JONATHAN Brown's influence on Carlton contests was such last year that he actually played a part in securing Brett Ratten the job as Carlton coach.

Brown kicked 10 goals when the Blues were butchered by 117 points at the "Gabbatoir". Within two days, Denis Pagan was sacked and replaced by Ratten, the decision to remove Pagan believed to have been made on Richard Pratt's private jet on the flight back from Brisbane.

Brown hadn't been monstering defences this year, and last night was blessed to be matched against the team that never lets him down. He slotted six goals to three-quarter-time, without doing much that was spectacular — only one trademark mark running with the flight of the ball, and a goal near the boundary from outside 50 metres off a few steps.

Actually, he didn't have to do much at all. Just lead and wait for the ball to come his way.

You knew he was in for a productive night, and that the Blues were headed for another mauling, in the first quarter when Jarrad Waite attacked the ball and copped a bouncer higher than Joel Garner's meanest delivery. Brown, who'd hung back and punted on a bad bounce, snapped his third goal.

Ratten decided then that 20 minutes was enough of the Waite-Brown match-up, and sent the willing Irishman Setanta O'hAilpin to Brown, while stationing Waite as the loose man in defence.

O'hAilpin has the right physical dimensions to play on Brown — he's quick and very big — but as a recent convert to the game playing for a team that was getting touched up in the midfield, he didn't stand much chance of preventing some of the lace-out delivery from Lion runners.

He sought to play Brown tight, and at one stage in the third quarter, he spent a good minute or two blocking Brown, grabbing his arm, bumping and generally attempting to both irritate the champ and impede his run at the ball.

Imagine an O'hAilpin-Brown contest 20 years ago, when it was still possible for a forward, such as Tony Lockett, to take matters into his own hands when he was molested by a defender. Brown, who has some Plugger-like traits (including a rustic love of greyhounds), must sometimes rue that was born into an era of trial-by-video and three umpires.

Unfortunately for O'hAilpin, his persistence in grappling meant that one of his less subtle holds was detected by the umpire in that part of the ground, handing the Victorian skipper a cheap goal, his fifth.

Brown was far from the best or most devastating player on the ground — Simon Black, Luke Power and Travis Johnstone certainly did far more — and he's still not in 2007 touch.

Brendan Fevola could only wonder how he might have fared had he been a Brisbane forward. Fev was given a taste of that experience when he played for Victoria, behind powerhouse skipper Brown, in the Hall of Fame game, and we all saw what he could do.

Whereas Brown has Daniel Bradshaw sharing the forward 50 arc, and Bradshaw benefits from Brown's considerable presence, Fev is pretty much the Lone Ranger. Brad Fisher can play, but he isn't going to shred defences with a brace of goals, and since Fevola kicked bags of eight and seven against Essendon and Collingwood, the opposition has twigged to the idea that it can crowd Fevola with impunity.

In the matches against Essendon and Collingwood, Fev was one-out for more than 90% of the times Carlton kicked to him. I doubt we'll see that again this year.

There's isn't another Carlton forward threat of sufficient magnitude to discourage defences from sticking a player — last night, it was often ruckman Jamie Charman — in the hole in front of Fevola to obstruct his leads. That Fevola still managed to end up with five goals was a tribute to his work-rate, even though the goals came too late.

In his days at Moorabbin, Lockett suffered an even more acute version of the Lone Ranger syndrome than Fev. Plugger, though, had his own method for dealing with the hapless defender who stood in a hole — he ensured that to stand in "the hole" was to potentially have one foot in the grave.

J. Brown would have thrived in the good old days, and Fev would be much better with J. Brown alongside him. Dick Pratt, doubtless, also wishes it was 1987 and such an acquisition was possible.