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A big week of footy is done and dusted! Plenty has happened to spark discussion over the weekend, so check out these seven talking points from the round and let us know what you think.
Read more:
» The Wrap: Super Rugby semi-finals
» NRL talking points from the weekend
Yes, the top eight is locked
I’d say ‘never in doubt’, but I’d be lying if there weren’t a few flushes of panic for us North Melbourne fans over the past few weeks.
With the Roos’ win over St Kilda on Saturday night, however, the top eight door looks closed.
Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Melbourne and Collingwood are all still mathematically capable of making it in, but the scenarios in play would need those teams to go undefeated in the last month (or Port to win at least three), and then for other results to fall their way in a highly convenient manner.
The difference between the top eight and the rest generally this season has been consistency however, and those four teams are lacking in that area to the point where any of them getting the job done doesn’t seem plausible.
Just when you thought your job was safe
After last week’s win by Brisbane over Essendon I was 99 per cent ready to concede my bet with Ryan Buckland over whether or not we’d see a coach sacked mid-season in 2016.
After this weekend’s results though, where Richmond coughed up a an 88-point loss to GWS and the Lions took a 94-point thumping, it feels like there’s just a little bit of life left in the wager still.
Hardwick is still contracted for another two years, Leppitsch for another year. So odds are they will probably still be coaching till the end of the season, and likely in Round 1, 2017.
However, the question has to be asked how many more results like this these clubs can possibly endure, and if this is not enough to sign their papers, what will be?
Richmond, by the way, recorded their lowest score in a game in 55 years and, not that anyone was checking, are now mathematically eliminated from the finals race.
West Coast are out of the race, and the Bulldogs may be too
If you could combine West Coast’s relatively fit players list with the Bulldogs’ excellent attitude, spirit and work rate then you might have 2016’s premiership team.
Unfortunately you can’t. West Coast have been laughably poor the last three weeks running despite their list seemingly in a much better position this year than in 2015. Yes, they’re missing Nic Naitanui, and he’s important – but he doesn’t even nearly explain the difference between what they were, and what they are.
The Dogs on the other hand showed some really fight and as Seymour Skinner would say, ‘stick-to-it-ive-ness’ on Friday night but it’s hard to be competitive when you seem to have a long-term injury every five minutes.
They will still comfortably make the top eight but with Tom Liberatore and Jackson Macrae now sidelined for possibly significant amounts of time, it’ll take a truly Herculean effort to do any better than a first-week finals exit.
Cheers to the milestone men
Brent Harvey, Matthew Pavlich, Corey Enright, Jimmy Bartel. All absolute legends of the game, guaranteed future hall-of-famers, all marvellous careers.
What more can you say really? This week we celebrated arguably the greatest collection of milestones we’ve ever seen come together in a single round of footy.
The Cats got up for Boris and Jimmy, as did North for Boomer. Fremantle fell well short of celebrating Pav’s milestone with a win – in fact it was Ross Lyon’s biggest loss ever as a coach – but in the end it’s not about the winning, it’s about the respect, and there was plenty of that all around.
The Dockers’ only aim over the remaining four weeks of the season must be to get Pav five more goals so he can hit the 700 mark before he finishes up at the end of the year.
They are some of the most memorable footballers of this era and when their time to hang up the boots eventually comes, the game will be lesser for having lost them.
The Saints still need some class
As you might have heard Brian Taylor mention roughly six or seven hundred times on Saturday night, St Kilda are a great pressure team with real defensive ability, and that’s excellent to see.
Teaching your team to work hard is the first and most important building block of any rebuild and Alan Richardson and his team have done that, without a doubt.
Now it’s time to teach them to work smart – they desperately need some more class amongst the side. Right now it feels a bit blue collar, and their 8.14 scoreline on Saturday night reflected that.
Jack Billings hasn’t had the season many of us thought he would, with injuries part of the reason. He along with the likes of Blake Acres, Jade Gresham and Daniel McKenzie look like the classiest of the Saints’ young talent, and it’ll be when they step up to the elite level that this team becomes a genuine force.
Collingwood could drive a man insane
How does one proper assess this season from Collingwood? On one hand, they are hugely disappointing after so much talk of finals over the off-season. On the other hand, they’ve been kind of impressive when you look at them as what they really are, still a work in progress.
With a win over West Coast they’ve now beaten three top eight teams for the year, with Geelong and GWS the others. That’s actually more wins against top eight sides than North Melbourne or West Coast, both set to feature in September, can claim at this point of the year.
Yet their worst has just been woefully bad. Even on Saturday, with victory all but assured, they still had patches late in the game where they seemed to be begging West Coast to snatch the win away from them. There is a long way to go here.
Can Nathan Buckley – under pressure for so much of this season – guide this team into being one more consistently capable of playing it’s best footy? He will now surely get the chance to show us whether or not he can in 2017.
Is it back to ‘The Future’ for Port Adelaide?
Port’s big win at the Gabba was dominated by the quality performance of an unlikely hero – 25-year-old 197cm key forward John Butcher.
A former No.8 draft pick, once dubbed ‘The Future’ after his hot start to his AFL career, Butcher has spent the last few years in the AFL wilderness after failing to come on.
Is a bag of four goals, coupled with injury to Charlie Dixon and form struggles for Jay Schulz, a sign that ‘The Future’ has finally arrived?
No, definitely not, he was playing against Brisbane after all.
Can the Crows win the flag without Sam Jacobs?
The Crows’ big win was marred by what looks like a potentially serious ankle injury to ruckman Sam Jacobs, and if it turns out that way it could derail their quest for premiership glory.
Jacobs has played an incredible 92 consecutive games for the Crows, the second-longest current streak in the AFL (behind Sam Gibson of North Melbourne, 102).
He has come mightily close to All-Australian selection on two occasions in the past and while you wouldn’t say he’s the best ruck going around, he’s certainly one of the top few.
If he isn’t able to get up, then untried youngster Reilly O’Brien (or is it Brien O’Reilly?) is likely Adelaide’s next port of call. Heard a good thing or two about him, but it’s not a great position for a finals-bound club to be in.
Of course, this could all prove to be moot if Jacobs’ injury proves to be minor, and here’s hoping it does.
Big Joe has a big future
In a game where the Crows dominated more or less all day long, Joe Daniher was a shining light for Essendon at Adelaide Oval.
Sure, his performance had a few bad hook kicks and shots out on the full. And those are things he needs to work on. But really, given the circumstances, he’s having quite a good season, now with an equal career-high 34 goals to his name.
If you think that doesn’t really sound like a lot, consider this: No Essendon played has kicked more than 35 goals in a single season since Matthew Lloyd booted 62 in 2008. Nearly a decade ago!
With a bit of luck, Joe probably hits at least 40 goals for the season. Get a solid midfield behind him, keep working on those set shots, and he will be a beast.