On Sunday afternoon, Port Adelaide full back Alipate Carlile did both when he ran off the Bombers skipper to kick his first goal in 33 games at AFL level.
Carlile took advantage of Essendon’s decision to play Lloyd further up the ground as he linked up with veteran Warren Tredrea and set sail from just inside the 50m arc.
The ball lobbed straight through the middle of the goals and gave the Power their second major in as many minutes.
“It was a fluke. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Carlile said with a laugh, at recovery on Monday morning.
But his performance on Lloyd was anything but.
Carlile, who earned a NAB Rising Star nomination in round 22 last season, regularly outpointed Lloyd in marking contests and kept the Bombers legend goalless for the first time since April, 2008.
A modest Carlile said he’d received good support from his fellow defenders.
“Matthew Lloyd is a superstar of the game, so trying to beat him one-on-one was really a focus of mine,” Carlile said.
“Thankfully, the other guys like Troy Chaplin and Michael Pettigrew helped me out a bit and they did really good jobs on their players as well.
“Across the board, I thought the back six were outstanding.”
Coach Mark Williams was equally impressed with the Port Adelaide defence, which restricted Essendon to just nine goals.
The combination of Carlile, Chaplin, Michael Pettigrew, Jacob Surjan, Steve Salopek and Nathan Krakouer exposed the taller Essendon forward line, running off their opponents at every opportunity.
Carlile said the introduction of playmakers Steve Salopek and Nathan Krakouer to the back half had helped bring he inexperienced group out of their shells.
“Those guys down back ... use the ball so well,” he said. “They go through the midfield and give our midfielders a really good chance to get the ball in quickly to our forwards, who we think can really hurt opposition defenders if the ball is moved quickly to them.”
Skill errors and an inaccurate return of 15.17 were the only downsides to the Power’s 41-point win, but Carlile said it the win was still most welcome.
“It was just a relief to get away to a good start to the season,” he said.
“Last year, we had a pretty poor start and this year we’re looking to build on what we’ve done so far. We had a pretty long pre-season, a long build up and the focus going into round one was something different
“The 28,000 fans that showed up were pretty vocal and pretty much got us over the line.”
