Statement wins throw the early season AFL ladder further into flux

We know very little about this season. Just when we think things begin to make sense, two market underdogs beat their more fancied opponents and it’s all a nonsense again.

Round 5 has given us a little bit of everything through seven games. Three close ones plus a draw, frenetic finishes, bags of goals, a monster individual game or two. And if you squint hard enough, most every team that’s played has got a little bit out of the weekend.

West Coast won at the MCG. Carlton put in a more stout display, sans their top-end talent to boot. St Kilda played the Giants to a draw. The Giants got a wake-up call. Fremantle scored 100 points again. North got a win against a team not expected to finish in the bottom two. Hawthorn showed a capacity to take control of a game.

Amongst it, we’ve had two statement wins. There’s no real definition of a “statement win”. But you know one when you see it.

We’re talking about Adelaide and Geelong, two of last year’s preliminary finalists who have had sputtering starts to the 2018 season. Neither was given much of a chance to beat their opponents interstate, with weakened teams and challenges to the way they had been plying their trade.

Both were impressive, for quite different reasons. A common thread was the strength of the respective teams – the away teams, Adelaide and Geelong, were well below their full strength while the home teams, Sydney and Port Adelaide, were more or less all there.

Adelaide was missing the three midfielders that took the first centre bounce at last year’s grand final. In their place came Bryce Gibbs yes, but otherwise the mostly unheralded depth players who’ve plied their trade finishing the work of the inside ball winners of the Crows. They were extraordinary on Friday, led by Paul Seedsman but ably supported by the likes of Rory Atkins, Cam Ellis-Yolmen and Richard Douglas.

(AAP Image/Ben Macmahon)

As a unit, they blunted Sydney’s more highly credentialled midfield for the entirety of the first half. Each of Josh Kennedy, Dan Hannebery, Luke Parker and Kieran Jack were in single digits for possessions, and somehow had even less influence than that would suggest.

Every Sydney attacking thrust was rushed, allowing rookie sensation Tom Doedee to intercept what felt like every entry kick. The Crows controlled the play like we’d grown to expect them to – long kicks to leading forwards, overlaps handpasses and efficient forward 50 entries. Taylor Walker and Tom Lynch were critical to this, the duo playing quality games together for the first time in 2018.

Adelaide planned and executed a means to quell the influence of Sydney’s midfield, and it worked. It is a win that coming into the year the club is unlikely to have expected to be in play, and it makes up for their surprise loss the week prior.

Geelong, similarly, game planned to perfection in their win over Port Adelaide. Down almost all of its first choice tall defensive set, against a team with a high-quality forward line, the Cats built their way to four points by playing the Power’s strengths against it.

Content to let the Power press, as they always do, the Cats set up to absorb a mountain of body blows and counterattack with even numbers when the time was right. The game was mostly even – in possessions, in territory, at stoppages – but Geelong had the poise to make the most of their forward 50 opportunities.

We could see how tight the game was by the raw physicality on display. Both teams threw themselves at the contest – Lindsay Thomas went too far, and will pay the price – which suited Geelong and its brutish inside midfield unit.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Ultimately Port Adelaide could not generate scores as a result of the congestion around its end of the ground, and that was the game. It presents an interesting wrinkle for the Power – and their future opposition – who’ve often tried to stretch the ground as a means of countering that aggressive press.

Both Adelaide and Geelong have designs on top-four positions, and well may they given the state of their respective lists. The first month of football will have given both teams doubts. But after this weekend, those doubts will have diminished even a little.

We are left with two games to finish the round. Both afford the same opportunity for statements to be made.

Richmond can take the mantle of premiership favourite with a solid win over the Demons. No team has fully shown itself to be a head above the pack in 2018. Until this weekend I would have said the Giants, the Swans and the Tigers were the most likely types. Now it is Richmond.

Melbourne has copped an extraordinary, and unfair, barrage of criticism founded on one poor game. The critics are baying. A win would shut them up quick smart. A loss may do the same if it is made of the right stuff – the stuff we know the Dees are capable of.

Collingwood can end the round inside the top eight with a victory, consolidating the sentiment which began to turn with their close loss to the Giants. The Pies have cottoned on to a game style which suits their playing stocks; their own version of small ball, with a deep midfield.

Essendon, well, they too can jump into the eight with a reasonably sized win. However, we will still be unsure as to where they fit in the 2018 hierarchy.

Depending on the results, we could end up in what appears to be an unprecedented situation: up to 12 teams will have three wins through five games, stretching from second to 12th. The even season grows more even by the week.