The smallest margin, the widest gulf: Pies KO old rivals Carlton

As all but 90,000 rode every bump and kick at the MCG, the earth almost literally moved. So did the AFL landscape.

In the most dramatic finale to the home-and-away season this century, Collingwood’s one-point win over Carlton knocked the Blues out of the finals berth that had seemed to be their destiny all season and established themselves in the final four, a year after finishing second last.

The agony and the ecstasy: Collingwood win.Credit:Getty Images

The beneficiary was the Western Bulldogs, who earlier in the day fought back from three goals down to beat Hawthorn in Launceston and so claim Carlton’s forfeit finals place. But how they must have gnawed every nail they had to the bone while waiting for their flight home. The difference between eighth and ninth was 0.6 per cent – and the world.

Simultaneously, crisis-ridden Essendon sacked coach Ben Rutten after one of the most embarrassing and undignified weeks in that club’s history. So did three of the biggest and oldest clubs in the game count their blessings and curses and again hold a city, a football nation in their thrall on Sunday afternoon.

For the ever charmed Magpies, it was their 11th win this season by less than two goals, far surpassing any season by any team for close finishes. It happens too often to be put down merely to luck. But it is now an intangible to be reckoned with in the finals series.

For the Magpies and Blues, it was equal and opposite emotions made more acute still by memories of all that has transpired between them in the game’s oldest rivalry.

For the want of a behind, a season lost: dejected Carlton look on.Credit:Getty Images

Historically, nothing could cut Carlton more than to be knocked out of the finals, by Collingwood, by one point. The way they sprawled on the MCG turf at the final siren, they seemed to ask, quite reasonably: What more could we do? The answer was to kick one more behind: it would have been enough.

For Collingwood, nothing could surpass this, and it showed in their exultant leaps into one another’s arms. It was a long ago Carlton president, George Harris, who after narrowly downing Collingwood in a grand final exclaimed: “What’s better than beating Collingwood by 10 goals? Beating them by five points.” That can now be amended to 20 goals and one point. The Bombers could only watch and weep.

To summarise this game as a one-point win is like saying the Mona Lisa’s not a bad painting. To claim it, the Magpies had to reassert themselves after an eight-goals-to-one third quarter from Carlton that turned a 20-point deficit into a 25-point lead early in the last quarter.

Jamie Elliott beats Collingwood teammate Ash Johnson to a crucial mark and goal.Credit:AFL Photos

The Magpies did it with the last score of the match, Jamie Elliott’s ice-cool shot on the run. Just more than 100 seconds remained. It’s fair to surmise that people had heart attacks and relationships broke up in that time. Blues skipper Patrick Cripps was fairly judged best player on the ground, but when he was held up in a tackle for perhaps the first time in the match, that was that.

On a made-to-measure footy afternoon at the MCG, the turnstiles stopped clicking at 88,287. This was back to the footy future. To add to the effect, there was a reserves match between the two clubs in the prelude. The epic terms of this match demanded that there be a curtain-raiser. For the record, Carlton won it.

The main game was a de facto final. It was a wonder that there wasn’t an airing of the national anthem, with the teams lined up. Instead, there were the club theme songs, the incantations of football nations. For Carlton, this was an elimination final in all but name, for the Pies a qualifying final.

As often happens in finals, the premium weighed on the contest. Many kickable goals were missed at both ends; who could have known then what that would mean in the final reckoning. But there was also some boundary-line gems.

It meant that in between the mighty roars, there were long lulls. In them, the crowd hummed and tensions pooled. This is footy’s rhythm. These are natural footy noises; only the AFL thinks they must be overridden by puffery and pap.

Carlton’s Charlie Curnow celebrates a goal during the Blues’ rousing third-quarter run.Credit:Getty Images

Collingwood controlled the first half without dominating it. In the third quarter, the match changed gear. Carlton’s strengths emerged in the power marking of Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay, also providing opportunities for flea-like forward Jesse Motlop. The turnaround was 45 points.

The Blues looked as they did in the first half of the season, the real deal. Momentum is everything in footy, and theirs had almost tilted the ground their way. This was despite the absence of midfield gun Sam Walsh for only the second time in his career. The Magpies looked like a team that, Icarus-like, had flown too high too soon. After 11 successive wins, they had succumbed to Sydney last week, seemingly breaking their spell.

But unlike Icarus, they grew new wings. The impossible became improbable, then possible, but was never probable until it was suddenly real. Again. In the last quarter, both teams had six shots at goal. The Magpies kicked 5.1, the Blues 0.6. Little known Pie Beau McCreery kicked the best, from a sliver of an angle in the Wayne Harmes pocket in contradiction of the time-space continuum. So was history shaped.

The Magpie army celebrate.Credit:Getty Images

Considering what was at stake, this might have been the match of the season. Then again, it might not have been even Collingwood’s match of the season. They’ve had that sort of year. Last year, they finished 17th. Two years previously, Carlton were 16th. Here, at least, is solace and inspiration for Essendon.

At day’s beginning, it was the Carlton faithful who had caused the MCG to shake. At the end, the ground vibrated again, to the strains of the Collingwood chant. The “final” was over: let the finals begin.

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