Four hot takes from AFL Round 15

Howdy Roarers! Well, we’re back to nine games a week and after a year where there’s been more than a few blowouts, it was nice to see some really tough competitive games go down to the wire this week. Here’s some hot takes.

Just a little note – it happens to be my birthday today (and I’m still putting time aside to write this column for you… don’t ever say I don’t treat you right), so I might be a bit too busy imbibing beverages and shouting myself hoarse at Etihad Stadium to type up any hot takes from today’s game by time of publishing.

If my brain cells are firing enough to string two sentences together when I get home I might put a few more in overnight though (I also might not) so be sure to check back on Monday morning – and have a rippingly joyful day, as I intend on doing!

Important update: Nope, didn’t happen.

Tigers good enough for the flag to not be a steal
When Melbourne Victory fans won this year’s A-League grand final from fourth place off the back of a super dodgy VAR decision that even the FFA admitted they had buggered up, they branded it the ‘Heist in the Hunter’ and celebrated it madly, as they should.

There’s a certain element of fun in footy to being the villain and being disliked a bit – because nine times of out ten, the reason opposition fans don’t like you is because you’re better than them.

No one embodies that spirit better right now than the Richmond Tigers who last year had three remarkable finals wins at their home ground despite the fact that two of them were ‘away’ games for the club, moved to their home ground despite the listed home team’s preference being to play somewhere else.

Such is the massive advantage of being a big MCG club and the AFL has locked that advantage away for the next forty years at least, seemingly without giving any serious thought to having it be any other way.

And you know what, as a Victorian fan, I’m not going to pretend to feign being too upset over it. Eighteen different clubs are in eighteen different positions in this league and while the idea of level playing field is admirable, they’re all going to have their own unique advantages and disadvantages, and they always will.

If I were a Tigers fans right now and saw people complaining about the status quo I’d do little more than have a chuckle to myself and say “winners are grinners, losers can please themselves.”

Celebrate last year’s flag like Melbourne Victory celebrated the Heist in the Hunter because silverware is silverware and there’s no prize handed out at the end of the year for the team that “should have” won it if the odds were more balanced in their favour.

That said if Richmond aren’t careful this year they’re going to be too good to be handed a golden run to premiership victory at the MCG and might instead just win a flag the old-fashioned way: by being undeniably better than everyone else.

Thursday night’s match was one we all thought they might lose on the ‘maybe the Tigers aren’t that good away from the MCG’ principle but as they have done so many times this year they ran away with it late for a comfortable victory.

This was a battle between the top two sides on the ladder (at the start of the week anyway) on as close as you’ll find to a neutral venue and they were simply better. It looks like 2018 will be yellow and back-to-back to me.

(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Why would you ever sack a coach?
Damien Hardwick and Nathan Buckley are both AFL coaches who at one time or another over the past few years you could quite accurately have said that their careers appeared to be hanging by a thread.

Right now they’re coaching the teams ranked first and second on the AFL ladder, and one of them is reigning premiership coach.

It wasn’t that long ago that AFL senior-coaching was an axe-happy revolving carousel where it was considered a dull year if there weren’t at least four or five sackings.

In 2018 it looks like for the first time in as far back as I can remember we will probably see all eighteen AFL coaches retained in their jobs for the next season to come.

Brendon Bolton’s Carlton and Alan Richardson’s St Kilda have both disappointed at times this year but at this stage I think both will be backed in.

And given the success stories of Richmond and Collingwood in the past twelve months – why would you do anything but?

Really in an eighteen-team competition the idea that a senior coach should be able to come in and turn around a club in the space of four or five years is a bit rich.

As a sport we are moving towards a culture where we realise that becoming an exceptional senior coach is something that takes time and experience in the role, rather than a role of the dice where you just keep sacking and hiring until you find one.

Perhaps we will see clubs looking more and more towards coaches they believe are open to experiencing their own personal and professional growth while in the role rather than hunting for someone who already projects as a ‘finished product’.

And as our code becomes ever larger and football clubs invest more and more resources into performance we’re all less likely to see the coach as being the person who is most responsible for the team’s success or failure.

Something along those lines was seen the other week when list manager Tony Elshaug was moved along from St Kilda. Who knows if it’s the correct call or not but it’s definitely not the direction clubs usually go in when not satisfied with their form.

However I agree with what Maddy Friend said in her article this week that the decision “ails to acknowledge the need for a thorough, wide-ranging review.”

This is a process Richmond went through in 2016 and Collingwood the same in 2017. Look what’s happened as a result.

If clubs are more willing to turn the eye on themselves as a whole and strive for ways to be and do better rather than simply look for a scapegoat to sack and give the fans some temporary catharsis – well, I’m a fan.

Blokes like Blake Caracella and Justin Longmuir might have to wait a bit longer for their chance as a result, but that might be a blessing in disguise when their time comes.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Crows and Giants say ‘we’re not dead yet’
When talking last week about how the finals makeup is shaping, I was probably a bit hasty to write off the Adelaide Crows and GWS Giants as also-rans, figuring that their long lists of absent players and difficult upcoming fixtures might make it just too hard.

Both proved me wrong on the weekend – I tipped the Eagles and the Hawks in these respective matchups but both the Crows and the Giants rose to the occasion and scored vital wins.

The Giants will certainly finish this round inside the top eight and while the Crows are a little further back they’ve got a percentage over 100 and aren’t too far off the pace.

For Adelaide in particular this win was worth more than the four points. They’ve been on a four-game losing streak and it’s clear the fanbase have been a bit restless (in a noticeably amusing way at times).

It’s easy to find fault with failure and very hard to criticse success though. This win – plus the return of several crucial players from injury this week – could prove to be a massive circuit breaker in the context of their season.

The Giants have to be given some serious credit also for getting the job done despite Jeremy Cameron and Toby Greene, the pillars of their forward line, watching from the bench.

Jonny Patton nearly had a mare but stepped up to kick a crucial goal in the final quarter which seemed to put the result beyond doubt – hopefully it helps build his confidence to really provide the Giants a strong forward option over the next four weeks.

Both the Crows and the Giants face some seriously tough opposition in the next few weeks in particular, but with seven games left in the home-and-away – nearly an entire third of the season, really – they can hardly be written off just yet.

(Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Eagles, Hawks, Cats miss crucial opportunities
Of course when teams get breakthrough wins, it’s because someone else let an opportunity slip by, and this week all of West Coast, Hawthorn and Geelong missed the chance to secure what would’ve been a crucial four points.

For the Eagles it looks like the absence of Jack Darling and Josh J Kennedy is really going to hurt their chances of securing a home preliminary final and might even be bad enough that they miss out on a top four finish.

West Coast have GWS, the Bulldogs, Collingwood and North Melbourne as their next four games – all very loseable fixtures if they aren’t on their game.

At least for the Eagles they’ve won enough that even a poor finish to the season should see them limp into finals (and hopefully be full strength in time for September). For Hawthorn and Geelong, the situation is a lot more dire.

This week’s results leave both teams on the awkward fringe between the bottom of the eight and those just outside it.

Probably the most worrying thing for the Cats in particular was that all three of Gary Ablett, Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield had 30+ touches, but it wasn’t quite enough.

I do feel for Harry Taylor because it can’t be a good feeling to miss the kick he missed and it’d be unfair to pin the result of an entire game on one moment – but at the same time, that was a shot that a 233-game veteran of his stature simply has no business missing, given the circumstances.

The AFL has the ladder predictor up and running on their website again in case you hadn’t noticed. I gave it a whirl last night and while my tips where hardly scientific, I was surprised to see Geelong ultimately finishing tenth under my prediction.

They’ve got Sydney, Adelaide, Richmond, Melbourne, Hawthorn as five of their last eight – how many of those matches are you confident they win?

The good news for them is they have three slam dunk fixtures again Brisbane, Fremantle and Gold Coast all at Kardinia on the run home (and the game against the Dees is there as well).

The news is better for Hawthorn. They’ve got a very soft fixture to finish the year, playing only two or three other finals contenders (depending on how you feel about Essendon) to close out the home-and-away season.