CARLTONS PERFORMANCE IN 1999

1999 had high hopes for Carlton but not as high as they have turned out to be. The Blues were expected to make the finals this year for the first time since 1996 but were not predicted to finnish as high up the ladder as they have this season. It has been a dream final series for Carlton for some part of it, but it got of with a dreadful start up at the GABBA against Brisbane. Carlton put in a dismal performance and lost the game by 73 points. Then one week later Carlton were a muched improved side and played the Eagles who won the week before against the Bulldogs. At the MCG Carlton pulled of one of the upsets of the final series by thumping the Eagles by 54 points. This win kicked the Eagles out of the Finals and put Carlton through to the final four in the Preliminiary Final against Essendon the following Saturday. Carlton Easily the underdogs in the game they went in to the match with everyone expecting them to lose. What they did was spectacular blowing Essendon out of the water in the first quater giving them a 19 point lead at quater time.

At half time the lead that Carlton had over Essendon had extended to 24 points, but the coach of Essendon Kevin Sheedy said something that fired them up and put Essendon in a frenzy by kicking the first 6 goals of the quater. Carlton stedied and kicked 2 out of the last 3 goals scored to be only trailing by 11 points at the last change. The last quater of that game would make this match maby the match of the season. Essendon extended their lead to 17 points but that was as far as it was going to get as Carlton came back strongly with Anthony Koutoufides playing a titanic last quater by kicking 2 goals and getting a lot of the ball. When Carlton hit the lead again by two points Lance Whitnall kicked a 50 metre goal on the boundry one of the best for his carrer. Essendon quickly replied and got the margin to one point when Mercuri missed a shot along the ground. The one point margin was the final margin as Carlton fought of a strong Essendon who were trying to score. The win put Carlton into their first Grand Final since their premiership winning season 1995. Against them was Northern Kangaroos. Unfortunately Carlton was not successfull but they did a lot to get there.

Carlton did not perform all too bad in the home and away season, but they could do a bit for consistency. They won 12 games out of 22 and finnished a respectable, but not spectacular 6th. Good performances during the season was Carlton beating WCE in Perth in round 10, the two wins against the bulldogs both by less than a kick. Carlton improved from there position the previous year of 11th in 1998. 35 players on Carlton's list were used and the star players were the usual and some rookies played well aswell. The young players who showed talent were Simon Fletcher, Brett Backwill, Kris Massie and Ben Nelson, Son of Sandy Nelson showed a lot of talent. Matthew Lappin also turned out to be a good pick up for the club from St.Kilda after playing 24 games for the season, taking the Mark of the year and kicking over 30 goals.The Star players were players such as Bradley, Rattern, Brown, Murphey (Who Carlton will be missing the whole of 2000 through a knee reconstruction). Matthew Allan took the next step and made the All Australian side for Ruck. Players who played all of Carlton's 25 games were Matthew Allan, Simon Beaumont, Craig Bradley, Aaron Hammil, Glenn Manton, Andrew McKayBrett Rattern and Lance Whitnall.

Carlton players performed well this season also performing well in the Brownlow. Below is a table of how the votes went for all players in the AFL with Shane Crawford winning it and below that is the Carlton leaderboard.