Carlton Supporters Club

Watching the replay McGovern was almost playing the decoy lead-up game, he made lead after lead that was ignored or the opportunity was missed through hesitation. At least twice he was inside F50 tens of metres clear of his opponent and we held the footy too long to hit him up as an open target,

Now fans who ball watch will say he didn't touch it all night, but in reality he was doing a lot of hard work that was either sacrificial or not being honoured.

The other thing I noticed, between Gov and Hayward they seemed to be waxing about who would draw the opponents, several of Haywards marks are one on one contests because Gov drew the opponents out of the F50 and Hayward benefits.

Quote from: LP – on June 03, 2026, 09:42:17 pm

Watching the replay McGovern was almost playing the decoy lead-up game, he made lead after lead that was ignored or the opportunity was missed through hesitation. At least twice he was inside F50 tens of metres clear of his opponent and we held the footy too long to hit him up as an open target,

Now fans who ball watch will say he didn't touch it all night, but in reality he was doing a lot of hard work that was either sacrificial or not being honoured.

The other thing I noticed, between Gov and Hayward they seemed to be waxing about who would draw the opponents, several of Haywards marks are one on one contests because Gov drew the opponents out of the F50 and Hayward benefits.

I don't think that Gov was a decoy.  He took five marks and, of our forwards, only Hayward took more.  His kicking for goal has been excellent this season but he had an off night.  He also wasn't as effective as he has been when the ball hit the ground and didn't get the handball receives.  An average performance in comparison to his other games but he was still a threat and demanded defensive attention.  His running patterns, and his scoring potential, made it difficult for his opponents to drop off and provide help defence ... and you could probably say the same for all of our forwards.

I'm a bit late to comment on the game - everything has been covered in depth - but there's one thing that I don't think has been raised previously; Jack Ison's two goal assist handpasses to Young and Hayward were like lightning.  Quick thinking, great decisions and elite execution!