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Nearing three-quarter time in Perth late yesterday, with Fremantle suddenly looking like the mirror image of the side which reached the 2013 decider, Gerard Healy made a valid and pertinent point.
While many people might have considered Fremantle had a chance to win the flag in 2014, not too many would have really given them a genuine hope. But, said Healy, what they were producing against the defending premiers may force a few people to have a serious rethink.
I admit that I thought Freo were legitimate and serious contenders this season, but I also thought there were others, notably Sydney and Hawthorn with better credentials and who I would have considered my genuine flag candidates.
I certainly didn’t think Fremantle were making up the numbers, but they announced themselves yesterday. The return of Michael Walters, the sparkling form of Matthew Pavlich, the performance of David Mundy, and so, so many other cameos. Add to that Luke McPharlin and Hayden Ballantyne both have to come back into the team, and the way the Dockers played yesterday, I don’t know which team could stop them.
In the first quarter the Hawks looked like they were mechanically going to add another win to the list and maintain top spot on the ladder. They have the ability to move the ball around with the amazing precision they would have in a training drill.
But after that break, they were faced by the Fremantle defence of 2013. The in-your-face defence, not allowing you time to think, let alone time to dispose of the ball effectively. It was perfectly described as manic defence.
The Dockers were simply brilliant, and perhaps even the team many consider the best in the competition, the Swans, wouldn’t have matched them yesterday. What will be interesting is if those two sides meet at the peak of their powers in September, what a contest it would be.
And, what is looking scintillating is the potential of a first final in Sydney for Freo, against the Swans. The form they were in yesterday was the same form they showed in the preliminary final in 2013 when they beat the Swans in Perth, and Sydney have not forgotten that season-ending experience.
The Swans themselves continued to chalk up the wins and Buddy Franklin kept building towards a Coleman medal with an emphatic win at the SCG over St Kilda. The likelihood – while nothing in football is predictable these days – is they will now finish on top, and more than likely host fourth-place Fremantle at ANZ Stadium in week one of the finals.
But that wasn’t the only interesting performance yesterday.
While Fremantle coach Ross Lyon was setting himself and his team up for another tilt at a flag, the man who he sat beside in a premiership winning coaches’ box back in 2005, was clearly thinking: “What have I done?”
Roos recently announced he had put additional year on his contract, and would coach the Demons through until the end of 2016. After yesterday’s abysmal performance against the Giants, you have to wonder what Roos would be thinking right now.
Firstly, credit to the Giants. They lost both Callan Ward and Phil Davis – their co-captains – not to mention star forward Jonathan Patton, yet played at a superb level and were rewarded with the biggest win in the brief history. The 64-point victory was also their first at the home of football, the MCG.
It was thoroughly deserved and their fifth win of the season continues to show the fledgling club is headed in the right direction.
But the vanquished…
At full time the cameras naturally focused on the coaches’ box. Roos sat there emotionless. Stunned almost. When he finished at the Swans, he made it clear he thought he would never coach a senior AFL club again. He wasn’t a career coach. But he decided last year he would come back and work with the Demons. What a decision in hindsight, and to be honest, who knows where he goes from here.
When the Swans were awful, he could give them a gobful, and they could respond because the talent was there. It’s just not there at Melbourne.
Everyone is now talking major clean out and start again. But how long will that take? It’s hard to build a club from scratch, just ask GWS or the Gold Coast Suns, and those two clubs were blessed with concessions and priorities in the draft, and the Suns were blessed with Gary Ablett Jr.
They have scraped the COLA for Sydney teams, maybe the Demons could get an allowance of their own – a COMA, because that’s the state some of their players appeared to be in at times yesterday.
But if Roos doesn’t opt for a cleanout, what can he do?
He always had the answers in Sydney, I hope for his sake and the sake of the long suffering Melbourne supports, he has a master plan he will implement.
I know footy fans support their club through thick and thin, but it must be seriously difficult for a Demons member to keep backing up year after year when their team serves up what they did yesterday.
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