Four goals down, then a 19-point win
Melbourne opened the AFL wildcard final at the MCG with the first four goals of the night. Carlton won it by 19 points a few hours ago, having clawed the margin back in stages rather than in one burst.
The Blues now play Geelong in an elimination final, back at the MCG on Friday 4 September. Melbourne’s season is over, and it ends the way the previous week did, with a team that could not find enough avenues to goal.
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A fixture that almost never leaves room
Seven of the last ten meetings between these clubs had been decided by fewer than ten points, and Carlton had won four of the last six. A 19-point margin counts as comfortable by the standards of this particular rivalry.
It was also only the fourth time in close to forty years that the two have met with a season on the line. Carlton took the previous one, a two-point semi-final win in 2023. Melbourne won the three before that, in 2000, 1994 and 1988, which makes the Blues the more recent authority on beating the Demons when it counts.
Melbourne ran short up forward
The Demons came in without Jacob van Rooyen, who is serving a three-match ban for rough conduct on Port Adelaide’s Aliir Aliir in round 23. Their forward line had already looked thin without him against the Western Bulldogs, when no Melbourne player kicked more than three goals.
Jack Viney returned after 352 days out following Achilles surgery and a back problem. Kysaiah Pickett played his 150th game and Jake Bowey his 100th. Jake Melksham, who has announced he will retire at season’s end, may have played his last.
Carlton keep going under Josh Fraser, confirmed as permanent coach this week. Francis Evans has kicked eleven goals in five weeks, five of them against Fremantle last weekend, and Geelong will have spent Saturday night working out where to put him.
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