Winners this week included players with a weekend off to watch TV; losers included fans doing the same, with only two games on the box. As for the biggest triumph, Juan Antonio Samaranch called it: the winner is Sydney.
Forget proving anything to the rest of the league. Knocking off competition favourites Hawthorn on Friday night was about Sydney showing themselves that they’re back in business.
Three rounds ago they were mooching around down in 13th, doing the footballing version of picking lint out of their belly buttons while watching repeats of The Nanny. This week they showed up early for a job interview wearing a new suit, a pressed shirt, and listening to a Tony Robbins motivational audiobook on their Bluetooth earpiece.
They’ve beaten four teams in a row, including both of last year’s grand finalists, and suddenly they’re back in the top four.
There is plenty more to do – the other wins in that streak were over the bottom two sides – but what matters about Friday is how they won, bringing back their pressure game to disrupt Hawthorn’s confidence and possession monopoly.
Sydney were all over them early, whacking through the first three goals, and the contest could have been finished halfway through the second quarter if not for Lance Franklin missing six chances.
Hawthorn taking the lead in the third would have spelt the end for most sides, but Sydney dragged them back. The other star Swan recruit, Kurt Tippett, pulled out some power marking to end with four goals, while Franklin eventually came good with two. From here, Sydney have a chance at a real season.
Then there are the fellows from near the Great Australian Bight. Two years ago they were Poor Tadelaide, 22 frowny faces taking the field each week like an emoji repository come to life.
Now Port Adelaide have turned it around completely, zooming to the top of the ladder by beating last year’s grand finalist Fremantle. (Being last year’s grand finalist is the most impressive thing Fremantle can claim at present.)
There was a terrific photo floating around on the weekend of Port midfielder Hamish Hartlett tackling Fremantle giant Aaron Sandilands. Hartlett has surely been Photoshopped into miniature; standing next to Sandilands with his arms wrapped around him, he looks like a ring-tailed lemur trying to fell a statue of Saddam Hussein.
The ring-tailed lemur is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long black and white tail. (Photo: James Elsby/AFL Media)
It was a visual metaphor for this young and inexperienced side trying to take down the rest of the league. The thing is that they’re succeeding. Without comparing quality, the atmosphere around Port’s season reminds me of Geelong’s back in 2007: a team just starting to reach a high standard, recovering from a notable lack of success, building excitement not just with their results but the way they were playing.
All year they spoke of keeping a lid on it, not wanting to expect too much of an untested side. But when the test came the team was ready. Port are a long way from sitting that test, but have shown their class by beating the Cats and now the Dockers, and by the exuberant, confident style in which they’ve done it.
Their last question mark is whether they can beat top sides in Melbourne.
The rest of the abbreviated round involved the meaningless shuffle of mediocre sides beating those slightly below them. West Coast bought some percentage and some time in the top eight, while the Western Bulldogs are officially the best of the worst, moving out of the bottom third.
Apparently Carlton climbing to 13th was enough reason for journos to ask Mick Malthouse about finals, so they could go home to write that Mick isn’t thinking about finals. Just to be clear, Mick is not thinking about finals.
As far as the defeated went, Essendon won like losers on Saturday night, barely scrambling over the basement terror that is Brisbane thanks to a couple of soft 50-metre penalties.
The Lions led on and off in every quarter, and really the Bombers should have done the decent thing and let the poor buggers be. You sort of wanted the AFL to strip more Essendon premiership points just on aesthetics.
St Kilda should be disappointed, missing chance after chance to put pressure on Carlton after an early Blues burst. Greater Western Sydney, meanwhile, wouldn’t have been surprised to lose in Perth, but have followed their early-season high by bombing right down to hang out with Melbourne and Brisbane.
The big losers, though, were Hawthorn and Freo, the former set to drop from top spot to third if Geelong win their game in hand, while Fremantle will drop from the eight if North win theirs.
I brushed off the loss to Geelong in Round 5 as something to sharpen the Hawks’ appetite and screen them from expectation, but twice in eight games is a different story. Other sides will now be much more confident of finding their weakness.
Sure, they were missing some players, but Hawthorn have also enjoyed a few soft contests so far. Their trip to play Port Adelaide after next week’s bye will be one of my most anticipated of the season.
Fremantle, in the meantime, are teetering. Even coach Ross Lyon wrote them off as a bit rubbish after the game, which I’ll say does seem a tad defeatist from the guy you’ve left in charge.
I mean, it’s not encouraging if your furniture mover turns to you and says “Nah, we’ll never get that piano down the stairs intact. Stay tuned for a big splintered mess of ivory and broken hopes. Also that dining table’s too big to go through the doors so we’ll probably just leave it in the back yard and drive off when you’re not around. You paid upfront though, so no worries. Try to keep the rain off the French polish. Ok boys, on we go.”
So far their only decent win this season was over Collingwood in Round 1, when the Magpies were still emerging from their off-season sleeping bags.
Freo have a soft eight rounds to come after playing Geelong this week, and could easily rack up a points tally that has them in the mix. But it won’t do them a lot of good unless they remember how to play against the competition’s better sides.
Just as for Hawthorn, their next game will be the tester.
Oh, and if you were wondering, Mick Malthouse isn’t thinking about finals.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
I hear you Strummer, but in fairness to the Roar: 1. that's a picture of big Sandi, so to get his entire body in the picture, it'd have to be pretty damn big; and 2. the Roar have to pay the bills somehow.
Strummer Jones
Roar Rookie
Geoff, One of the consistent "losers" you failed to mention throughout the last couple of rounds has been the Roar with their annoying video links, extremely large images and (now hibernating this round) incredibly annoying advertisements pasted all over stories like a Newscorp watermark on 'roids. I acknowledge it provides the revenue to the provider, but it makes for a very unpleasant experience for the reader, thus my absence for several months this year. Lets call it "constructive feedback".
dave
Guest
Love the comments about Ross Lyon. Every coach in the afl wants to keep the oppositon to as little a score as possible,and their own score as high as possible. I dont think Ross goes to training and says "look guys I dont want you to score any goals"
johno
Guest
Freo's 8 games so far have all been against teams currently in the top 10, their next game against Geelong will round out all 9 of the top 10 teams.
johno
Guest
Look forward to Port coming to Subi later this year. the boot will be on the other foot then I assure you.
Bayman
Guest
Geoff, Love your work, as usual. I can see I'm going to have to lift my game; I've just spent an hour picking lint out of my belly button while watching repeats of The Nanny! In doing so, I missed an interview with Mick Malthouse. Can you confirm....is he, or is he not, thinking about finals?
EddyJ
Guest
Nobody was 'pinched'. Tippett was out of contract at Adelaide, as was Franklin (and also a free agent). Several clubs, including Sydney, haven't used up their full quota of 42 players, having only 38 players frees up some of the salary cap. The more expensive players can go where they want to within the salary cap, but the highest bidder will pretty much get the player, but also have issues with salary cap pressures – that's they way the cap is meant to work. Tippett and Franklin wanted to come to Sydney, they are exceptional players, so why shouldn't a club do their best to get the players they desire? The Friday night victory against Hawthorn vindicates the Swans desire to recruit those players, but it's only one game, and the Swans might only be an injury or two away from disaster. The deal to get Franklin to Sydney is a high risk strategy – I guess the Swans decided that offering a $10 million 9 year deal was the best way of being able to secure the deal – but they'll pay for it later if it doesn't work out. Again, that's the way the system is meant to work. The other thing that many people harp on about, is how much both Franklin ($1.2 million average over 9 years) and Tippett ($800,000) are paid. Tom Scully is receiving Tippett's wage at GWS, and the Swans get Franklin for $300,000 more than Scully's wage. I think the Swans are getting a good deal. COLA seems to be more of a political issue for the AFL to resolve, than a real problem, but they are working towards removing COLA over the next few years. But, definitely, the Swans were the winners of Round 8. Still a way to go though – I thought the Swans stood a good chance to go back-to-back premiers after their win against Collingwood in Round 9 last year. But then something happened.
langou
Roar Guru
The Dockers this year are one of the more attacking sides in the AFL. In three of their four loses they have conceded over 90 points including 137 against the Hawks so if anything it is the defence that they need to work on.
Dalgety Carrington
Guest
Spleen fully vented yet there Nick? Have you got all that bile out of your system and able to devote some energy to get the old thinking organ some oxygen?
Brendon the 1st
Guest
Ummm, Franklin
Brendon the 1st
Guest
Oh yeah, I really relate to all the blue collar footballers in the Forward line at the bloods lol. Sydney are now the team a lot of people love to hate.
Michael huston
Guest
But my point Langou is that whenever their pressure isn't working they have no attack mode. Which is basically what happened against Port. Their defensive style did nothing for them except wear them out and allow Port to run away with it. Lyon needs to at some point accept just an ounce of responsibility whenever his defensive style fails against a team that can attack better.
langou
Roar Guru
Fremantle are the sixth highest scoring team this year
Mitcher
Guest
At the beginning of 2012 prior to the Swans most recent flag, the general consensus among the 'celebrity' tipsters and bookies was they were barely a top 8 side. Fast forward to end of season recruiting and they were unfairly adding Tippett to a galaxy of overpaid superstars... Funny how perceptions change so quickly. But... yeah. Then going on to buy Buddy - as Vlad would say - "not a great look". In the end though, all y'all just gonna have to suck it up. Carn the Sydney!!!!
Michael huston
Guest
The unflexible coaching style of Ross Lyon strikes again. He should consider moulding his good group of players into a team that can do other things rather than just defend.
Jack Smith
Roar Guru
Agreed. Although it is good to have blokes on the end of our inside 50 entries that have been one of the highest this year, but used ineffectively. Even our first two wins of this streak, ball wasn't used properly inside 50 but last 2 definitely have.
Jack Smith
Roar Guru
We recruit people nobody wants normally. Sorry for taking one player someone else wanted (Crows supporters ended up saying they didn't want Tippett so..) for once. McGlynn, Kennedy, Shaw, Richards and Grundy are just some of the names of players we have made our own and nobody else wanted. Mattner who retired last year was a good example of that, but not sure if you'd know that as you obviously don't research much of the Swans history...
Nick Inatey
Guest
Good to see supercoach Ross Lyon say these things about his team. Pathetic. Maybe Ross Lyon could develop a plan B? Somewhere along the lines of 'score goals'.
Winston
Guest
Fair enough. I do wonder though, you know how the Swans' official response to the COLA related attacks is that: "We don't just spend it on 1 player, it goes to all players." To which I would expect 99.999% of ppl would respond by saying: "BS! That's just like shops upping the price and then putting on a discount (but reverse), ie if say Kieren Jack is getting $550k now, you're saying Swans are saying he would have got only 500k without COLA, when the truth is he was always going to get 550 as an actual figure anyway." Is it actually as dumb and obvious as that? Or am I missing something more subtle to the arguments??
Axle an the guru
Guest
Good luck to Sydney for getting those forwards IMO but what i dont like is the way Sydney wins a flag then ask the AFL for assistance because they ran at a big loss financially, then pay Tippett a stupid figure and then pay Franklin whatever he asks for. Its a fair argument to say somehow they cheated the system.