Finals-bound Blues keep a wary eye on the Demons
The Age
Saturday August 22, 2009
A VICTORY over Melbourne today will take Carlton a step closer to securing a top-four finish, but the Blues are in no way treating the game as a training exercise, assistant coach Mark Riley said yesterday.Carlton is sitting in fifth position on the ladder following its win over Port Adelaide last week, which Riley admitted was exciting for the club.But he said the club's focus remained strictly on the two games remaining in the home-and-away season €” today's clash with the Demons and Adelaide at Etihad Stadium next week €” before finals talk could begin."This is a very big, proud club with 16 premierships and we've been down for a while," Riley said. "With last week's win, the magic 12 wins, it guaranteed us at least a spot in the finals . . . but we won't talk about September until September."We've really narrowed our focus. We've narrowed the focus of each line in our team. Each individual has a very narrow, specific focus in each game . . . and we've found that's allowed us to keep our eye on the ball maybe rather than look too far ahead."But the last-placed Demons cannot afford to win another game if they hope to get a priority draft pick, although Riley said tanking "would not have ever been discussed or emphasised within the walls of our club" in the lead-up to today's game."We look at Melbourne and we do our due diligence and they were very, very good last week [against Fremantle]," he said."There's some pretty good players around the ball and then you look at their forward line . . . and they've got some talent. We've got to stop them getting the ball down there, so we're focusing on ourselves with due respect to the opposition."Riley commended the back line for coping with the loss of key defenders Jarrad Waite and Michael Jamison."We got hosed out of the centre last week against Port and at times in the past at this club, when that occurs it means big scores and it didn't last week and I thought that was great growth," he said."We're still a work in progress but we're showing some great growth in areas that we need to."Elevated rookie Jeff Garlett will come into the side today for injured Mitch Robinson, while Chris Yarran has been replaced by Shaun Grigg as an emergency.Riley described Garlett as "a fantastic pick-up"."He's a skinny little kid, still jockey weight, so when he puts a few kegs [weight] on there's going to be a few opposition counter-attackers that will know that he's in the area," he said. "At the moment he really does chase and pressure well, but he just doesn't have that physical strength to hold the tackles. That will come with another pre-season or another two pre-seasons."It certainly doesn't get lost internally [how well he's done on a limited preparation]. We know we've got a beauty there."The Blues moved their final training session indoors yesterday due to wild weather at Visy Park.
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