Chris Yarran has already worded up his dear mother Deborah for a little more breathing space - at least until Sunday night when the First Elimination Final is run and (hopefully) won.
“Yazz” hasn’t seen his Mum in the flesh since late April, when he made the flight to Perth for the fourth round match against West Coast at Patersons Stadium . . . so a few more days aren’t going to hurt even if the matriarch jets into Melbourne well before the much-anticipated Carlton-Richmond contest.
“Yes, she’s coming over, but I don’t want to change too many things through the week, so I’ve told her to go her separate way and let me do whatever I do to get myself ready,” Yarran said after a weights session at Visy Park.
“I told her that I’d see her after the game because I didn’t want any distractions. She was all for it because she knew exactly what was at stake, so she’ll be staying for a night or two in a hotel, and then at my place, fingers crossed, after a win over the Tigers.”
Yarran makes wonderful copy because he calls it as he sees it. He agreed that his second half showing at AAMI Stadium had hopefully brought down the curtain on “a frustrating and patchy year” although he did believe he had performed better through the past three matches.
“I feel that I’ve been playing pretty well over the past three weeks (and) now I have the chance to redeem myself in finals time,” Yarran said.
There’s no doubt Yarran and his fellow Carltonites are up and about since the events of last Saturday evening at AAMI Stadium. Perhaps the prodigiously-gifted 82-game Western Australian speaks for all when he says: “That win was probably one of the best experiences I’ve dealt with so far”.
“It was probably the best win I’ve been involved with at this footy club,” Yarran said. “To be 39 points down with a few minutes to go in the third quarter and to somehow manage to win that game was an incredible effort, and I couldn’t be more proud of the blokes who ran out on that day.
“Why did it turn around? I think the boys just knew what was at stake. Obviously if we lost that game we weren’t going to make finals and we responded pretty well to Mick’s half-time spray.
“At the end of the day, everyone wanted to play finals. That was what was going through my mind and I’m pretty sure it was going through everybody else’s.”
And so it’s on to the MCG, and if Yarran’s tale in part tells the whole then Carlton is up for the scrap.
“We’ve been playing patchy footy all year, but we’re lucky enough to be playing finals footy this week. Everyone’s excited about it and hopefully we can get a win over the Tigers,” he said.
“We haven’t played four quarters for quite some time now, but I believe that if we bring the right mindset and right attitude we’ll definitely get the job done.”
