RUCKMAN Max Gawn says he’ll “never complain about a win” regardless of how they’re achieved.
Speaking post-match after Melbourne’s 22-point win over Carlton at the MCG on Sunday, Gawn said he was “stoked” to start the season with two in a row – the first time he’s achieved it at the club, given it was 2005 when Melbourne last won its opening two rounds.
“I was probably prouder than last week – as we probably weren’t playing our best football for three quarters [against Carlton],” he told Melbourne TV.
“To Carlton’s credit, they pressured us into handballing a lot – it was six goals to three in the last quarter – so we were able to get our mindset right and composed, so it’s a good win. We’ve got a poor record against Carlton. Last year [in round 22], it was a pretty similar game to today.
“It’s a positive [starting the season with two in a row], but you don’t really look at the hoodoo too much – we’ve got to go to Etihad next week again … I’m excited to be going to Etihad now. I actually like going to Etihad after what we did last week, so two and zero is a good start … so we’ve just got to keep playing our footy.”
Gawn said Melbourne had lost matches like that in the past, while he added that having played Carlton three times in its past six official AFL matches – round 22 last year, a JLT Community Series game this season and on Sunday – made for some tough contests.
“It’s quite interesting as we’ve played Carlton three times in six games and we’ve played Carlton a lot [in recent times]. They are really good contests and we’ve got a really good rivalry going on there, so to get one back on them was super,” he said.
“[Coach Simon Goodwin] was proud of the last quarter – you are going to be in positions like that heaps, when we didn’t play our best footy.
“Don’t underestimate how hard it is to turn around in a quarter. We had some really good leadership in the last quarter. We played our footy, we didn’t kick any scrappy goals – that was our brand of footy.”
Gawn said he was pleased with his contest against Carlton ruckman Matthew Kreuzer and heaped praise on several young teammates.
“When I first saw the fixture – it was [St Kilda’s Tom] Hickey in round one and Matthew Kreuzer in round two – they seem to be the guys that get me a little bit, so I knew I had to have a big start to the year. I felt like Kreuzer did some good things, but I felt my game was good as well,” he said.
“Every time I looked, Clayton Oliver had the ball. He was getting the ball a lot, but he has to work on a few things, but to have [at least] 35 disposals two weeks in a row, that’s a credit to what he has done in the pre-season.
“Guys like Christian Petracca, ANB (Alex Neal-Bullen), Mitch Hannan – he probably could have taken four or five mark of the years today, but he didn’t stick one and the backline stood up really well today as well.”
