The battle of the bottom two sides in 2007 was battled out in the season opener on Thursday night but it was the Tigers who came out with the 4 points after a strong fourth quarter which blew Carlton out of
the game.

Captained by new recruit Chris Judd, the Blues led the game
for the majority but couldn’t hold on midway through the third quarter
when the Tigers started to take a hold of the game. Lack of match
fitness to some of the key Carlton players appears to have been the key
to the fade out. Cameron Cloke also appeared to be struggling towards
the end of the game after he was used as a #1 ruckman with many Carlton
ruckmen unavailable for the clash.

There was no stopping the powerful runhome by the Tigers though, they took on the blues and got away with it. Matthew Richardson stood up in the Tigers forwardline kicking 5 goals and 2 final quarter goals along with Nathan Brown who also kicked two final quarter goals including the sealer and 3 for the match.

Carlton would have been dissapointed at the loss alone but now it appears they will be missing another player for several weeks after a behind the play strike by Adam Hartlett left Cameron Howat knocked out in the centre of the ground…more to come during the week.

Richmond 4.3 8.5 11.5 17.7 (109)
Carlton 4.3 9.6 10.10 11.13 (79)

GOALS
Richmond:
Richardson 5, Brown 3, Deledio, 2, Pettifer, Foley, Tuck, Pattison, Polak, Tambling, Jackson.
Carlton: Betts 2, Fevola 2, Scotland 2, Stevens, Houlihan, Edwards, O’hAilpin, Murphy.

BEST
Richmond: Richardson, King, Foley, Johnson, Thursfield, Tuck, McMahon.
Carlton: Murphy, Thornton, Simpson, Stevens, Edwards, Judd.

Umpires: Margetts, Meredith, McBurney.
Official crowd: 72,552 at MCG.