IN OPPOSITION, David Parkin always knew that Carlton had one exploitable weakness -- it is suspect under extreme pressure.

Yesterday he sat, helpless to turn the tide, as opposition coach Tom Hafey exploited the weakness Parkin has worked tirelessly to cure since becoming Carlton coach.

It's not a lack of courage -- the Blues flinched not a fibre in any of the many tough crashes that occurred in this clash of the VFL's super-heavy-weights at Princes Park. It is, in the plainest language, an inability to do the things Carlton does -- better, be assured, that any other team -- if given a centimetre of latitude. Ask Richmond; ask Hawthorn; ask Fitzroy. They'll tell you how well Carlton plays if given the opportunity to dictate the game's terms.

But after yesterday's wipeout there can be no dispute that, played tight and tough, the Blues are a rather ordinary football team. Collingwood did not apply any dirty tactics, contrary to what many people predicted would happen. It didn't have to.

Instead, the Magpies made sure that every Carlton player who put a finger on the ball would get a kick only if he earned it. It was almost as if the Blues "wore" the Collingwood opposition as a second jumper.
Parkin revealed after the game that Collingwood's tackling was as good as he had seen from any team -- including those ferocious Hawthorn sides of which he was an integral part in the 1960s and 1970s.

Surely few people among the 36,505 other spectators yesterday would disagree. Such was the persistency, expertise and toughness of Collingwood's tackling that the Carlton players appear to lose heart that they would get an unharrassed kick of the ball. It shattered their confidence, made them hesitant and, sadly, gave them the look of a second-rate team against the confident, cohesive Magpies.

Parkin continued to hold hope even as late as three-quarter time, when the might Magpies, setting up victory with eight straight goals in the second quarter, led 16.9 to 7.10. Few other people could have shared his optimism, Parkin has seen Carlton produce scintillating bursts of goal-plundering play and hoped -- probably against hope -- that another miracle was to happen.

But Collingwood, blending youth with experience to assemble possibly the best team the Magpies have had in a decade, just continued to himiliate its time honored rival with magnificent football.

When a man as knowledgeable about the "science" of football as David Parkin concedes that his team was "beaten in every department of the game", you can be sure that it has been a wipeout. Parkin listed the four elements in which Carlton was outclasses: Winning possession of the ball; using the ball better; preventing the opposition using it to advantage; and being the better runners on the day.

"We didn't surpass them in any one of those four elements" Parkin said.
"That is disappointing -- and why we lost the game."