AFL Round 8 review - Mario and Luigi unite

After a briefly interrupted round, courtesy of the bye, we now have two days to recollect our thoughts before the next round resumes on Thursday night.

Round 8 involved many ups – Sydney – and many downs – Greater Western Sydney – as blow-outs and blockbusters occurred in the first of the three bye weeks. Here are a few burning questions from the round.

Did the most expensive forward line in AFL history come up trumps?
Yes. It worked quite brilliantly for a Sydney Swans forward line that was playing together for the first time against Hawthorn. Even more astonishing was the fact that such large egos in Kurt Tippett, Lance Franklin and Adam Goodes cooperated so amazingly.

No one really could have predicted the way that Tippett and Franklin worked together. If they lived in the Nintendo world then they could have been given aliases of Mario and Luigi. Tippett kicked a neat bag of four goals in his first game of the year, which was backed up by Franklin’s nine scoring shots for a paltry, yet somewhat entertaining, tally of 2.9.

Then came the Yoshi and Toad of the Swans forward line in Sam Reid and Goodes, who took great marks and supported the headline duo. Mixed with the hard working midfield, which included maestro’s such as Josh Kennedy, Kieren Jack, Daniel Hannebery and Jarrad McVeigh, Jarryd Roughead (Bowser), the reigning premiers couldn’t find a way to beat the super family of the Sydney forward line.

Did Port stay undefeated at their new home?
They did, but not convincingly. A 20-year-old playing his fiftieth game had to bail out his hard-running team by kicking a neat and horrifically awesome five goals.

Fremantle travelled to the Adelaide Oval and proved that they didn’t just travel for the holiday, starting off brilliantly to lead by ten points at the main break.

Enter Chad Wingard.

The new Chad of Port Adelaide continued from where he left off in previous weeks by adding a few new videos to his highlights reel that already includes terrorising Collingwood in a final and sinking bitter cross-town rivals in last year’s showdown by kicking the winning goal.

The new highlights included five magnificent goals, one which came in a clutch last quarter moment after taking what is a contender for mark of the year. The large and vocal Port Adelaide crowd cheered him on as Matt White picked up Wingard’s vibe by running and kicking two neat goals in the final quarter to give his team the lead.

If the Power can win by having a youngster play a lone hand all day, imagine what they can do when the whole team pitches in. It’s scary to think.

Did a pumped-up Melbourne stun the Bulldogs?
No. The only reason why the desperate Dees didn’t come up trumps was because of a dubious umpiring decision and Stewart Crameri.

We found out on Saturday night why the Bulldogs wanted the former Essendon forward so badly as he kicked four goals, two being in the last quarter and one being gifted to him by the umpires.

Melbourne tried and strived all night, but in the end Crameri out played his opposite number Chris Dawes and did what all good tall forwards do – kick last quarter clutch goals.

The Dees can take a few positives out of the game though, as they nearly got their first consecutive victories in a few years and didn’t do too much wrong. A draw would have been the deserved result for both teams as both the Bulldogs and the Dees didn’t deserve to lose on a night that was dedicated towards helping breast cancer victims.

My tips:
I tipped 5/6, with the game I got wrong being Hawthorn versus Sydney.

I was also three points off for the margin in the Bulldogs versus Melbourne game and I got the margin exactly correct for the Saints versus Blues game. Twice in two weeks I’ve got a margin correct.