Rd 22 Match Day Gallery
Click Here

Have Your Say
By finishing on 99, Bendan Fevola has become football's Don Bradman and a part of football folklore forever. Send us your tribute to 'our Don Bradman'.
Click here to Have Your Say

CARLTON coach Brett Ratten has expressed his dismay at the flooding tactics that ultimately thwarted Brendan Fevola's late bid to break the century mark at Telstra Dome on Saturday night.

With the game well in Hawthorn's keeping and needing just one more goal to make history on a night when Lance Franklin broke the ton, Fevola found himself surrounded by up to five opposition players late in the game as Alastair Clarkson dropped numbers behind the ball.

Asked if he would have done the same if the shoe was on the other foot Ratten replied: "I won't answer that."

"I suppose we could have maybe done that at the start [to Franklin], but I suppose that's the way he's seen it," a reticent Ratten replied when pressed on the issue.

"They were only 70 points up."

For his part, Clarkson sympathised with Fevola's plight in having gone so close.

"He had his chances over the course of the game; he probably had 10 shots on goal," Clarkson said.

"I don't think he had a goal at half time and he ended up kicking seven, which is a pretty special effort in itself.

"Seven goals in a half of footy … it's a tough, brutal game and he was unable to get there at the end."

Ratten praised Fevola's ability to come so close to reaching the milestone despite a poor overall team performance in the 78-point loss, and lamented a lost chance to make history.

"I think that shows the talent of the player. We've only got the ball in 43 times and he's still kicked seven and hit the post and things like that," he said.

"It's just a shame that he didn't kick it because I think if he would have kicked it this game would have been replayed [for years to come], regardless of the score between the two teams. I don't think you'll ever see two full-forwards kick 100 goals on the same day in the same round, so it would have just been a fantastic fairytale romance.

"You could have looked in a hundred years time and said, 'They have done it and they did do it in the same round'. For the AFL to get the two teams to play off in the last round and [two players] kick the hundred goals – [it’s a] ‘stars are aligned’ sort of thing. It nearly happened, it's just a shame it didn't."

The ground invasion by a large section of the crowd caused a few tense moments in the Blues' coaches box, but Ratten said it was well handled overall.

"The players said the security was fantastic and got around them and everyone was safe. I think the AFL did it pretty well," he said.

As for the game, Ratten agreed there weren't many positives to take away from it, but he did praise the efforts of defender Paul Bower, who battled bravely against Franklin in the face of repeated forward forays.

"Our performance today, I think we learned a lot from a team that really runs hard that is playing finals and we'll have to match that next time," he said.

Despite the result, the coach admitted to a level of satisfaction at having seen his side finish above the bottom four, where it has been anchored in recent years, with the form of his young brigade a reason for optimism going into next season.