I've just undertaken a quick excercise to assess our starting 22's games experience vs Carlton's starting 22 games experience. The results are:
Going into the match, Richmond will have 2151 games worth of experience. Of the starting 22, 7 players have played 100 games or more.
Going into the match, Carlton will have 1434 games worth of experience. Of the starting 22, 7 players have played 100 games or more.
Richmond will have 717 games worth of more experience than Carlton.
Richmond will have 1 player (Browne) with 0 games
Carlton will have 4 players (Gartlett, Jacobs, Joseph, Robinson) with 0 games
Personally, I find these statistics quite compelling in that I really cant see Carlton dominating us during the match with far less experienced players. If the match is tight at the very end, you'd have to agree, experience will usually win out. In addition, the fact that Fevola will be less than fully fit and Nick Stevens (who tore us apart last time) will not be playing, I really do see a win on the cards for us. Fevola and Judd are the absolute dangers for us, but if we can keep them to merely serviceable games we are a real shot at winning.