Click here to view the archive of Mike and Dan's Play of the Week for Season 2008
CFC TV: Plays of the Year
Watch Mike and Dans Plays of the Week from Round One right through to Round 22: Click here to view the video
Week-in, week-out the Mike and Dan team hunker down and pick a passage of play for our regular Play of Week Interview. Some weeks it’s clear-cut and other weeks we argue until our deadline looms about who it might be. Some player’s names come up but once a year, others in every second conversation.
Some members of the M&D Team watch the game live and some watch on TV. Some watch from the third-level of the Olympic Stand and some from the other side of the country. We have a multitude of perspectives and we’d like to think that’s what makes Mike and Dan the astute judges we are (and not the over-inflated sense of self-importance).
But don’t just believe us. Judge us by our choices throughout the year – great goals by Gibbs, Fevola and Walker, great tackle breaking passes from Judd, great marks from Cloke and Anderson and general words of love for some of our understated heroes. In fact, we’ve listed links to each of these below if you’re interested in reliving our joy (as we do…constantly)!
Normally when it comes to Play Of The Year you’d think we’d end-up in an interstate brouhaha over our selection. In particular, 2008 was full of highlights above and beyond those listed above.
In no particular order we submit to you…Judd’s debut (and any number of things he did since then)...
Gibbs emergence as a bona-fide future star... Kruezer’s impossibly cool head week-in, week-out… Jamo’s step to the next level, which has us all dreaming of the impregnable backlines of Premierships past… Waite’s fearless dash…Steven’s massive game vs. The Tigers…Chief Wiggins fairytale 100th…
Massive comebacks from unwinnable positions, not once… but twice…
Yes, 2008 was a good year to be a Blue. Sure, we as a team are a long way from Hawthorn and Geelong, but not so far from everyone else. St. Kilda secured 4th spot with 13 wins in 2008. That’s only three more than us. And when you think about it, we had some close ones… Two points against the seasoned gladiators of Sydney. A kick against the Crows in South Australia. And a few that got away, even though we launched a charge when all hope was lost…
But at the end of the season, this year has got to be the most fun we’ve had watching the Blues since 2001. The last few years some of the M&D team have wandered down to games and not even really wanted to be there... This year it was a pleasure to barrack our guts out.
And perhaps most tellingly, in 2008 the losses hurt. It hurt to lose in 08 because we knew we were good enough to win. No more honorable losses. No more searching for signs of improvement. Legitimate anger and dismay. Just like the good old days.
Which is why we’re sure our choice of Play Of The Year will surprise. Perhaps even be viewed as a little controversial. Because it’s none of the things we’ve mentioned above. Indeed, it’s not even from any of the stirring victories we enjoyed this year.
Play Of The Year comes from Round 22, our worst loss for the year. And it goes to the entire Carlton team for realizing there was nothing in the game worth playing for except Fev's ton.
Brendan Fevola started the season with his career at the Blues in the balance, and ended it in a place no other Carlton footballer ever has. And in between were the highs and lows that keep Blues fans, and AFL fans in general, talking.
Say what you will about the Hawks tactics in the last ten minutes of the game, but from where the Mike and Dan team sat it was heart-warming to see the Blues so desperately try and Fev over the line. Because you can't say the boys don't play as a team, or for each other (they certainly play for Fev). And that’s why we award this valiant, though ultimately futile effort, POTY.
Sure, we got belted by 12 goals, but realistically, that last quarter wasn't about playing Football at all (even if Clarko thought it was). It was an end-of-season Fevola Carnival where young leaders of Carlton showed that their hearts lay in the right place.
Modern footy can be a clinical business and the M&D team are, frankly, romantics. We don’t want to support a team that plays the percentages at every turn. We don’t want stoppages and lock-down footy. We don’t want the loose man back with a few minutes to play and the game in the bag.
What we want is to go along each week and share the joy of the Carlton Football Club. The highs and the lows. And the spirit displayed by the young men of Carlton that Saturday night is what will get us coming back year after year.
Some would argue that it’s unhealthy. That’s it’s not the edict of the ‘team’. But this was 21 other blokes trying to get their mate over the line, and we loved it. This was them repaying Fev for all the things people forget to mention when he’s pilloried by the media. The Brendan Fevola who would jog the length of the field win, lose or draw to collect the game-ball for a teammate celebrating a milestone. The Fev who gently ushers the revved-up team mascot into the hands of club officials after the kid has run through the banner. The Fev that, for all his ups and downs, is clearly loved by his teammates.
So, POTY 2008 isn’t a goal, a chase, a mark, a smother… It’s more than that. It’s the display of spirit and sportsmanship what will fuel our charge for Premiership 17.
It’s the moment we reckon the Carlton Football Club got the twinkle back in its eye.
See you in 2009.
The Mike & Dan Team.
