EXTRA BLUES PICK MIGHT NOT BE A PRIORITY
THE bloke writing Carlton’s priority-pick submission should hope the AFL’s powerbrokers didn’t catch much of yesterday’s Docklands ‘mockbuster’.
A day after the AFL admitted the league could return to the bad old days of pre-draft priority picks, the Blues’ exact level of ineptitude was a key talking point.
On yesterday’s evidence, Brendon Bolton’s Blue are wooden spoon-while-rebuilding bad, but far from rock-bottom last-days-of-Fitzroy bad.
In fact, for vast periods of the Etihad Stadium game the Blues were darned good.
To be frank, this contest was no oil painting, both sides sharing 755 possessions for just 17 goals in perfect Docklands conditions.
Finally a late Bulldogs rush decided the contest in a crazy few minutes where Jed Lamb whacked Marcus Bontempelli in the back with a behindthe-play hit and an Etihad Stadium fan threw a bottle of soft drink at Dale Thomas.
Yet for the Carlton faithful, after a long and painful year, the old stagers and young kids combined seamlessly up for the fight.
Rangy first-gamer Tom De Koning provided the warm and fuzzy moment, slotting his first goal and engulfed by 17 teammates, the boy whose Dutch nickname translates to “The King”.
Early on, Harry McKay hit up on a lead and found De Koning, whose squared ball found Charlie Curnow for a towering pack mark and subsequent goal.
Those are the kind of moments that must sustain Blues fans, while at the same time alerting AFL House this side is not as bad as often seems.
McKay continues to grow in front of the eyes of the Carlton faithful, his 12th game this year yet more vindication of the Blues’ patient approach with him.
No one believes the Blues will get a pre-draft pick but a priority selection after the non-finalists is possible, with McKay taken in the same range (pick 10) as that potential pick next year.