The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

Lemon's winners and losers, AFL Round 5

21st April, 2014
Advertisement
Expert
21st April, 2014
79
2518 Reads

Geelong may have been the biggest winner of Round 5, but they beat Hawthorn who didn’t lose much at all. Richmond mostly lost despite a win, Essendon purely lost, while Carlton won and lost at the same time.

Confused? Me too. Don’t worry, we’ll battle through.

Geelong stormed to the top of the table with a 19-point win over the Hawks, leaving themselves as 2014’s only unbeaten team. Happy days at Catland.

Hawthorn, though, aren’t bothered. Said coach Alastair Clarkson after the game, “we’ve won a lot of games of footy and it’s not too horrific to get a wake-up call every now and again.” The Hawks know they’re good enough to make the top four, and challenge for a premiership from there.

In a season where Cats once more look like their closest rivals, a loss keeps Hawthorn cards close to brown-and-gold chests. Geelong may have won 13 of 15 games between the sides since 2008, but the two they’ve lost were a grand final and a prelim.

With a Round 22 meeting and a possible finals contest to come, letting your rival think they have your measure early in the season could be shrewd. Front-running Cats will attract more media attention while the Hawks drop into in the slipstream.

Richmond’s win on Thursday summed up all that is wrong with their season. No one should be that relieved at beating a winless bottom-of-the-ladder side whose playing group has spent so much time in hospital that they’re all now qualified doctors by osmosis.

Richmond sprayed their shots and looked ragged much of the night. Brisbane hit the front in the third quarter and hung around into the last. The Tigers face Hawthorn and Geelong in the next fortnight. If they lose five from seven, two limping wins over the league’s biggest strugglers will be more insult than solace.

Advertisement

Port Adelaide earned the bauble of second spot with a routine win, but the more significant results went to Collingwood, Gold Coast and St Kilda. The former two boosted themselves into the top eight, while the Saints sit ninth on points.

Like a teenage mafia thug growing a beard, North Melbourne have looked patchy but dangerous. The Pies beat them comfortably, with the bonus of Travis Cloke firing up, and now face a huge Anzac Day match against Essendon. Gold Coast will play tougher teams than Melbourne, but scored a rare MCG win and kept their season ledger in the black.

St Kilda were the most surprising, taking care of the far more highly rated Bombers by a couple of goals. Nick Riewoldt has made a habit this year of getting his team in a headlock, applying a vicious noogie, then dragging them bodily over the line. Three from five is a great start from a team we all wrote off.

Sydney’s win against Fremantle was also important, not just for the sake of beating a quality side, but the way they kept resisting each Docker surge. The Swans still sit in the unfamiliar environs of 13th, but at least found their tenacity and have given themselves a base from which to start climbing.

Carlton broke their 2014 duck, leaving Brisbane as the only winless side, but it will cost them the services of Chris Judd, Ed Curnow and Tom Bell for several weeks after two broken bones and a badly damaged hamstring. The year doesn’t get any prettier for the Blues.

As for the losers, Essendon crashed from seventh to tenth, and will find themselves well off the pace if they fail on Anzac Day. The most disappointed team this round though would be North Melbourne, who last week blew Sydney off the SCG, and should have more than matched Collingwood in Melbourne. The Roos just can’t find consistency.

West Coast and Fremantle managed to hang onto fourth and fifth spots without doing anything to deserve it, but while the Eagles may cop a win next up against Carlton, expect to see them slip in weeks to come.

Advertisement

Greater Western Sydney headed back to a more familiar end of the ladder, dropping half a dozen spots to wind up 14th, just ahead of the Western Bulldogs who fell nearly as many places. Melbourne dropped a spot to settle at second last.

None of this will be of huge concern, as these teams simply go about the business of learning to play football, and as they have each enjoyed some measure of success in the early weeks.

When times are tough, the odd win can be enough to land a smile on faces for weeks to come. As this week has shown, some wins and some losses are worth far more than others.

close