Round 14 in the AFL might have been the best round of football in 27 years

A brief disclaimer: I was born the year before the AFL officially came to be. Stuff it. The four days of football from the weekend past delivered the best round in the 27-year history of the league as we know it.

Where to begin? Four games decided by less than six points, a fifth by 14 points which might have been the most shocking result of the lot, and individual performances we’ll look back on as signposts for careers when they’re all said and done.

The natural place to begin is Thursday night’s upset, which could be the turn up of the year when all is said and done. Hawthorn started the night an eight-to-one road underdog but played the game with the swagger of a home ground sure thing.

Adelaide were expected to have their way with the Hawks, but managed to stretch to a peak lead of just three goals. Even at halftime – when the Crows had built their biggest margin – the Hawks looked like the winning team.

The Crows were leading the inside 50 count 33 to 18, a shellacking in any other game. Based on the season to date, we should have expected Adelaide to have put up double the margin they managed over the Hawks. But their attacking transition was stunted by an extra Hawthorn defender, their defensive 50 a languid, sluggish mess allowing the Hawks to score almost at will.

From early in the game, the warning signs were blaring, and it took less than a quarter from the half way mark for the Hawks to whittle away the three-goal margin.

It was a blast from the recent past for Hawthorn, the team once more 22 neurons firing in the cavernous football brain of Alastair Clarkson. The Hawks came with a clear plan – deny quick transition, clog up the corridor – and as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the Crows couldn’t come up with a credible Plan B.

Hawthorn’s youngsters continued to pick up the slack left by those who came before. James Sicily played his best game in defence, racking up 25 disposals, ten marks and an ungodly 13 intercept possessions. Ryan Burton had a night out as a rebounding defender, booting two goals and turning the ball over just three times on 21 high-pressure disposals. Blake Hardwick was critical to keeping Eddie Betts and Charlie Cameron to a goal each, and provided plenty of drive himself.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

Adelaide, looking as vulnerable as they have under Don Pyke, have the defensive-minded Blues at the MCG next Saturday in what looms as a tricky match up given the teams’ respective form lines. They looked tired, bordering on disinterested, particularly in the defensive half of the ground. Fortunately, a 9-4 record gives them room for a temporary dip in form.

From here, weren’t we treated to some tense moments in the prime time slots?

Two minutes of insanity
Friday night was like a long tail simulation from AFL Evolution. The Swans had the game in hand the whole way, missing shot after shot but generating enough of them to make you think they were five minutes away from victory through three quarters.

Essendon proceeded to catch fire in the final 30 minutes, throwing caution to the wind and attacking through the middle of the SCG at every opportunity. After playing keepy-off all night – the Swans, against my expectations, played a possession game and took 112 marks – Sydney were gassed, and the Dons ran riot.

If we include the final two scores of quarter three, Essendon booted seven goals in a row (the Swans nabbed a behind in the middle), taking the lead and looking assured.

When Michael Hurley kicked the seventh from outside 50, it was done. There were six minutes on the clock, and Sydney hadn’t scored a goal for an entire quarter’s worth of play. It took the Swans two minutes to hit back and bring the margin to 13 points. Some scrambling, some scratchy play, and it still looked a sure thing.

Fast forward to around 10pm local time in Sydney, and Michael Hurley takes an uncontested intercept mark inside his defensive 50. Sydney are down by two kicks. The Leigh Matthew Rule kicks in.

Joe Daniher is back as a spare man in defence and pumps the ball to the city-side wing. After some jostling, Josh Kennedy (36 disposals, seven clearances, 16 contested possessions, or as we call it, The Kennedy) gathers and launches the ball back inside 50. Daniher finds himself in no man’s land and tries to spoil a ball heading to the lap of Nic Newman. He kind of gets there, but it isn’t enough and Newman is able to gather and kick truly.

That took 44 seconds off the clock. Sydney are now within a goal with one minute remaining. Daniher remains down back, the Dons in game-saving mode, as they should be. Channel Seven give us an all-too-rare behind-the-goal glimpse, which shows the Swans have evened up Essendon’s two extra defenders. Essendon have a man floating off the back of their centre square, as do the Swans.

The ball is bounced, and a garbled tap lands in Zach Merrett’s lap. He throws it on his boot without hesitation, Heath Grundy taking a regulation mark and getting to work. Seven seconds pass, and the Swans effectively win the centre bounce without actually winning the initial clearance. As is customary, a long kick ensues, and Joe Daniher takes a game-saving mark.

Daniher takes as much time off the clock as the umpire allows him, imploring his teammates to cluster on the left defensive wing to spoil his exit kick out of bounds. Unfortunately, his game-saving mark is followed by a miskick that travels further and straighter than it appeared he was seeking. Callum Mills marks with 43 seconds on the clock, Sydney still six points in arrears.

Mills handballs to Sam Naismith who, as is the custom, bangs it long to the top of Sydney’s forward 50 arc. Lance Franklin, who had a quiet-by-his-standards night, marks. Not knowing how much time is left, he steps over his vanquished opponent, takes his parabolic three steps to the left, and unloads.

A behind. 27 seconds left.

(AAP Image/David Moir)

It all but wipes a draw from the chalkboard. Brendon Goddard nabs the ball to take the kick in, directing his teammates in a not-dissimilar way to Daniher just over a minute prior. In the confusion, Sydney don’t have a man on the mark in place – Tom Papley strides out to make up for lost time.

Goddard, presumably sensing the moment, kicks to himself and begins the march out to the right hand behind post to work the angle and deliver the ball to a congested flank so it can be pushed out of bounds. Game over.

Or not. Papley closes down the angle to perfection, the chaos working to his team’s advantage in the end given he was both already to the right of the usual position and had built a head of steam. Goddard takes one more step than he had the time to and kicks straight into the skinny outstretched arms of Papley.

A midfield stoppage becomes a Sydney forward 50 stoppage, with 24 seconds on the clock.

Everyone – everyone – rushes to the drop zone. Sydney’s forward 50 resembles the road network around the SCG, congested with patrons who’d left after Hurley won the game for Essendon five or so minutes prior.

The ball thunders down, missing the hands of both teams’ ruckmen. In the confusion, Dane Rampe somehow gathers the ball on the hop and tosses it on his left boot, banana style. Goddard, villain, makes contact with Rampe’s leg as he kicks, taking some of the sting off the shot.

It careens towards the Sydney goalmouth, two figures emerging as the arbiters of the game. Gary Rohan and Martin Gleeson jockey for position, Rohan setting himself like a statue and swinging his hips like a sumo wrestler. Gleeson rightly backs himself to win the battle of strength. He fails. Rohan marks in the goal square with 18 seconds on the clock.

Chaos breaks out. Uncertain of the time left, we see pictures of Sydney midfielders brief exuberance giving way to a sense of panic. Arms wave, “get back” is mouthed approximately 974 times in half a second, as Rohan gets set to take his shot.

Siren. Essendon players are on their haunches, Sydney players embrace before remembering they’re still five points behind and Rohan has the ball in his hand. Again, the moment is fleeting. Kick. Win. Sydney are in the eight, Essendon are not.

The reason for breaking this down frame by frame is to highlight the absurdity of it all. Sydney won the game, then lost it, then won it again. Essendon lost the game, won it, then lost it again. Two hours worth of football was decided by a series of bizarre events over two minutes.

But wait, there’s more
Not a bad start. Two regulation outings followed, the Power taking care of the Pies on Saturday afternoon and the Giants stomping the Lions as everyone with an impartial brain expected. They were like the pumpkin soup and white bread before a main course of prime rib and a glass of Penfolds.

West Coast versus Melbourne was my choice to watch live. Notebook in hand, I was looking forward to learning how the Eagles might counter a fellow top-four aspirant, and how the Dees might look to disrupt a West Coast team looking to play a game of polish. I took no notes.

Instead, I was captivated by the vigour and flow of the game. Punch, counterpunch, jab, jab, duck, weave, punch. There were 11 lead changes, the game barely getting beyond a two-goal margin either way as Melbourne attacked on the ground and West Coast parried with an aerial assault.

There were almost 100 stoppages, and Jack Viney bustled into close to all of them. Viney played one of the most incredible individual games of football this season – perhaps the most – in gathering 38 possessions (26 of them contested, the second most this season behind Gary Ablett’s 27 against North Melbourne), nine clearances and 410 metres gained. He careened into hard ball after hard ball, more often than not pinching the ball moments before a West Coast player could gather.

It was made all the more remarkable half way through the third quarter, when a classic Shannon Hurn hip and shoulder (which would have probably killed a normal person) looked to have done material damage to his right shoulder. Viney returned and played a critical role in Melbourne’s wresting of the game’s momentum in the fourth.

It’s all a bit of a blur, really. All I know is Tom McDonald played easily the most influential game of his career and pinched it for the Dees with 30 seconds on the clock. Melbourne win another game away from home against a top-eight opponent, and move within a win or percentage of a spot in the top four.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Notice how I managed to talk about the game without mentioning Clayton Oliver? That was very deliberate, because the incident between he and Will Schofield was about the 19th most notable thing to happen in the game.

Saturday night’s other thriller was more notable for the outcome rather than the process. The Dogs were on their way to a regulation victory against a regulation bottom six opponent, before they forgot how to football and let the ‘Roos storm back into the game. They actually stopped – the number of times North Melbourne midfielders were able to get clear kicks off the boot was alarming, and should cause great concern to Western Bulldogs fans everywhere.

In the end, the Dogs did enough, grinding their way to victory in a way only they know how. They dominated the ‘Roos in time in possession, recording a differential of +13.5 minutes, but lost the inside 50 count by one and struggled to generate quality scoring opportunities close to goal.

It was a victory in name only – the kind that teams are happy to squirrel away when they’re in a funk. The Dogs have been in a funk for over a month now. They host the Eagles in a likely win-and-in encounter, which could be a pivot point for their season.

Just when we thought it was safe to leave the house, Fremantle brought their A+ game to Geelong and almost stretched the Cats to breaking point. Now, Geelong ended the game with one fit man on the bench, and lost their captain Joel Selwood in the first play of the game, but still, the Dockers managed to keep the ball away from Geelong’s suffocating midfield clamps for long enough to not only starve the Cats of quality inside 50 entries but to put up a decent score themselves.

It once again came down to the final two minutes, Fremantle doing all the attacking and the Cats breaking up the play with a timely spoil or contest time and again.

In the end, a hard switch by Stephen Hill created an overlap opportunity for the Dockers with less than 30 seconds to play. After an impromptu game of hot potato, the ball ended up in the hands of Michael Walters. Walters was like a three-point assassin in the NBA, getting on the end of some solid work by his teammates with an opportunity to win the game.

It was a clean look, Walters able to steady, aim and fire without encumbrance from a Geelong body. Alas, he missed, and the Cats escaped. It was heart-in-mouth stuff – unlike the two prior games the final minute or so was all live ball play.

Was it the best round ever? It’s hard to say. There are few rounds that had the volume of peak football excitement that Round 14, 2017 delivered.

The more pertinent question is does it really matter? This season of AFL football finds a new way to pull us in every week; a chaotic ladder here, an eight-point game there, phenomenal individual performances to the left, exciting and unpredictable close finishes to the right.

For it all, for all the uncertainty, one pointed fact emerges: the Greater Western Sydney Giants end Round 14 one game clear on top of the ladder, still the team who has played the best, most rounded football for the longest this season. Take that as you will.

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