Carlton forward Troy Menzel blamed a poor kick towards goal during Saturday’s AFL game against Richmond on a flock of seagulls and his coach Mick Malthouse has leapt to the teenager’s defence.
Menzel was a strong contributor for the Blues in front of more than 60,000 fans, booting two goals in his fourth AFL match.
But the 18-year-old was put on the spot by his coach.
“I said to him look what happened with that shot on goal,” Malthouse told his media conference after finals hopefuls Carlton scored an upset win 16.10 (106) to 14.12 (96).
“This is something that we really have to look at. As he ran, a whole heap of birds flew up in front of him.
“He said it just put him straight off.
“We can’t have sport like that on this ground. We’ve got to be able to eliminate that.”
Malthouse was pleased with Menzel’s two-goal contribution, his second in two weeks, as the Blues improved their win-loss record to 10-10, still trailing eighth-placed Port Adelaide (12-8) by two wins with two rounds remaining.
Carlton face top-eight sides Essendon and Port in the last two rounds and a finals spot is still possible.
Dual Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd watched on from the coach’s box on Saturday nursing a knee injury but Malthouse says the 29-year-old remains a chance to return this season, having missed one game so far with an injury which was expected to keep him out of action for about three weeks.
“He was rapt with the win and he’ll never coach,” Malthouse said.
“Will he be back? He has got a chance.”
Malthouse paid tribute to the leadership of under-fire, first-year skipper Marc Murphy who had 23 possessions.
Trailing by five goals at quarter-time, the Blues rebounded strongly after the first break and outscored the finals-bound Tigers 13 goals to six in the final three quarters.
“It was a good fightback,” said a relaxed Malthouse, who was no longer breathing fire after having slammed ex-Carlton coach Robert Walls as a very negative person just a day earlier following Walls’ Fairfax Media column which said the Blues were going backwards in 2013.