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Bye, bye, boilover. Get the spuds off the heat because the pan is frothing. There were upsets galore across the AFL, and we only had half a round. The north end of the table changes by the day.
No top side has avoided a big upset. Only the Swans got theirs done early. Port lost to Richmond. Fremantle to St Kilda. The Cats to the Suns. The Hawks to North. North lost to everybody. Except the good ones.
None was more jaw-dropping than the Saints’ game against the Dockers. It was an utter mismatch. The Saints had lost 11 in a row, Fremantle four for the year. The Saints had been bottom for weeks, Fremantle were eyeing top. The Saints had nothing to lose, Fremantle had a top-four place.
It has been a miserable year for St Kilda, watching former stars like Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo prosper at other clubs while they themselves fell back to wooden-spoon territory. And it was supposed to be a routine, box-ticking, by-the-numbers win for Fremantle, four points banked.
Yet after champion on-baller Lenny Hayes announced he would retire at the end of the season, St Kilda came out and crashed into them like a thunderstorm from a clear blue sky.
Fremantle were never in it. St Kilda led all day. Against a club built on pressure and defence, the Saints carved through the middle and found targets up forward. Their talls clunked mark after mark and went back for goals.
One of their best defenders, Sean Dempster, was knocked unconscious three minutes into the game and subbed out. No matter. St Kilda conceded five goals to three-quarter time.
The lead was at one stage out to 75, and a string of misses during St Kilda’s hot streak meant it could have pushed 100. They ended up +19 on contested ball, +17 inside 50s, +9 on clearances, +121 on disposals.
The enduring memory of the match will be Billy Longer, locked in the middle of a jostling argument, stretching out one long arm to invite Fremantle’s Zac Clarke to regard the scoreboard. The debate soon ended.
But it could equally be Nick Riewoldt and Lenny arm-in-arm during the song, elation pouring off them, or Riewoldt saying that now his young teammates had a mark to live up to. In terms of developing a list, wins don’t come much bigger than that.
But what a massive loss for Freo. It shredded their percentage by ten points, and dumped them down to fourth on the ladder. A decent win would have seen them take top spot from Sydney, putting the pressure on the Swans to win it back against Hawthorn.
Now Freo are mere decimals ahead of Port Adelaide and in danger of missing fourth spot. The two might be playing off for it in Round 23, while Freo also faces Hawthorn and Geelong. A loss to the Saints was the last thing they could afford, and the last they anticipated. Maybe that’s where it started to go wrong.
Carlton’s win over North Melbourne was similarly big for a 2014 struggler. Mick Malthouse has had impatient fans on his case all year, but the prima donna complaints from media commentators were astonishing. The heads on AFL 360 in particular could not let up about how hurt they were that bad old Mick had been mean to them in a press conference at one time or another.
Let’s be clear – the football media are the remora suckerfish attached to the belly of a shark. They’re scavengers whose livelihood depends on the scraps generated by something bigger, and yes, I include myself in that depiction. There’s no shame in it, it’s an ecosystem thing, but at the same time there’s no room for delusions of grandeur.
Whether ex-players or industry hangers-on, the AFL makes those commentators relevant, gives them an audience and makes them a living. Without current players and coaches, those journalists would be nobody.
To complain that they’re not getting respect is laughable. You’re owed nothing. If you don’t want Mick to embarrass you for asking stupid questions, try working on marginally less stupid questions.
All the same, Malthouse needed a win, and he sealed one emphatically. (I’ll resist re-using a joke about Mick Maltycultural Round.) Carlton have played some good games without success this year, and this was the validation they needed.
North stayed in the hunt by virtue of accuracy. While Carlton had 10.13 to three-quarter time the Roos had kicked 11.4, and would have had 12.3 without a goal-line spoil. But in the final quarter it changed, the Blues nailing six in a row while the Kangas missed four.
The loss was consistent with North’s topsy-turvy year, but was big nonetheless. If Collingwood and Gold Coast win, North will be percentage from sliding out of the eight. Had North won they would have stayed in the hunt for fifth or even fourth.
There were nearly three more massive losses: the Bulldogs and Demons took late leads against Essendon and Port, while the Giants charged within a kick of the Cats. None of them got home, allowing Geelong to consolidate in second spot, which they’ll keep if Sydney can do the job against Hawthorn.
I remain perplexed by the Cats. Their only losses have been to finals contenders in Sydney, Freo, Port and Gold Coast, all interstate. They’ve done the job over every other team, and won everything in Victoria. Yet their games against modest opposition have been routinely unconvincing.
If they go MIA for two quarters against Fremantle or Hawthorn, they’ll get taken to the cleaners. I’ve still no idea whether they’ll raise their game against better sides, and their next against North will be no yardstick.
Perhaps I’m expecting too much: recent opponents like GWS and Melbourne are no longer pushovers. It’s just so hard to get a bead. That said, win their remaining top-four games and they could finish second with two home finals. If that happened would you bet against them?
Port, meanwhile, stay level on points with fourth, and perhaps their last-minute win will help restore their momentum. They now have to do the job against Collingwood at the MCG, then prime themselves to topple Sydney when the Swans visit Adelaide.
Essendon are well positioned to play finals too, with some winnable games on current form, meaning we can look forward to the circus of The Great Returning Martyr James Hird putting himself centre-frame for the business end of the year.
The sensible option, even suggested by Bombers PR man Tim Watson, would be to make himself scarce until pre-season. On prior form that means there’s no chance the red and black management will do so.
All this from half a round of football. Right now we’re regarding the sporting equivalent of an open-face sandwich. But this isn’t that kind of café. Bring on the second slice.