Consequential Anzac games, and what they mean for the 2018 AFL season

Two games, four teams, and plenty to talk about. While there’s nothing special about Anzac Eve and Anzac Day from a football perspective, there was a lot of consequence.

Games on a Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon are unusual to say the least – so much so that the four teams involved are playing each other in a round robin-style fixture this Sunday as a means of ensuring the tight turnaround doesn’t affect their chances.

Not that any of the coaches involved thought the short break looms as a challenge. When asked in his post game press conference, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick noted clubs are so sophisticated in their recovery programs that the number of days break between games is mostly irrelevant these days.

And well may that be the case, because as has been noted in a few places, next year’s Anzac Day games come the week of Easter Monday. That’ll mean the league will spread 18 games over nine days around Rounds 5 and 6, with only the Tuesday between Round 5 and 6 being game free. Mid-week football is great if only because it means there are fewer games overlapping on the weekends – we get a bit more time to breathe, and soak it all in.

So it was this week. Melbourne, Richmond, Collingwood and Essendon all loom as teams of consequence in 2018, and we saw a window into their respective futures in the past 36 hours. Here are the takeaways, in no particular order.

Richmond is multiple streets ahead in the premiership race
There may still be some debate about whether Richmond is the best team in the competition. After all, they were obliterated by the Adelaide Crows away from home just a fortnight ago. On neutral ground output you may consider them alongside West Coast, GWS, Geelong, Adelaide or Sydney as the best team on a given day.

But given Richmond plays 14 of its 22 home-and-away games at the MCG, and will likely play most (if not all) of its finals there too, once this is taken into consideration it is hard to go past them as a clear premiership favourite. The Tigers are the new Hawthorn – get into the top four and then get to work.

Once betting markets fully adjust to the weekend’s action, Richmond should be installed as the punter’s fancy for the flag on this fact alone. Richmond at the MCG looks like the most imposing assignment in all of football. The club is now 16-2 at the ‘G since the start of 2017, with its two losses coming to Fremantle on the last kick of the game and Sydney by nine points. They’re 11 straight since Round 14 last year.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

This year’s Richmond (well it extends a little further back than that) has taken a leaf out of Paul Keating’s book: they’ll do you slowly. We saw this in spades against Melbourne. The Tigers started fast, withstood the inevitable fight back (no pun intended) from the Dees, and went in for the kill in the fourth quarter.

In Richmond’s 11-game winning streak at the MCG, they’ve won 16 of 22 third and fourth quarters, with a percentage of 159 per cent. Many of those they lost were games well in hand at the half.

Talk of a lucky premiership, and therefore a regression in 2018, has proven as vapid as it looked at the time some chose to make those foolish statements. There’s no premiership hangover here. In fact, Richmond might be even better than they were for most of last season.

Don’t fall into the tabloid trap with Melbourne
2018 is the year of the overreaction. Fortunately for the Dees there is another team, who played more recently than them, that’ll be in the sights of the tabloid media. More on them in a moment.

Melbourne should not fully escape scrutiny. Indeed, there are some problems that have been problems for most of the year.

We cannot question Melbourne’s effort, even after their final quarter capitulation against Richmond. The Dees held their own against the team that exerts the most pressure in the competition; they were just seven points behind with a few minutes remaining in the third quarter.

There is no shame in losing to what looks like the best team in the competition in the manner Melbourne did. Those questioning effort and intensity are doing so because they have nothing better to say.

The Dees love to win the ball at the coalface. Coming into the round they led the league in adjusted contested possession differential (contested possessions less contested marks and free kicks) with +19.8 per game (they broke even with Richmond). To do this they commit heavy numbers at the ball, and try to outnumber their opponents no matter the numbers they themselves have at the contest.

It leaves them exposed at either end of the ground, and increases the emphasis on both the forward half and defensive half players. To this point in the year that’s been a big problem for Melbourne’s ability to put up a score.

Even here, it isn’t a forward pressure problem. The Dees have landed 11.8 tackles inside 50 per game, second only to the Gold Coast Suns. Instead it’s an inability to create the time and space required for quality shot selection to come to the fore. Melbourne is only average at taking marks inside 50 adjusted for their league-leading rate of inside 50 entries.

(Photo by Daniel Pockett/AFL Media/Getty Images)

The club is relying on Jesse Hogan to do the work of two men – the link up marking target playing on the wings, and the marking full forward finishing off the work. He’s doing it well, kicking a dozen goals and recording more than 20 touches a game.

However it is abundantly clear they need another mobile marking threat. Sam Weideman can be that guy but he’s still raw. Instead, they should turn to Cam Pederson, as they did last season, until permanent full forward Tom McDonald returns from a foot injury.

Down back the problems are less severe, albeit Melbourne still concedes scores on around half of their opponents entries. This is a problem, but less so so long as the ball remains out of the area – which might be the point of Simon Goodwin’s system.

Champion Data’s fancy ball movement statistics would probably show the Dees create the lion’s share of their scoring opportunities from turnovers in their half of the ground. That’s fine, but it’s a far more challenging way to score than creating opportunities in the forward half.

These are fixable problems. It should start this week at selection, where Melbourne should chop some of its depth midfielders in favour of players that can add something to their structure forward of the ball. Pederson is a must, and Tom Bugg is worth persisting with if only because he can play an important role in creating a bit of chaos in Melbourne’s forward half.

It’s an opportune time for Simon Goodwin to try something. The club faces a downtrodden Essendon in Round 6, before a cupcake three weeks involving Carlton, Gold Coast and St Kilda. Melbourne should come out of that with a win-loss record of 5-4 or even 6-3, and the ship will be righted. That has to be the plan.

Collingwood’s football looks sustainable
No more is Nathan Buckley’s Collingwood all about intensity and tackle pressure. This is a different team, with a different philosophy, and it looks a lot like what every football pundit has thought Collingwood could look like at least once over the past four seasons.

The tackle pressure is still there. Collingwood is third in the league for tackle rate (laying 72 tackles per 50 minutes of opposition possession), which is about what they’ve been for the past few years. But now, instead of looking like a team of cavemen that just discovered fire when they win the ball, Collingwood look deliberate, threatening and sharp.

(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)

It is a stark contrast to years passed. And dare I say, the reinvention is not dissimilar to what we saw happen to Richmond between the 2016 off season and 2017 season proper. That’s not said lightly, but it also doesn’t mean Collingwood are going to win this year’s premiership.

The Pies have gone a little smaller in their forward half, playing Ben Reid as the lone full-time key forward and rotating Mason Cox through when he’s not in the ruck or on the bench. Around them they have installed a flexible, mid-sized philosophy and a penchant for rotating a midfielder to full forward.

They play with dare, and pace from the back half. The idea is to get the ball into their half of the ground quickly, and sort of improvise from there. That helps their back half too.

Collingwood is only conceding scores on 37 per cent of its inside 50 entries this season, second fewest in the league behind the GWS Giants. They play aggressively, keeping in front of their man where possible. When combined with the forward pressure up the ground it means the Pies have been able to intercept and rebound with pace. It is a system which relies on what Collingwood has been doing well for a while, but which could be what takes them to the next level.

Make no mistake, Essendon was bad, but a significant part of that was Collingwood making them look bad. Richmond, this Sunday afternoon at the MCG, with two ebullient fan-bases packing the rafters, will be a much sterner test.

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The less said the better
Essendon will cop plenty of flack over the next few days. There’s little I can add, other than to say for now the jury is as out on Essendon as it has been for most thinking fans since the start of the season. When at their best Essendon plays quick, counter-attacking football. When at their worst they look tentative, and are prone to falling in a heap.

The least of their worries is Brendan Goddard’s on-field behaviour. Indeed, I would be more worried about the form of the player he was pictured arguing with, Joe Daniher.

As it stands, the Melbourne than hung with the Tigers on Tuesday night will eviscerate Essendon, and it will not be pretty. The limited time the Dons have to turn it around will make stopping it a challenging feat.

(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)

A word on scoring
Finally, there has been a lot of talk about a lack of scoring in the AFL this season. Indeed, the round just past saw the third lowest average team score in a round in the AFL era, at just 76.4 points.

It’s dragged our season long mark to just shy of 86 points, which is down on the 89 points recorded in 2017.

This is a complex situation, which has, at face value, a reasonable explanation. Across the league, pressure on the ball carrier is now a given, not a sign of extra effort. The number of tackles per minute of possession has fallen, from 69.5 in 2017 to 62.3 in 2018, but the inferred pressure – the arms and legs within striking distance of the ball carrier – is off the charts. Champion Data’s numbers would confirm this, but, well, you know the drill.

The standard reaction to this is to say we need to do something about it. Nah. Not this time. If the price to pay for an extraordinarily unpredictable season is a couple of points per game of scoring then it is a price worth paying. After all, as this weekend showed, close, competitive football is far more entertaining than a high scoring blow out.