Ten quick takes from AFL Round 11

It may be the start of the bye rounds, but there’s no shortage of hot topics coming out of Round 11. Check out my ten quick takes from the week.

Would you pay $1.5 million for Nat Fyfe?
By no means has Nat Fyfe been a poor or even average footballer in 2017, but it would also be fair to say that he’s a couple of notches below his dominant best.

His match against Collingwood in a losing effort on Sunday was about the level we have generally seen from him this year – 24 disposals and a goal. A contributor, but not a Brownlow threat, or likely even an All-Australian contender.

Of course, he’s a restricted free agent come October, and even though he’s the captain of the club there’s still a variety of opinions on whether or not he’ll be in purple in 2018.

A few days back the rumour went around that St Kilda, the club he has been most heavily linked with, have effectively pulled out of the race to focus on other targets.

Then on Sunday, it was said by Jay Clark that Fyfe has put forward an asking price of $1.5 million a year to move to a Victorian club.

That would be the most lucrative contract in the history of the game not to include an AFL sponsorship payment, and it’s a lot to ask from a guy who has had more than a few injury interruptions during his career and hasn’t really played his best footy since about two years ago.

Now, rumours like this should always be taken with more than a few grains of salt, but it’s an interesting – if potentially only hypothetical – dilemma, much as Jaeger O’Meara was last year.

Hawthorn pulled the trigger on Jaeger, will someone do the same for Fyfe? Would you?

(AAP Image/Travis Anderson)

Collingwood on the edge of the finals race
It didn’t seem likely after their so-so start to the year, but in a league where few teams if any are playing reliable footy, it’s amazing what three weeks of good form will do from you.

The Magpies have gone from being at crisis point at quarter time against Hawthorn a fortnight ago, to being in 10th on the ladder and only a win outside the top eight.

Now granted, Melbourne above them and St Kilda below both have a game to make up on the Magpies after having the bye this week, so they’re still somewhere in the tail end of the pack.

But there are twelve teams in the league that have five wins so far this year from either ten or eleven games, and that seems like a reasonable cut off point for finals contention at this stage, though those at the four-win mark could maybe dream just a very small amount, especially if they have a game in hand.

Of course, some of their mid-game injuries from the win against Fremantle could put an end to any renewed finals hopes soon after their birth.

We’ll have to wait until we get more info on them during the week, Daniel Wells injuring his calf and Jamie Elliott re-injuring his ankle is about the worst news you could get as a Pies fan.

For now though, I’m feeling fairly settled in my call two weeks ago that Nathan Buckley should be backed in for the future as Collingwood’s coach. This team is doing alright.

(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

Tiger time! Top four?
On one hand you could look at Richmond’s win over North Melbourne on Saturday and say, big whoop! They beat a team eight places below them on the ladder by a solid margin. No big deal.

But Richmond beating North for the first legitimate time in eight outings is as good a proof as you will get that this is a new breed of Tiger.

They went through some big changes over the off-season – new footy boss, new assistant coaches, new players, and finally made the long-talked-about call to trade away a big gun.

It all seems to have worked, and while they had a poor month somewhere in there, with a little more luck we could easily be calling them a 10-1 team.

They’re probably the best team in the league at applying pressure right now, and they’ve got the least points against of any team to have played 11 games – though Port Adelaide still boast a better average defensive performance.

They combine that with a burst of speed, and star factor enough to compete with any other side in the game.

They’ll finish this week inside the top four, and there’s no reason they can’t still be there when the home-and-away season is done. Tiger time is now.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Is it good Goddard or bad Brendon inside Essendon’s four walls?
Yes, I know – it’d be just like the AFL punditry cycle to make far too much out of Brendon Goddard knocking a bowl of pretzels off the table, but it’s a question worth asking all the same.

To be entirely fair to him, Goddard was happy to admit he hadn’t conducted himself as well as he would like to on Twitter after the game.

I suspect the vast majority of public opinion about Goddard would not be favourable – the way he acts on field grates on many and can come across as petulant.

However what none of us can really know for certain is how he is perceived by those who make up the Essendon Football Club. Sometimes behaviours that seem rotten from the outside can be seen as valuable on the inside.

There’s not a whole lot of use in speculating, but by the end of the season, we’re going to know well enough just how much Goddard is loved at the Dons.

He’s out of contract at the end of this season, and there’s been little to nothing said so far in terms of a likely re-signing. He’s still having an impact on games, and you’d expect he probably wants to play on.

However, Essendon are going through generational change, and may be targetting a big name – like they once did Goddard. If so, he might be made to finish up, in the same way that some other Bomber vets this year certainly will be.

His form is good enough to earn an extension, so it will likely come down to whether or not the Bombers feel he’s a good influence on the club.

Time will tell, but watching him be carried off the ground by his teammates in his 300th game this week, I wouldn’t be surprised to a see a simillar scene later this year.

Time to make the call on jumper punches
Priority No.1 at AFL house when everyone rolls in on Monday morning will have to be working out what the penalty is for Tom Hawkins and his punch on Matt Crouch.

Punches have been a popular topic of discussion for some time now and the AFL has ummed and ahhed a bit recently over whether or not to up the relevant penalties.

If there’s one thing the Match Review Panel knows how to do, it is make an overreaction in response to widespread media discussion, especially when the incident happened on a Friday night and it has been whipped into a frenzy all weekend long.

For that reason, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Tom Hawkins cop a ban, and it would probably make him the first player to be suspended for a jumper punch since, well, himself, last year.

Whatever path the AFL decides to go down on this one, it has to be applied consistently – either hand out bans for these kind of incidents or don’t.

I’m a big fan of the physicality of football, but, I’m willing to admit that letting players get away with a punch on field isn’t a good example to set either for kids learning the game or society as a whole.

And yes, someone at AFL HQ would tell you that getting fined for a jumper punch isn’t “getting away with it”, but in the eyes of us fans who still see that player named the next week, it very much is.

Financial deterants clearly aren’t having much of an effect on players, either.

In the choice between whether or not we want our game to be known as one where you can punch a bloke and it’s no big deal, I reckon it’s fairly straightforward to say we don’t.

Gold Coast are turning the corner
The Gold Coast Suns are not a consistent football team, not at all. But that’s okay – they’re a young side and young sides are always going to be frustrating and inconsistent at times.

However, what their win over West Coast has made clear is that they have finally started to forge the culture and team bond that you need to have in order to stay alive in this game.

The pride to respond to a disappointing fade-out last week, the tenacity to hold on when another comeback loss was threatened, these aren’t things we’ve seen a lot of from Gold Coast in the past.

Their off-season recruiting has been done quite smartly if the performances of Jarryd Lyons, Pearce Hanley, Michael Barlow and Jarrod Witts on Saturday are anything to go by – though Hanley might need more than one good game to justify bringing him across.

There’s a long way to go yet, some tough decisions and big re-signings that need to happen sooner rather than later. Stay tuned for more on that during the week.

But right now they’ve got at least a little to be proud of, and are still even an unlikely finals chance.

(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)

Double-Dangerwood can win Geelong a flag, no doubt
For all those who are sick of hearing me talking about Geelong and Dangerwood – and believe me, no one is more sick of it than me – don’t worry. This is the last time. I’ve made up my mind.

Can Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield deliver Geelong a premiership? I don’t know, but make it a double Dangerwood by throwing brother Scott into the mix and the answer is yes.

Cats fans have had to wait some time for the former Eagle, acquired via free agency at the end of 2015, to bear fruit.

He played five games last year, including their two finals, and averaged 20 diposals and a little under five tackles per match without kicking a goal.

The Cats made the call to give him plenty of time in the VFL to gain fitness after another injury-stricken pre-season, and in his three games so far this year he is paying dividends.

Sure, he’s only averaging 19 touches a game, you say – but he’s averaging more than fourteen tackles. Fourteen! Has put two goals on the board, too.

That’s the midfield support that Geelong needed, and they’re getting it now. Make no mistake, they are in the premiership race right up to their armpits.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Timing is everything, and West Coast don’t have it
At the start of the year I tipped the West Coast Eagles to win the premiership – sadly, after Round 11, I am officially putting a line through them.

For those playing along at home that makes five teams I personally still have left in the flag race: Adelaide, GWS, Geelong, Richmond and the Bulldogs.

Why did I pick them at the start of the year? It’s simple, really. In my view, premierships often come down to timing – you need veterans to provide leadership, star talent in its’ prime, and quality youngsters breathing fire to keep everyone on their toes.

With Sam Mitchell arriving at the club, the likes of Elliot Yeo and Jack Darling threatening to be elite, Jack Redden, Lewis Jetta and Eric Mackenzie all a bit more settled, and young guns like Dom Sheed and Liam Duggan ready to have breakout years, I thought it all might just happen for the Eagles.

It hasn’t. Mitchell’s been okay but his arrival hasn’t helped the club change its culture. Yeo has become elite but Darling hasn’t. Redden, Jetta and Mackenzie are all still fringe contributors. Sheed has lifted, Duggan hasn’t.

Of course, the fact that Nic Naitanui and now Josh J Kennedy are missing matches hasn’t helped. We knew about Naitanui ahead of time, but I thought he could be their late-year boost.

Writing it all off now though. And no, not just because they lost – Gold Coast had no business being within six goals of a team that should be so much more mature than this.

Perhaps this generation of Eagle is doomed to be the sleeping giant of the AFL. The decisions they make at the end of the year will be of significant interest.

Who’s my premiership favourite now you ask? To be completely honest, I haven’t decided yet.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

Hawks horrible year could get a boost from Rising Star
Hawthorn aren’t having a good year – the short version is that they’re 4-7, and for the first time since 2008, they’re not going to play finals.

However, amidst all the negative press surrounding the Hawks at the moment, it’d be remiss not to talk about their most shining of shining lights – the excellent form of second-year player Ryan Burton.

The Hawks got Burton, then seen as a dynamic Jake Stringer-like forward, as a slider in the 2015 draft due to a car-accident-like broken leg that many whispered would prevent him from ever playing an AFL game.

Those predictions haven’t panned out very well, nor have those about his forward line prowess. He is making his name as a backman, and doing a damn fine job of it.

Right now he is tied with No.1 draft pick Andy McGrath as the betting favourite for the Rising Star Award. I suspect if it was being voted on this weekend, he’d win.

Whether or not he takes it home at the end of the year isn’t that big of a deal, the Hawks are on a winner either way – but to see him with the trophy in hand would certainly lift Hawthorn fans’ spirits after what looks like it will be a long year.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Brad’s got no excuse, it’s time to play Preuss
Let’s close out with my weekly obscure rant about North Melbourne selection – this week, I’m saying it’s time for North Melbourne to bring back Braydon Preuss, the player who, despite only playing four games, has provided as much or more excitement than any other Roo in 2017.

The old ‘we can only fit one ruckman in the team’ argument maybe passed muster when Todd Goldstein was producing dominant form, but when he’s getting worked over by Matthew Kreuzer and maybe just breaking even with Toby Nankervis, it is out the window.

Is Goldstein carrying an injury? If so, there’s no reason not to put him on the sidelines for a few weeks to recover and let Preuss take the reigns. That’s a luxury we have, so use it.

Or maybe he is just out of form? If that’s the case, you can’t possibly make the argument that playing a second ruckman is too damaging to his form, because he’s already playing average footy.

In an era where young ruckman are drafted late or not at all – Preuss himself is a rookie pick – North can’t afford to leave their future tapman rotting in the VFL when he deserves to be getting a game.