Turn back the hands to the afternoon of Saturday, September 15, 2001, when the Carlton outfit included a VFL/AFL Team of the Century full-back, a future Coleman Medallist, the club’s games record holder, an AFLPA General Manager and the AFL’s Laws of the Game Committeeman.
Stephen Silvagni, Brendan Fevola, Craig Bradley, Ian Prendergast and Andrew McKay were the respective members of the Carlton 22 which took to the field for the First Semi-Final against Richmond that day - as was Ryan Houlihan, the only team member still on the club’s books.
Though the team also boasted seven Carlton premiership players of the 1995 campaign - Bradley, Silvagni, Scott Camporeale (in game no.150), Ang Christou, Anthony Koutoufides, Glenn Manton and McKay - it fell short by a miserable 11 points, 10.7 (67) to 7.14 (56), with Darren Hulme and Koutoufides booting two goals each, and McKay adjudged Carlton’s best player afield.
McKay laughed off the dryly-put suggestion that his 21 teammates let him down that day. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much of the game . . . you tend not to when you lose, so you’re asking the wrong bloke . . . and I have a better memory of the ’99 prelim,” McKay said.
“It is surprising that it’s ten years since we last played in a final on the MCG, and time certainly goes quickly. The club was obviously set back a fair bit with the draft restrictions, and it’s taken a while to get back. You almost have to do your time now to get some picks and work your way up the ladder to play finals, and that’s what the system’s all about really.”
The 2001 eliminator - Silvagni’s 312th and last for the club - also corresponded with Mark Porter’s final appearance in a Carlton guernsey, and was the game in which Koutoufides succumbed to serious knee injury in a third quarter tangle of legs with the Tigers’ Matthew Knights.
To his great credit, “SOS” kept Matthew Richardson to just one goal in his last hurrah.
Fast forward to September 2011, and McKay will be at the MCG on Sunday to cheer Carlton on, together with his wife Sam, daughters Abbie (10), Sophie (five) and son Charlie (nine), “and they’re at that age now where they’re pretty keen on footy”.
So how has he assessed the team’s fortunes through 2011? “As an outsider looking in I reckon they’ve gone pretty well. They look to be more confident in their ability to win,” McKay said.
“You hope that it won’t be about ‘Carlton versus Essendon’. It’ll be more about ‘We have a real desire to win and we have a better team than them’, and if we play to the best of our ability we will win.”
Carlton v Richmond, First Semi-Final, MCG, September 15, 2001
The Carlton team
Backs: Glenn Manton, Stephen Silvagni, Simon Fletcher
Half-Backs: Andrew McKay, Simon Beaumont, Michael Mansfield
Centres: Craig Bradley, Jim Plunkett, Adrian Hickmott
Half Forwards: Matthew Lappin, Lance Whitnall, Scott Camporeale
Forwards: Mark Porter, Brendan Fevola, Ryan Houlihan
Rucks: Matthew Allan, Anthony Koutoufides, Darren Hulme
Interchange: Scott Freeborn, Ian Prendergast, Trent Hotton , Ang Christou
Coach: Wayne Brittain
