I could understand why King ranked us behind all three of those teams at the start of the week. It was his comment that his opinion wasn't going to change that I found odd, especially with all the top teams starting to play other top teams in the next few weeks after relatively easy starts to the season.I can almost forgive those comments around Geelong and GWS but I don't know how anyone who has watched Carlton closely this year could put them that far ahead of us. They will genuinely struggle to make top 4, let alone win a flag. Top 8 might even be a battle for them.
My question mark over us was the ability to play tough footy, despite the fact we played tough footy in the opening round against Melbourne and won reasonably comfortable. Everyone knows we can play beautiful footy when we're allowed to, but how would we cope when conditions or the opposition didn't allow us to. One match can't predict a whole season, but yesterday showed we are more than capable of playing tough footy when we need to. When you combine it with the Melbourne game, I think it should answer the biggest question mark commentators had over our credentials, and move us right into the top group of contenders at this stage of the season.