Carlton coach Brett Ratten believes that the winner of Friday night’s AFL clash between the Blues and arch-rivals Essendon can legitimately tower to a top four berth.
While the couple teams commonly occupy the bottom two rungs of the top eight with 6-6 records, Ratten believed the victor would have being ideally placed to make a run at a doubles finals chance.
“It could bestow one team the extra boost that maybe pushes them to an opportunity to have a crack at that last spot in the four and maybe even the extra confidence from basting your arch-enemy,” he said.
But just as big a driver for the Blues is their desperation to halt a run of four losses against the Bombers.
“For rivalry this is a huge one in spite of us,” Ratten said.
”(Essendon coach Matthew Knights) has had the wood on us over the last few occasions so it’s a great exception for us to employ well ourselves.”
Aggravating the pain of that losing streak, in three of the meetings, the Blues were in succession top before the Bombers stormed home to inflict narrow defeats.
Ratten has not allowed his team to forget their most recent clash, in round three, when the Blues had more scoring shots and led by 27 points in the second quarter, before going down by four.
“We draw on a lot of games and situations that happened in the beyond and grab a mouthful of narration,” Ratten said.
“We happy reminded the players that our last performance was not where we’d like it in compensation for Essendon.
“I suppose when you’ve played those games and tight ones against teams that you’ve got a great rivalry over many years you bring that to the fore and we’ve done that.”
One Blue who will recall that game further vividly than most is spearhead Brendan Fevola.
Fevola, who kicked 15 goals in two games in expectation of Essendon utmost year, bet young opponent Darcy Daniher $100 he would be moved off him by the final quarter.
Fevola not only lost the wager, mete his wasteful 4.7, onward by the agency of a shot thoroughly on the full, proved extremely costly in the defeat.
While Daniher’s form currently has him out of the Bombers’ side, Knights said another youngster, Tayte Pears, had been earmarked for the job this time.
“For our future, we must endeavour to frolic these young guys in the key posts as much as we can,” he said.
AAP
