Growing up — even during Hawthorn’s period of uber-dominance between 1983 and 1991 — Carlton was the team I feared most. Matches against them always had an extra frisson of anticipation, laced with dread. The scars of 1979 and 1981 would take 20 years to heal. (No, I wasn’t around for 1970.)
Then, in 2002, the Blues just fell off the map. They took the w…
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