04-07-2023, 05:36 AM
Interesting to see whether the VFL game was a preview of the big game. North was committed to running the ball using a chain of handballs, often via the wings. On the other hand, Carlton was happy to turn the ball over and hold possession via kicks to uncontested marks. The uncontested mark stats were incredibly lop-sided (45 total marks to North vs. 121 total marks to Carlton) and Carlton seemed to have a 3 to 2 kick to handball ratio while North had closer to a 1 to 1 ratio. As one of the commentators in the VFL noted, those disparities were a reflection of the changes in the game-style introduced by Clarkson in order to train up North’s AFL-listed VFL,players.