When the AFL announced that this season, the teams finishing 7th to 10th will play a wildcard round, I think most would have thought and still believe that this notion is just a money-grabbing tactic, and for the most part, it probably is; and I was one of them. However, after the game on Sunday afternoon, when Carlton supporters, in an away game, roared at the final siren after another drawn game for the round and drowned out the home team, my view changed because that draw meant more than I had ever anticipated.
At the start of the season, everyone had high hopes for Carlton’s season. We had drafted well, with both seasoned and first-time AFL players. The expectation before the first ball of the season was great. But while it started shaky, it quickly turned into dumbfounded perplexity. What was going on? Why was the team not performing the way it should?
I will not disparage a current coach or team while they are representing the club. It serves no real purpose other than to make the situation not only a familiar narrative, but also disheartening. When Michael Voss announced that he was resigning from being the coach and the club announced Josh Fraser as the interim one, I think most people breathed a sigh of relief, and I am one of them. Not because we knew what the interim coach was capable of, but we knew what Voss was not capable of.
I didn’t know what would transpire, but it allowed for a more in-depth look at what wasn’t working and what was. My view was that Voss developed vital skills in the team but was too dogmatic about making on-field changes when needed. He also, to the perplexed supporters and commentators, did not play George Hewitt when he was leading in the midfield last season. Voss also did not drop players when they were not performing, which belies what is needed in the modern game.
So given all of this, there was no expectation at all that Josh Fraser could or would change this. How wrong were we all!
When Fraser took over, after the Round 9 loss, given that we were playing the same team in this round, to the team we were expected to lose to in Round 10. But what happened was that even though our shots at goal were lacking, we won. Maybe this turnaround was a one-off. But it happened again: Carlton beat PA in Adelaide, which in itself is a feat, by 34 points! Surely this is just a once-or-twice occurrence. This could not continue, could it?
Then in Round 12, the footy world saw a different team. It saw what I actually believed we were capable of for a long time; we beat a top team – Geelong by four points. How can that be? What was the transformation that happened at Ikon Park to make a once projected bottom team now become one of the most exciting and fearsome teams this year?
The answer is simple: a shift in a team’s mindset. Because it did not stop there. We won the next game. Sure, it was against Essendon, but speculation was rife that given that the team had a bye in the next round, this sudden resurgence would fade. It did not!
We came back more determined and more focused on what it means to be a winning team: a team! We won the next game, and the next and the next. Then it all came crashing down, and given who we had played before this sensational loss, it was, as some have said, always going to happen. We were not the team that should be contesting for finals with our loss to Hawthorn in conditions that mirrored the team. Then we lost to our old foes, and it seemed the momentum under a new, yet interim coach was collapsing.
This changed, and for the first time since Round 9, the possibility of contending for a Wildcard spot was illuminated in a way that no one expected. We beat Gold Coast, but it was in Round 21 where the team showed what they were capable of and what the humble, quiet guidance of a coach who believed in the players meant; therefore, they had the same belief when the team beat, nay thrashed, the reigning Premiers to the shock of that club and the footy world. We beat the Brisbane Lions by 76 points. There were 16, yes, 16 goal scorers. The accuracy, the stamina, and, to be honest, one of the best moments in any game this year was seeing a player in the back score a goal out of nowhere.
The next round was a nervous one, as this club had beaten us before this year, and with two major players gone from Carlton, we were all nervous. This club’s cocky and rather arrogant reaction to our loss played in the back of our minds. Could this be our undoing? Could this be the game where any chance of making it to a Wildcard round would be buried into the turf of Marvel Stadium? Simply – NO!
This was not the same team that started season 2026; up to Round 9, it was a different, more united team, not willing to surrender. It was a game where the team banded together to become something I don’t think St Kilda will ever be right now: a team that not only played together but supported each other. It was a team where there were no egos, no player who didn’t fight to not only be in the team, but to play their part.
As the team headed into this game on Sunday, we all knew that if we did not win or draw with the Western Bulldogs, all the effort, determination, and 360-degree turnaround since Round 9 would be disheartening. We wanted to win, or at the very least draw, to ensure Carlton FC made it to the Wildcard round, so neither St Kilda, GWS, nor even North Melbourne could have the slightest hint of making it through. It seemed that our worst fears were playing out during the last three minutes of the fourth quarter. But this wasn’t the same team as before Round 9.
Carlton scored a goal out of nowhere, and the score was even. Supporters around me screamed to get the ball down into our forward line, but I shook my head. If we had control of the ball for the last two minutes of the game and the score was even, keep it that way. We know that WB are a more seasoned team than we are, and I knew, and it seems so did some of the team on the ground, that we have to keep the ball in our hands, no matter what. Two points would ensure finals. The siren went, and the roar around the ground shook the concrete of the stadium as if we had beaten our opposition. A draw was not a win, but it was for Carlton FC.
No matter what, Carlton FC was once seen as finishing near the bottom of the ladder—a team where, in some minds, our senior leading players should be traded out. In others’ minds, we were a club in total disarray. Yet, Carlton was now in the Finals in a Wildcard round. So those who did not believe in the success of a wildcard round are now on board, and I am one of them.
It is not because we are in the Finals, even in tenth position; it is because since Round 9, we have proven to the footy world that, with the right person at the helm, a group of people most have believed to be mediocre at best can be more than that. Because the players themselves are showing a growth and maturity that no one really expected. Because given where we were and where we are now, this opportunity means more than anyone could have anticipated. It means the club is on the right path and, for me, the person at the helm of this group right now is the right person to take it to ultimate success.
#GOBLUES!
Images courtesy of AFL
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