The Bullant membership may have come in the mail the other week, but I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to watch the Young BlueBaggers and their Bullants brethren run around on ABC-TV over the weekend.

It wasn’t just the young players of Carlton that I wanted to see, but I needed to have a look at the Bullants after such on off-season of list turnover (especially at Carlton’s end). All the regular Carlton-Ants had moved on it seems, but there were lots of Carlton kids and rookies to watch. You really get a sense of where Carlton is at by having a gander at who is playing where at the moment – not only did we have 7 Blues on Saturday night with less than 20 games experience, plus 5 more with between 20 and 50, but we had promising types such as Hartlett, Aisake, Blackwell, Edwards, Bower and the rest of the rookies coming through…

Anyway, on with the game. I hate Werribee, always have. They seemed to come back and get the Bullants when we least expect it. And to see them 0 and 3 was a nice surprise. But this week they had a lot of Bulldogs in the team, including Hurn, Street and a host of their supposedly super athletic up & coming types so I wanted to smash them. Them or the TV. Rossy Booth said we had 14 Blues in the list, so it looked to be fair on the big screen. Now all I needed was a beer and some chips and I was ready to go. One final point, in honour of the Bullant’s NAB sponsorship all goals will be NABbed, not kicked…

The opening bounce had some interesting match-ups worthy of consideration – D-Mac on Skipper in the ruck, Hartlett taken by Everett’s little brother ‘Andreas’ (the mail equivalent of Schapelle), and Saddington would take on the ever reliable Podsiadly. The Bullants burst out of the blocks with the first 3 goals, all of which to key roaming forwards. Morrell NABbed the first after Hartlett’s hard lead to the 50m was rewarded, Houlihan J(unior) linked up and then passed it to Diggers. The second was a really nice pressure goal, with Man-of-the-Quarter Paul Bower, channeling both Catoggio and this week’s episode of Lost with that tattoo of his, smothering a handball in our forward line for Harts to pounce and dribble a leftie through the big sticks. Our third in a row went to the young Jake the Snake Edwards, a hard leading half forward who marked in a superb aerial fashion and converted from 30 metres out. The Tigers, one of two such animals in the VFL, kicked 2 goals to reduce the margin at the first break.

Observations to share include Edwards running through the middle as well as up forward, Blackwell’s in & around work and Bower getting 14 stats for a quarter.

The Bullants again burst of those blocks with 4 goals to start the second – but these went to the little guys, Raso, Iacobucci, Young and then Bannister. Sure, Werribee finished off with a goal but there were bits of promise everywhere. Aisake and Hampson, two mobile 200cm ruckmen / forwards, would show their agility in an exciting piece of play then ended with a boring point, but it was our half-backs of Austin, Jamison, Flint and Bower who would move the ball well with pace and skill to deliver us a 15 point lead at half time.

Werribee pegged that margin back to start the third but Houlihan the 4th then pegged it back up. Houlihan J(unior) had been pretty good to this stage with his creativity up forward and would make the best players in anyone’s language. The third quarter, despite only kicking 4 goals and giving up 5, was the best indication of our young brigade. Hartlett took 5 marks at Centre Half Forward for the quarter and set up a lot of play in our forward 50, Blackwell was everywhere, including finding himself at the bottom of 2 sets of fisticuffs, and Hampson and Aisake would show off their mobility for ex-Blue Diggers Morrell to score a couple of easy goals. In particular, Mark Austin would break the information-drought on his pre-season and show a keen heel and a fast fist across half back.

The last quarter was a dour, sorrowful affair of near misses for all until the final siren sounded with the Bullants up. Morrell had nailed his fourth, and Teague and Bannister had between them stopped at least 10 shots on goal by the Tigers, but the BullBlueBaggerAnts would take the points. Not before time too, the chips were gone and the 6-pack had miraculously vanished in thin air….

To be fair, none of our up & comers stole the show, that was left to Morrell with 4 and Ryan’s youngest brother. But there were lots of even performances across our list; Edwards with clean hands and good competing, Hartlett with about 10 marks in the Werribee flood, Blackers as a centreman of old and Austin – Flint – Bower – Jamison as our emerging running defenders. And then there’s of course our two talls coming through; one concussed but athletic, the other Irish but learning. Ants by 4 and Blues’ future glory shortened by a few years. Let’s say 2009 – 2011.

Signing off, Bob.

Northern Bullants 3.0 7.4 11.5 12.7 (79)Werribee 2.4 4.7 9.8 11.10 (76)

GOALS:Bullants: Morrell 4 Hartlett 2 Young Houlihan Bannister Edwards Raso IacobucciWerribee: Harbrow 3 Castello 2 Podsiadly 2 Street Hahn Skipper Pask

BEST:Northern Bullants: Houlihan Saddington Morrell Blackwell Iacobucci TeagueWerribee: Castello Harbrow Rockefeller Faulkner Furfaro GleesonBob’s Best: J Houlihan Morrell Hartlett Iacobucci Blackers (our next Centreman)