, or last night’s heartbreak. For the first twenty minutes of the first semi-final, it appeared they’d learned their lessons from the qualifying final. They were slow out of the blocks last week and it cost them dearly. This week, they were first to the ball, hunted in greater numbers, dominated in the air and on the ground. But they didn’t cash in. They didn’t put their foot on the throat during Carlton’s error strewn third term. All night, May and Lever denied, thwarted, floated and pressed.
On such a night, and in the warm conditions, it was always going to open up in the second half for the power runners. Sam Walsh was an energizer bunny, scampering from contest to contest. Max Gawn published a “Captain’s Diary” the year they won their flag, and relayed James Harmes’ thoughts on Walsh. “That is the hardest player I haveplayed on,” he told his captain. “He just runs, runs, runs. I am completely rooted.” Walsh ran further and harder than anyone else on the MCG last night.
“It’s party time when we win, and it’s a family loss when we lose,” Carlton chief executive Brian Cook said earlier this year. Outside of Premierships, and there’s been plenty of those, and outside of the 1999 preliminary final, there can’t have too many better Carlton parties than last night.