Fraser’s Fairytale Marches On and This Old Bugger’s Believing

I’ve sat through enough false dawns at Ikon Park to fill a lifetime of grumbling, so believe me when I say I did not expect to be writing these words in September. But here we are, and Carlton have gone and knocked over Melbourne at the MCG in front of 91,733 people, 10.14 (74) to 7.13 (43), to keep this ridiculous, wonderful, fairytale season rolling into an elimination final against Geelong.

Ten and eight down to start the year. A coach gone. A club that half the competition had written off as a rebuild job for 2027. And now they’re one of eight teams left standing in this finals series, off the back of a wildcard win that had the old ground rocking like it hasn’t rocked in donkey’s years.

The kid Jagga Smith, and what he means to this mob

I’ll admit I was one of the sceptics when Josh Fraser started throwing the kid into the side mid-season. You don’t blood youngsters in the middle of a scrap for your coach’s job, that’s what I reckoned, back in my day you earnt your senior footy in the twos first and there was none of this fast-tracking business. Well, Jagga Smith has made an absolute mug of me and plenty of others, because the way he went about it against Melbourne — creeping through stoppages, hitting targets under real pressure, kicking that goal in the third term that had the outer up off their seats — that’s not a kid playing scared. That’s a kid who thinks he belongs, and after Saturday you’d be a fool to argue with him.

People forget how hard it is to play finals footy as a teenager in front of nearly ninety-two thousand people. The MCG doesn’t care how old you are, it’ll swallow you whole if you let it. Smith didn’t let it. He played like he’d been going there since he could walk, and if that’s not a changing of the guard for this footy club then I don’t know what is.

Fraser has this side believing something the joint hasn’t believed in an age

Say what you like about the year Carlton has had — and believe me, I said plenty of it myself back around round eight when we were staring down the barrel of a wooden spoon — but Josh Fraser has built something out of the wreckage that Voss left behind, and fair play to him for it. This wasn’t a side that snuck into the eight on percentage and a soft draw. This is a side that has had to win from an unwinnable position all year, every week another must-win, and they’ve just kept doing it.

There’s a stubbornness to this group now that reminds me of sides from way back, when Carlton didn’t so much play finals as demand them. I’m not going to pretend this is the same calibre of outfit as some of the great Carlton sides of old — I’ve still got my doubts about our set-up at ground level in a real arm wrestle — but the belief that Fraser has drilled into this playing group, the way they refused to fold when Melbourne threw a couple of quick ones on the board in the second quarter, that’s coaching, and that’s character, and you can’t manufacture either of those things.

Melbourne’s finals ghosts aren’t going anywhere fast

Now I don’t want to kick a bloke while he’s down, because heaven knows Carlton have worn enough of that themselves over the journey, but Melbourne’s finals record of late is becoming its own sort of story, and not the good kind. Seven goals to ten in front of their own MCG crowd is a poor return for a team with the sort of midfield stocks they’re supposed to have. Their inside 50 delivery looked scrambled all night, and when Carlton’s back six got organised in that third quarter, the Demons had no answer for it whatsoever.

Whether that’s on the coaching group up there or whether it’s something deeper in the playing list, that’s for the Melbourne faithful to sort out over their summer, not for me to pretend I’ve got all the answers to. But you’d have to say the pressure’s building on that footy club, and it’ll only get louder after a night like this.

The umpires, the AFL’s endless tinkering, and why I still call it the VFL

I’ll cop the grief for saying it every single week, but there were a couple of high-tackle frees paid on Saturday night that had blokes around me at the ground shaking their heads, and I don’t reckon they were being precious about it either. Every year head office fiddles with another rule, brings in another interpretation nobody asked for, and every year the poor umpires are left trying to police something that changes depending on which panel you listen to on a Thursday night. Back in my day a tackle was a tackle and you got on with it. These days you need a law degree to follow along.

I’m not saying it cost Melbourne the game — Carlton were the better side on the night, full stop, no argument — but it’s another example of the competition getting away from what made it great in the first place, and don’t get me started on the fixture that had this lot playing a wildcard final on a Saturday night when the old finals system never needed any of this carry-on. Call me an old fool if you like, I’ll wear it, but I still call it the VFL round these parts and I’m not changing now.

Geelong up next, and why I’m allowing myself to dream

So it’s off to face Geelong in the elimination final, and I know full well what sort of test that is — a club that knows finals footy better than most of the competition put together, with players who’ve been there and done it more times than I’ve had cold pies at Princes Park. By rights Carlton shouldn’t be within a bull’s roar of competing with them on paper.

But then again, by rights Carlton shouldn’t be here at all after the start we had, and this whole season has stopped following the script a long time ago. I’m not getting carried away, I promise you that, I’ve had my heart broken by this club too many times to go making bold predictions in a newspaper column. But I’ll say this much: if Jagga Smith and this group can keep playing with the sort of fearlessness they showed against Melbourne, I wouldn’t want to be the one writing Carlton off just yet. Not this year. Not this mob.