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Round 2 was another cracking round of AFL action with upsets, comebacks, thrashings, close finishes, and of course controversy – everything you could want from a week of footy. Here’s my quick takes.
Hawthorn and Sydney have work to do
Interesting fact, since 2007 there has been only one team to start the season with two losses and make the top four, and only one more that has made the finals at all from that position.
Sydney can take some solace in the fact that one of those teams was them – dropping the first two matches of 2014 but turning it around to become the minor premiers.
The other was Carlton in 2013, which arguably shouldn’t count, given that the Blues only snuck into the eight by de fault due to Essendon being blocked from qualifying.
It’s not a good place to try and work yourself back into contention from, but that’s the challenge that Sydney and Hawthorn now face after both slumped to winless starts inside the first two rounds this week.
Neither lost dishonourably in Round 2, both were beaten by good sides, but both would’ve expected to be at least 1-1 right now and ideally 2-0.
For the Swans, their lack of depth is really showing, and with some of their stars struggling to fire a shot, they can’t afford to have passengers on the field.
For the Hawks, they seemed to have lost that confident veneer that was the key to winning the close ones last year. One can’t help but feel that at least some of that left when Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis did.
Both should expect to get a win next week as Sydney host Collingwood and Hawthorn travel to play the Suns – they’ll need to hope those fixtures kickstart a return to form. If they don’t, there are significant worries to be had.
Showdown XLII will be a cracker
The Crows deserve the nod as the best team going around at the moment on a very, very limited sampling of form, having comfortably dismantled two of last year’s top four teams so far.
Port Adelaide are the surprise packet of the season – they knocked off the Swans last week and as I type they are teaching Fremantle a new lesson in pain.
Both will be 2-0 heading into the 42nd Showdown fixtue next week and if there’s a more exciting prospect in footy than that I don’t know what it is.
Sorry Hawthorn and Geelong, sorry Sydney and West Coast, this is the best and most enduring rivalry in the game in my book and I’m expecting a classic.
The Crows would have to be my early tip on form but this is the kind of match where anything can happen. The battle for Adelaide is well and truly on.
Despite their new Tuohys, the Cats aren’t convincing
North Melbourne at Etihad is an assignment that the Cats should be completing by a margin of ten goals most weeks, especially when you take Jarrad Waite and Todd Goldstein out of the equation.
However it was a pair of superstar performances from Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood that got the Cats over the line on Sunday, and even then only just.
Zach Tuohy has been a good addition and Mitch Duncan so far is in decent form for the year, Tom Hawkins is in good nick too, but there is a lack of quality in the bottom half of the team.
Take one of Dangerfield or Selwood out of Sunday’s match and the Cats lose by five goals, take both out and they lose by ten.
Their win against Fremantle last week seemed rather impressive at the time but considering how woeful the Dockers were against Port, perhaps it was just par for the course.
My view is simple: They’re not the real deal. They had an easy fixture last year and flopped when finals got hot. Not convinced they’ll be a premiership threat.
But of course don’t quote me on that, because we all know I’m a bitter old North fan.
Melbourne show maturity, at least a little
I had a good laugh with Cam Rose on The Roar AFL Podcast this week about how, after a great win last week, Melbourne’s fixture against Carlton in Round 2 was exactly the kind of match where they would drop their bundle.
So, you can imagine my level of suprise when Carlton took the lead against the Dees at three-quarter time: bagels.
Make no mistake, this is exactly the kind of match that Melbourne of 2016, or any other year in the last decade really, would have lost. Remember they got beat by the Bombers in Round 2 last year after a rousing win over the Giants.
But they pulled it off – they wrested back control in the last quarter with six goals to two and while they didn’t look their best they banked the four points. That’s what good teams do and it shows the growing maturity of this team.
The Giants have pride in the jumper
No matter what margin the Giants won by on Saturday against the Suns it was never going to erase the doubts that were created in their Round 1 loss to the Crows.
Can they win away from home? Can they win in front of huge crowds? Questions that simply cannot be answered in front of 8022 people at Spotless Stadium.
However, one thing they did remind us all of was that they are a proud club, and while that might just sound like subjective waffle, it’s actually a remarkable thing when you consider how short their existence is.
They played like a team who knew they had let their colours and their supporters down and wanted to make amends, a sign of a competitive culture, just one of many things that separates them from their expansion rivals.
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The end of Eade is a matter of when, not if
I’ve never been a huge fan of Rodney Eade’s work at Gold Coast and after seeing the Suns get belted off the park on Saturday I think I can say with some confidence that his time running out at Gold Coast is inevitable.
He’s had two and a bit years there and is out of contract at the end of the season – and what do the Suns have to show for it? Has there been a moment since Round 1, 2015 where you’ve thought he could be Gold Coast’s first premiership coach?
A handful of players at the Suns have flourished under him but unless the team itself performs well that just isn’t enough. At the moment it feels like any success they do have comes in spite of the processes at the club, not because of them.
That’s not to say that Eade is the only change that should be made, or that it is doom and gloom for the Suns. They still have an above average amount of talent and can be a very good team if they get things humming off the field.
Saints and North show spirit
After disappointing losses in Round 1 and matches where they were expected to get well beaten on the horizon in Round 2, it would’ve been very easy for both St Kilda and North Melbourne to drop their heads and get slammed.
Neither side ultimately got the win but both led for much of their respective games, until the last term in fact.
No premiership points for either side but fans can be proud that their teams got themselves up for the contest even when the mountain looked unclimbable.
The real risk is that putting so much emotional energy into the game and then falling short leaves the players strung out – hopefully that doesn’t happen, and they can get themselves up for another run at it next week.
If they play every week like they did this one, they’ll both win their fair share of games in 2017.
How about that Orazio Fantasia?
How good is this kid? Nine goals in the first two rounds has him top three on the goalkickers tally and the youngest person there by a decent margin.
He’s a great example of the opportunity that 2016 gave the Bombers to develop young players – he and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti are well ahead of where they might otherwise be.
I said during the pre-season that Essendon were creating a forward line with plenty of good options and with him, Joe Daniher and Cale Hooker all in nice form I’m feeling pretty chuffed with that one.
The match between the Bombers and the Lions on Saturday night definitely supported my suspicions about both clubs.
Brisbane are playing like a club revitalised and enjoying the new-coach bounce – world beaters they are not, but Lions fans will be smiling at the end of this year.
As for the Bombers, they’re 2-0 and survived what can be a ticky roadtrip up to the Gabba. They maintained the range and that’s what I wanted to see. Finals very much on the cards.
Semi-pro umpires deliver what the AFL deserves
Look, I’m not going to get into what umpiring decisions are good and what are bad from the weekend, nor spend too much time wearing my tinfoil cap.
In fact although I’ll always fume about it during a North game I am in my more rational moments a big believer that umpiring makes up maybe two per cent of the result of a game and if you didn’t play good enough to guarantee victory without the rub of the green then complaining will do you little benefit.
However I will say that it’s a simple fact of good business that if you want a professional-level job done then you’ve got to put in professionals, and it is laughable that the AFL’s umpiring staff are still in this modern day only part-timers.
Umpiring is never going to be a perfect science and this isn’t the only way the quality of it could be improved, but surely making our men and women in flurou green (or yellow, or pink, and so on) fulltime professionals is a no-brainer.