free and paid stations, hoping somehow a change would bring back the passion of that second quarter ( and what a quarter it was) charge. Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred – oh no! Not again, not another Light Brigade game where promise shatters into failure and the sands beneath the footballing stops shift into the weight of another loss to carry through another dismal working week!

How long since we’ve kicked eight (and they haven’t kicked nine or ten) in a quarter? How long since the umps thought the other side worse than us? It was a game of teenage football, a puppy love game filled with promises, giggles, glee and despair, then back to the joy as we stormed home like soldiers landing in Normandy – we were everywhere!

Judd to Gibbs… GOAL! I was dancing on the couches! I was singing the song and howling with several years of saved up joy! A win away; a win over there! Springtime in Paris, three coins in a fountain and the Bluebaggers are home! Ahhh, this is the way things should be - there was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was very good…

Can I just say these weekly bouts of words on the web page are a damn sight easier when we win! When we lose each word is a weird sort of teenage rite of passage. A pained grunt, a hair in the eyes, pants around the bum swagger through the loss and pain and mumbling days of angst. But a win. A win and words fly like hummingbirds from the mind to the fingertips. The keyboard becomes a guitar in Hedrick’s hands! All along the watchtower baby, while my football team no longer gently weeps.

I was born to write about the Bluebaggers winning! It’s so easy to remember Murph’s snap, Simmo’s grab and his run for that bomb, Stevo’s goal from the boundary line and Fev’s fabulous second quarter where fifty meters were handed out like kisses after the school ball. We were all debutantes again it had been so long since we had won at Subie!

So now The Rest and the Big V game where we all hope our players shine. And for us a deserved rest too. The ticker needs to gather back the threads lost in that game. Fifty odd points tumbling into seven and then in the blink of a flirtatious eye back out to thirty-seven!

We all need the break, if only to dream of the games still to come. The wins yet won. The goals to be kicked and marks and tackles and points tallies below the ton!

After the rest it’s Brisbane - A test for the lads, a real test. The Lions tackle as well as anyone. They like to be the bully boys, (with Hawthorn) the dyed-haired Punks or slicked-back Rockers of the competition. They’ll get into our lads, they’ll try to act tough and put us off our game – and they will fail. Our boys might be young but they are quickly becoming men and they hunt together, do our Bluebaggers. Like sharks, or swift dolphin. We are rarely alone. So hunt away Lions and watch what happens. While you lunge we’ll dance away, we’re the ‘will ‘o the wisps’ - with Judd and Murph and JR, we’ll run you off your feet. Our defence will shut you down and our forwards will kick enough to drag us over the line.

Add the dynamic leather poison duo of Carrots and Scotland and the Brisbane boys will feel like they are chasing shadows. This is a game we will win because we have turned the corner and behind us is a place so ugly, so desperately cold and unforgiving, none of our boys want to go back. We will win and we will slowly make the rest of the AFL remember the horrible way the white monogram glows wickedly when the Bluebaggers are winning, how it taunts and dances forever a fraction out of reach, a girl only held in dreams.

So this week Fev for 5
Gibbs BOG
And Judd to stream out of the centre so often we’ll think it’s just a rerun of what used to be until the siren sounds and we’re all standing on the seats singing the grandest song there is!

Go Blues.