2005 Grand Final (What They Can Do Next Week)

The 2005 AFL Grand Final was an Australian Rules Football game contested on September 24 2005 between the Carlton Football Club and the Melbourne Football Club. It was the 109th annual Grand Final of the Australian Football League, and was staged to determine the premiers of the 2005 AFL season, and was won by Carlton by a margin of 95 points, the second largest in history, and was attended by 98,837 spectators. The win marked the club's 17th premiership, the most of any team in the league to date.

Background
After the disappointing finish in the 2004 Preliminary Final in which Brisbane overcame a 31 point deficit to win by 8 points, Carlton, with a slew of new talent, marched onto the 2005 season without much chance, as many of their older players had retired the year previous. Wayne Brittain led the club as coach, using a Terry Wallace-esque style of coaching, throughout the 2005 in top position, defeating almost every opponent, before dropping the final 2 games of the season, one to the 15th positioned Western Bulldogs and the 2nd Positioned West Coast. Under West Coast on the ladder was the quick running North Melbourne in 3rd place, and bellow them, the young, but talented Geelong in 4th.

The finals progressed in the first week with a win by the new Carlton side over Geelong, taking the Cats down by 39 points, whilst a day before, West Coast overcame North Melbourne on home soil, winning by 25. A week later, perhaps the biggest upset of the season came at the MCG, with the 5th place Melbourne defeating a tired Geelong outfit by 19 points in the rain. This winning sides progressed in the Preliminary Finals, with first Carlton overcoming a late charge by North Melbourne, winning by 43 points, whilst a day later, Melbourne defeated West Coast at the Subiaco, their home stadium, by 10 points, and progressed to Grand Final. With their Preliminary Final victory, the Grand Final was going to be the first since the introduction of the final five in which a club made it to a Grand Final from bellow 4th position.

Match Overview
The game was opened aggressively by the visiting side, kicking the first goal of the game in less than 2 minutes, before Carlton managed to calm down the Melbourne run of play, and by the end of the first quarter, the home side was up by 12 points. Melbourne's inaccurate kicking left them behind in the second quarter, failing to convert a single goal, whilst Carlton kicked away from their tiring opponents, leaving a 49 point deficit for the opposing side to catch up to.

After the long break, Carlton came back more active, and it what is usually called the "premiership quarter", Carlton booted 7 goals to 1, with Brendan Fevola kicking 4 of such goals, leaving Melbourne shut out, and the game about wrapped up. Continuing in their good form, the 4th quarter siren sounded, with a tired but still persistent Carlton slowing down their attacks, but still converting, unlike their Melbourne opponents, and when the final siren of the day sounded, Melbourne's inaccurate kicking left them behind with a 95 point deficit, the second largest in Grand Final history, the first also going to Melbourne who lost against Hawthorn by 98 points in the 1988 Grand Final.

The Norm Smith medal for best on ground went the the Carlton superstar Brendan Fevola, who managed to kick 8 goals on the day, 1 off from the record, and handled the ball well, racking up 35 disposals.Behind him was his fellow team-mates Anthony Koutoufides, who was Captain on the day and kicked 2 goals, as well as Matthew Lappin, who managed to score 4 goals against his opponent. On the other hand, the lone goal scores for Melbourne was the Brownlow medal star David Neitz who kicked 2 goals, as well as Daniel Ward, who managed to boot the opening goal.