Hard to believe that the same two clubs that are playing for the wooden spoon on Saturday played in this game, arguably the most hyped home and away game ever. The Bombers had not lost a game all year, while the Blues had just ended a 13-game winning streak with a loss to the Dogs. Carlton's biggest away home-and-away attendance ever at over 91,000


Still, if the two clubs can rebuild at the same pace, perhaps we can see a repeat of Round 20 in five or six years time?

And we only lost that gme after losing nearly our entire interchange bench in the first qtr, including Kouta, who was flying. We were 10pts in front late in the 3rd qtr only to get over run with lack of rotations from the bench in the last qtr

The last 10years years, if anything demonstrate that's in doesn't take long to go up the ladder (how many sides went from bottom to GF or premiers in 3-4 years), equally it doesn't take much, or take long to crash quickly either.
.

It'd be interesting to see, but I still think we're a couple of years ahead of Ess in development.

Re that game, yes I recall we lost Bradley & Kouta by qtr time - & still only lost by 20 points. For that reason I guess we can only wonder what we could have achieved in the finals with a full team.

I remember Beaumont playing well on Hird that night actually. To the point that when Hird goaled he turned to Beaumont & said 'stick that up your arse yo f**** wanker'

Was the worst day of my life...................

Seeing Kouta go down like that broke my heart. I always knew he would come back and be a great player (2 B&F wins after that game is proof of that) but he would never be the Superman that he once was and if it weren't for that night, i have no doubt in my mind that we would be arguing weather or not we should call him the Greatest of all time.

Looking back on it thou....................and taking the Kouta injury out of the equation.......................it was a very entertaining game!

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

That game marked the beginnning of the end for us with those players going down.

It's all been downhill since, and this is where we find ourselves today - at the club's lowest ebb.

_________________

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NOW YOU'RE JUST SOME CLUB THAT I USED TO KNOW.

Indeed. We crashed and burned quickly, while Essendon* have been on a long downhill slide (Downhill ski, even) since that season.

I agree with CK, they're a year or 2 behind us.

I'll be glad when we're well and truly on the way up, and they're where we are now.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Prendergast, Fevola, Whitnall, Koutoufides, Lappin, Houlihan

That is all that remains.

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|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

I like this bit:

Absent: Murray Vance

He sure was...

As much as we complain about our often erractic drafting, Essendon*'s has been worse. Have they drafted anyone decent in since 2000? They have no good young players - maybe Monfries or Stanton. That's it. Hense, our rise will be be earlier and more importantly for longer, than theres. And we will enjoy days of spanking them by triple figures regularly!!!!!

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Long live the Mighty Blues.

I don't even remember Craig Clarke....but he's huge. That was the first thing that stood out to me.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

I know - at first glance I thought it was lance.

Back in those days, everyone is so much bigger than now.
Don't see any skinny kids in that photo.

Ditto.

Is he now known as the great khali?

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

Mmmm bottom left hand corner...couple more pre-seasons should see him bulk up a bit

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

Have another look.

Houlihan looks like a twelve year old girl (even more than he does now).

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

Hey Agro,

Look who's standing between Mark Porter and Andrew Merrington.



Prick. If we'd had known then what we know now.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

What are the stats like for other clubs' 2000 lists and who's left, out of interest? 6 out of 40-odd must be pretty bloody low.

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Cer 'ch 'n alluog Blues

This was my last match before coming to China to work. Hated the fact that Essendon* won!!!

So it all started going downhill when you left us?

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

It was a big game I bought 12 tickets 3 weeks earlier. No doubt in my mind we would have beat them had Kouta not got injured. They claim to be the greatest ever but they struggled to beat a depleted Carlton2000 side, our 95 side would have smashed them.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides