A decent start with goals to big men Prendergast and French separated by an Adrian Cox goal at the other end did little to give an indication of the arm wrestle to come thereafter.  Hawthorn piled on the next 4 goals to take an 18 point lead into quarter time.  The last of those goals was a travesty of monumental proportions with a diving Mick Martyn swearing he got a touch to a bouncing Lekkas assault on goal.  These things are always difficult to notice so without benefit of replay the umpires are on a hiding to nothing.  The problem in this case was that after the ball had gone past Martyn, it bounced into the goal post.  The goal umpire wasn't watching it and the goal was given.

The second quarter belonged to Carlton as they scored the next four majors through a spring heeled Waite, a hard working Camporeale, a solid two grab Koutoufides pack mark prior to having his head almost torn off by Tallis and a strong mark and 60 metre perler from McKernan.  The Blues were leading and on the rise or so it seemed.  Another change came over the came and poor defensive work from a stoppage gave the Hawk's Johnson a goal and shortly thereafter the half time siren saw the Hawks with a one point ascendancy.  Waite had cleaned up Crawford albeit accidentally during the quarter.  McKernan was penalised for outmuscling Holland costing Carlton another goal.

The third quarter and the Hawks jumped from the blocks with the first 3 goals, two of which came from poor skill errors from the Blues, in particular  Ian Prendergast who had been playing a fair game until his brain explosion.  McKernan staged for a free and got one back while Houlihan was fortunate to capitalise on a good run from Waite who was looking every bit like a big cat on the prowl. Brendan Fevola while applying himself was spilling way too much ball and Jonathan Hay was running the ball away from danger with ease.

The dour was about to become depressing in the last quarter as Murphy marked and missed from 30 metres, ironically the play called back to award the mark as Ratten ran into an open goal.  The Hawks scored through Adrian Cox to increase the margin and Fevola missed a sitter down the other end.  With time running out and the Blues playing catch up, Koutoufides hesitated with a bouncing ball in the defensive area, allowing Joel Smith to run around him and score a soft goal.  Fevola finally goaled late but the damage had been done.

Best for the Blues were McKay, Whitnall, Lappin who was probably best on ground, while Koutofides had one good half and Brett Ratten was better than expect in his first game back.  Mick Martyn did what was asked of him but a few others were disappointing to say the least.

Next week the big test versus the Saints and their embarrassment of draft riches.
 

«
REVIEW

CARLTON
v
Hawthorn

Round 6

3 May 2003

SEASON 2002