Carlton have admitted they would probably not have rested skipper Chris Judd this week had they been playing one of the AFL’s pacesetters.
The Blues were criticised for omitting Judd, ruckman Matthew Kreuzer and forward Jarrad Waite for Sunday’s game against winless Greater Western Sydney – although Kreuzer has since been reinstated.
Carlton assistant coach Alan Richardson said the decision to rest Judd was made largely on the basis of the opposition.
“The plan always was to stagger Chris’s year,” Richardson said.
“We’ve got a bye halfway through and this is obviously halfway to that break.
“But there’s no doubt if we were playing one of those (top teams) and we didn’t have someone to come in and replace him he’d be more likely to play.
“For the last three years we’ve tailed off at the back end of the year and we think that managing the list is really important,” he said.
Richardson denied the club was being expedient with Kreuzer, who was named in a late change.
He was included after fellow ruckman Robbie Warnock, who had been named for his first game of the season, injured his hamstring on Friday.
Richardson said Kreuzer had made an unexpected recovery and was able to be brought back after Warnock became unavailable.
“Kreuz just jarred his knee slightly at training and the early call was that he won’t play.
“The reality is that since then he’s pulled up really well and been able to convince the medicos that he’s right.
“It was probably an overly-conservative call early.”
According to Richardson GWS, despite being a fledging team without a victory so far, were effective in some key areas.
“They’ve been able to get the ball inside 50 (metres) with reasonable effectiveness.
“I think they’ve been able to score more effectively out of the centre bounce than we have and they’ve got some really big, strong bodies,” Richardson said.
“We certainly respect how physical they are in terms of the way they approach their footy and we know that we are going to have to be at our best in the contested ball situation.”
It will be the Giants’ first game in Melbourne but Richardson said GWS coach Kevin Sheedy would be using the fact to point out to the side what a good opportunity that was to show their form.
“They kept the Bulldogs scoreless for the first quarter last week and were really competitive for a massive part of that game so they’d be taking small steps and looking at some of the positives each week.
“I think Carlton would represent a really big challenge for them,” he said.