The Carlton Reserves made it two from two this season, with a dominant final term against Box Hill securing the four points.
Despite finding themselves behind heading into the final change, the Blues kicked nine goals in the fourth quarter, including the last seven of the game.
Here’s what VFL Senior Coach Daniel O’Keefe said on Sunday’s match.
On how he saw the game:
“It was an interesting game no doubt, at times it was a bit frustrating early because I think we gave them five of their first seven goals via free kicks, so we felt like we had control of the game but then we gave them momentum off the back of that.
“The beautiful thing was we were able to work it back and things started to fall our way in the last quarter, and we had a dominant final term.”
On the evenness of contributors:
“I said to the boys after the game it was really hard to choose a best six: there’s gonna be some really stiff players with some great numbers and some great influence on the game that miss out.
“No one dominated the scoreboard in terms of kicking a bag of five or more, but there were heaps of threes or fours and the love was shared in the forward half.”
On Liam Stocker’s return:
“It was great to have Liam back playing, he’s done a tremendous job with his rehab and recovery to get to this point. He played just under 100 minutes and looked really comfortable.
“Most of the day he played on Fergus Greene, who used to be on the Bulldogs list and is a high-quality VFL player, and he kept him quiet. That was his role to play, he achieved that and he ticked a lot of boxes upon his return.”
On the midfield duo of Paddy Dow and Will Hayes:
“Enormous from ‘Dowy’, who was getting heavily tagged in the first half and he was able to just work through it and off the back of that to finish with the numbers he had was amazing. I think he had 15 clearances and seven of them were from the centre so it’s a pretty dominant game.
“Hayes again had 34 touches on the back of his 33 last week and he just plays our system and our contest shape so well, we absolutely adore having him at our club.”
On Jesse Motlop’s breakout four-goal game:
“He showed how dynamic he can be.
“We gave him some centre-bounce time and he was lively in there. He was light on his toes, and he’s got some amazing lateral steps and even some nice little deft touches that were able to set others up.
“He was a real spark and when he’s running towards our goal at full flight, I’d hate to be a defender on him!”
On Alex Mirkov’s importance:
“We were able to get that centre bounce dominance, particularly thanks to Alex Mirkov who had 46 hitouts and I think about 20 were to advantage: that’s an enormous head start in any game. When we were able to get the ball moving forward from centre bounces from there it just set us up.”
On the Club’s great start to both the VFL and AFL seasons:
“To take eight points last week and eight points again this week is a great sign with where our club is at. The shift we’ve been able to make in a short amount of time as a whole club is something we’re really proud of.
“We’re flying up to Gold Coast next weekend, so that’s going to be an incredible opportunity for us as two programs, both VFL and AFL, to connect and bond and we won’t take that lightly. In my time here at the footy club we haven’t had an opportunity like that.”
Tarquin Oakley is a student at La Trobe University, undergoing his Bachelor of Media and Communications (Sports Journalism). He is currently undertaking an internship at the Carlton Football Club as part of its partnership with La Trobe University.
