Finals sides make for better Friday nights and other observations from Round 7

Finals sides make for entertaining Fridays

This will probably come as a shock to whoever designed the AFL’s fixture this year but Friday night footy is a lot more entertaining when you put two teams worth watching on it.

This was the first Friday night game of the year to feature two of last year’s finalists and not coincidentally it was the best watching of any Friday-nighter so far.

In case you haven’t been watching – and who could blame you – the Friday night time slot has been a wasteland so far in 2015. In the five Friday night games prior to this one, we’ve seen an average margin of 58 points – that’s almost a ten goal thrashing on average each week.

North Melbourne’s 11-point win over Essendon broke the trend – not only was it a tight finish but it was great viewing, with a handful of high-flying marks and more than a few moments of drama breaking out during what was generally a close-fought game.

Don’t worry, it’s not about to become a trend. In the remaining fifteen Friday night games left on the fixture before Round 23, we have only six more clashes that exclusively feature the finals sides of 2014.

And to give you something to really look forward to, the next two Friday night matches both feature Carlton, who have lost by margins of 69 and 75 in their two Friday games so far.

I can understand from a financial point of view why the AFL centres the fixture around the teams that draw the biggest numbers, but surely at this point even the Blues fans themselves would rather watch two quality neutral teams go at it than a pair of near-inevitable spankings at the hands of Geelong and Sydney.

Jack Ziebell could be North’s superstar

Probably one of the most regular criticisms going around regarding North’s flag chances in the off-season was the suggestion that the side lacks any genuine ‘A-grade’ or ‘superstar’ players.

While I find such arguments a bit semantic, it is a fact that the Kangaroos were the only finals side last year not to have a player in the All Australian squad.

Whether you think they’re lacking one or not, North might have found their next superstar player in Jack Ziebell. The midfielder has long shown flashes of brilliance but has also had his fair share of setbacks – a couple of broken legs, a couple of lengthy suspensions, and a bung shoulder for most of 2014.

His 29-possession, 11-clearance, 2-goal performance on Friday night capped off what has been a strong month of form, made all the more impressive by the fact that at the start of the month, he was lying in a hospital bed, bleeding from his lungs.

Sure, as a North fan I’m prone to a bit of optimism, but if Jack keeps putting together performances like this, the recognition can’t be too far away.

Jack Watts needs a change

The only thing surprising about seeing Jack Watts dropped from Melbourne’s side this week was how long it has taken the Dees to make the call.

Of course, even that was altered a bit by the claims after the fact from Paul Roos that it was Watts himself who had decided that he needed to return to VFL level to build form.

When Roos first arrived as Melbourne’s senior coach, Watts was facing a tricky decision – pursue a trade to a rival club, or re-sign with the struggling Demons.

Watts eventually decided to stick with Dees, in no small part due to the influence of Roos, and while a lot has gone right for Melbourne in the time since then, this hasn’t.

The number one pick of a highly talented 2008 draft, Watts has never really been at the standard of many of the players picked after him. But the trouble for him isn’t that he’s failed to become elite. It’s that he’s failed to even become average.

The last chance for him I think to become a quality player is to switch clubs and see what a change of pace can do for him. It’s a chance he probably should’ve taken eighteen months ago, but it’s not too late to take the leap.

Mick Malthouse is done at Carlton

You can probably mark down this weekend as the time Mick Malthouse’s career at Carlton ended. That’s not to say that he’ll get the sack this week, he almost certainly won’t, but I think we’ve officially gone past the point where there’s any chance he’ll still be at the club in 2016.

For me this has a similar feel to the Mark Neeld saga of 2013. From about Round 2 onwards it was well and truly clear that Neeld’s time as Melbourne’s senior coach was going to come to an end sooner or later, and it simply became a matter of when the axe would fall.

Like Neeld, Malthouse’s eventual departure from the Blues at some point this year now has a sense of inevitability about it. The success they were hoping for when he was first appointed has not materialised, and it’s becoming pretty clear he is not the man they want to back in for what will need to be a long and patient rebuild.

So when will it happen? Carlton president Mark LoGiudice has repeatedly said that Mick is safe for the rest of the season, which is a very political way of saying “I’m going to sack you at the end of the season.”

Of course, that doesn’t technically stop them officially announcing mid-year that they won’t renew his contract, which historically has seen most coaches immediately resign.