A BIG-GAME player.
The Blues aren’t entering the unknown in 2024. While this time last year there was the novelty of a first finals experience in a decade, 12 months on the Blues are looking to recapture the magic which powered them in September last year.
For Carlton defender Nic Newman, he’s looking forward to seeing one of his team’s main protagonists go again a year later.
Few stamped themselves into Navy Blue folklore better than Blake Acres last year, kicking the sealing goal in the elimination final before that famous match-winner against Melbourne seven days later.
It wasn’t only his heroics in front of goal, with the wingman getting back on the last line on three occasions in three games during the finals series to stop certain opposition goals.
He did all that while under duress, on the back of a collarbone injury he sustained in the final game of the home-and-away season.
“He’s been such a good pick-up for us,” Newman said about Acres on SEN.
“I’m conscious I don’t want to pump his ego up too much — he’s a character, the ‘Sheriff’. He’s been an awesome pick-up and he’s one of those guys you absolutely love playing with.
“He seems to be one of those guys where if he’s a bit sore of he gets whacked, it almost gets him going even more. We might have the clean him up this week.”
To mark Father's Day, we asked the boys which duo around the Club have a father-son dynamic.
— Carlton FC (@CarltonFC) September 1, 2024
In a surprise to absolutely nobody, one particular partnership was a popular answer 👨👦
Acres’ big-game record has extended beyond just that outstanding finals series, where he was arguably the Blues’ second-best player behind eventual Gary Ayres Medallist Sam Walsh.
His best games in 2024 have been when the Blues have played in front of capacity crowds, including the two late goals he kicked against Geelong in Round 7 when the Blues threatened an improbable comeback in front of over 87,000 people.
Even in Carlton’s most recent game against St Kilda, it was Acres who got the Blues going with two team-lifting goals in the third quarter when the Saints threatened to run away with the contest.
“We were probably in need of a wingman that you can just plonk there and you know what you’re going to get every week. I feel like he’s done that through the regular season, and his finals series last year was pretty amazing.
“I don’t really know what it is in terms of him being able to step up in big games, but it’s absolutely a trait that every player wants to have. So far, he’s done that.”
