Carlton coach Mick Malthouse suspects Richmond fired their best shot early then couldn’t go the distance, as the Blues pulled off another stunning AFL escape act in Sunday’s elimination final.
A Chris Judd-inspired Carlton stormed back from 32 points down early in the third quarter to upset Richmond 18.8 (116) to 14.12 (96) in front of a pro-Tigers record crowd of 94,690 at the MCG.
With the Tigers playing their first final in 12 years, Malthouse suggested the emotion they took into the game might have meant they were spent before it ended.
“Maybe a few of them played their game early,” the three-time premiership coach said.
“Persistence is wonderful if you just keep at sides like that.”
Richmond had dominated the first half and although they failed to ram home their advantage early, they built what seemed a match-winning lead with the help of three goals directly from 50m penalties in the second term.
But the Blues, who received a finals lifeline when Essendon were disqualified from the eight and only just held onto it last weekend when they came back from 39 points down to pip Port Adelaide, again refused to let their season die.
With Judd, Bryce Gibbs and Marc Murphy dominating the stoppages, the Blues put on a five-goal burst in less than nine minutes in the third term to reduce the margin to less than a kick at the last change.
Despite a brain-fade from Mitch Robinson, who gave away a free kick and goal by deliberately punching the ball over his defensive goal-line from a ball-up early in the last term, the Blues didn’t stop coming.
Key forward Jarrad Waite and makeshift attacking colleague Nick Duigan – a late inclusion – booted four goals each and Eddie Betts kicked three, with that trio combining for seven between them in the second half alone.
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick was left to bemoan his side’s inability to stop the Blues scoring from stoppages or to win one-on-one contests against Carlton’s forwards.
“It’s pure disappointment at this stage,” Hardwick said.
“The fact of the matter is we probably had two strengths that we came into the game with, one being defensive 50 contested ball – we went down by minus 18 in that area.
“The other one is scores from stoppages versus the opposition.
“We were AFL No.2, we gave up 30 goals (from stoppages) for the year. We gave up 11 today.
“Our two normal strengths went away as two weaknesses which cost us the game.”
But he denied Richmond were overwhelmed by the occasion or ran out of energy, saying the Blues’ late contested ball dominance was more relevant.
“Contested ball doesn’t mean you’re running. Contested ball means you fight to the death,” Hardwick said.
“We weren’t prepared to do that for long enough periods today.”
