Simon White was given the restrictive role on All-Australian defender Sean Dempster - and duly booted four goals in the process.

Funny game footy.

In trebling his career goalkicking tally at Carlton in one afternoon, White reminded that he had not played a full game of football in the front half since his pre-Subiaco teenage years back in Western Australia.

Speaking with the exuberance of a first-gamer in the winner’s circle after Sunday’s match against St Kilda, the 38-gamer talked of his genuine excitement in winning a recall to the senior team, having been overlooked at the death for Dennis Armfield in last weekend’s Collingwood match.

“I was told I might be getting a bit of a defensive role on Dempster, so that was pretty exciting,” White said.

“It wasn’t hard to get my head around that, to play that defensive role, and it was easy in that sense. Dempster has the capacity to intercept marks so part of the role was to take that out of his game.”

The lazy four came thanks to the delivery - lace-out according to White - at a time when delivery has been something of an issue for the team. 

“We’ve obviously been practising . . . and that definitely helps,” White said. “We’ve been pretty ordinary in front of goals this year, so it’s nice to kick straight and we kicked 24.7. They say missing goals might be contagious, but to see goals going through . . . ”

For the likes of White, Levi Casboult and Lachie Henderson who collectively contributed 12 goals to the team’s tally, Sunday’s 85-point victory (Carlton’s greatest over St Kilda in 28 winters) was unquestionably a relief.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve definitely played some good footy but there hasn’t been the constancy,” he said. 

“We can say that today, that we didn’t play consistently in that second quarter and we were pretty disappointing, but the way we came back after half-time - that was a step in the right direction for the boys.”