‘Can’t have three bad games’: Blues Curnow concern laid bare as finals fail raises glaring question
Charlie Curnow must sort out his final woes before it becomes a “weight” on his shoulders, Fox Footy’s Mark Robinson has warned after the Blues were knocked out of the title race.
Curnow entered Carlton’s first finals campaign in a decade as the competition’s leading striker, winning back-to-back Coleman Medals in the finals.
But in the Blues’ three finals, Curnow only scored three goals in a disappointing performance in September.
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Robinson said Curnow’s poor form was “part and parcel” of the disappointment Carlton will feel after their preliminary final defeat to Brisbane – in a match in which they trailed by five goals in the first match.
“We can all dance and say ‘congrats Charlie, you’ve won the Coleman Medal’… but the truth is Charlie, as you go through life in football and outside of football, The standard is always going up,” Robinson said on AFL360.
year – third Coleman next year we’ll say “yeah, well done Charlie”, but it doesn’t mean as much as the first time.
“What that means, Charlie, now is ‘Hey, if you want to be considered one of the best players in the game, you have to do it in big games.’ It’s September now.
“You can have one bad game, maybe two bad games if you have one good game. You can’t have three, because suddenly it will be a burden on your shoulders and will be written off a lot.
The Blues averaged nearly 15 goals per game during a remarkable nine-match winning streak at the end of the season that took them to the final. But in the playoffs, they scored just two goals from 11 and scored just nine against Brisbane – after scoring five in their first season.
AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley said Curnow’s concerns were “very real”.
“He’ll take that until next year’s finals campaign and go to Carlton to try and get back to the preliminary finals,” he warned.
“When he hit that mark in the first quarter (against Brisbane), I thought it was gone. After that this no longer happened.
Blues coach Michael Voss admitted Curnow would be ‘disappointed’ with how he performed in September but reminded critics that his tall striker had to play a lone role due to Harry McKay’s concussion.
He knows how important he is to us and what he brings to us and often our internal measures are different from external measures and what is expected of him , he said on SEN.
“I think when you’re a Coleman Medalist you’re expected to score goals and while we’d love that to happen, we’re obviously looking at other areas of his game That’s what we need to influence and he’s helping us with that.
“We wanted Harry to be out there with him a little bit more… I’m lost in this conversation about how we’re not better with Harry up front, it doesn’t make any sense for us. with me and they work simply. better in combination.
“The fact they play together more often will be a huge plus for us in the future. »
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