Carlton are confident they can “do some damage” in the AFL finals from 10th spot as they eye a wildcard round clash with Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Josh Fraser’s men will take on the Demons on Saturday night at the MCG in the second of two knockout wildcard clashes next weekend under the new format.<\/p>\n
The Western Bulldogs will meet Collingwood in the first wildcard match on Friday night, also at the MCG.<\/p>\n
AFL wildcard matches, dates and times<\/p>\n
Western Bulldogs [8th] vs Collingwood [9th]: Friday, August 28, 7:40pm AEST, Melbourne Cricket Ground<\/p>\n
Melbourne [7th] vs Carlton [10th]: Saturday, August 29, 7:35pm AEST, Melbourne Cricket Ground<\/p>\n
If Melbourne win, they will travel to Adelaide while the winner out of Western Bulldogs and Collingwood will visit Geelong.<\/p>\n
If Carlton win, they will travel to Geelong while the winner of the other wildcard match will play away to Adelaide.<\/p>\n
Carlton are the hottest team in the lower finals bracket after a comprehensive win over ladder leaders Fremantle in round 24 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It extended their unbeaten streak to five matches, with 11 wins and a draw in 14 outings since Fraser took the coaching reins in May.<\/p>\n
Carlton previously sneaked into the finals from ninth when arch-rivals Essendon were banished from the 2013 campaign as punishment over the supplements scandal.<\/p>\n
The Blues were knocked out in week two that year but appear capable of making a deep finals run this time from the platform of the league’s first wildcard round.<\/p>\n
“You need to show up and if you play the right way then I feel like you can do some damage,” Blues forward Brodie Kemp told AAP.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got some momentum going into wildcard and [beating Fremantle] was a great way to do it.<\/p>\n
“Wins on the board means that you’ve got evidence that you can play a good brand and it stacks up against good sides.”<\/p>\n
Initially appointed on an interim basis after Michael Voss was sacked, Fraser secured the job as full-time coach when he engineered one of the great in-season turnarounds to steer Carlton to a wildcard spot.<\/p>\n
Kemp said the 44-year-old had put a greater emphasis on skills during the week to add another dimension to the Blues’ game style, which is reaping rewards.<\/p>\n
“We always had that contest and stoppage game with Vossy, and he did a lot of work on the foundations of our game,” Kemp said.<\/p>\n
“[Now we have] the ability to possess the ball a bit more while nailing the fundamentals, and that’s probably the biggest shift for us.<\/p>\n
“We’re playing for each other and it’s really fun to be a part of \u2026 but finals-type heat adds a different layer.<\/p>\n
“It’s not going to go all our way the whole time, so we need to adapt and stay connected and we’re in a really good position to be able to do that.”<\/p>\n
Carlton expect to welcome back Will Hayward and Nick Haynes from ankle injuries against Melbourne, who are monitoring fresh knee problems for Matt Jefferson and Dan Turner.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs could be without spearhead Aaron Naughton (ankle) for their meeting with Collingwood, who have lost veteran Scott Pendlebury and Brayden Maynard to knee issues.<\/p>\n
Dogs ruckman Tim English (knee) is an outside chance to return.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlton are confident they can “do some damage” in the AFL finals from 10th spot as they eye…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,6524,12381,850,29426,260,261,3048,116410],"class_list":["post-78679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-afl","tag-carlton","tag-collingwood","tag-finals","tag-mcg","tag-melbourne","tag-sport","tag-western-bulldogs","tag-wildcard-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}