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The weekend games in Round 17 both clarified and confused the likely final eight at the end of the season.
The West Coast Eagles made it very clear that they are the likely contender to make the grand final and play Richmond after a dominant win over Collingwood.
Even the likely loss of Nic Naitauni should not stop them if Scott Lycett can again step up to the plate as he did against Collingwood on Sunday.
Greater Western Sydney put their hand up to say they are still definitely top four material if they get the remainder of their stars back, and Richmond would be pleased that their two stars (Dustin Martin and Jack Riewoldt) are fit and in form and the GF is played at the ‘G’.
For the others – Port Adelaide, Collingwood and North Melbourne saw their chances slip, while Sydney continues to defy the odds.
Melbourne can now breath a bit easier. The current pretenders outside the Top eight down to number 12 are all close enough to have a belief that they can make it, so the last six rounds of the season should prove very interesting.
From a top 100 perspective, a number of conventional milestones were reached this round.
James Frawley (Melbourne/Hawthorn) reached 200 games, Jason Johannisen played his 100th game for the Bulldogs while Marcus Bontempelli missed out due to injury.
Jack Crisp (Brisbane/Collingwood) played another good game for his 100th AFL game, while another ex-Lion Jared Polec played his at Port Adelaide.
David Astbury played all of his 100 at Richmond and Alex Neal-Bullen all of his 50 at Melbourne.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
For Jack Gunston, it was his 150th game for Hawthorn and for ex-Brisbane player Jack Redden, his 50th game at West Coast Eagles.
Gunston also knocked through his 300th goal for Hawthorn (and his 301st). Now, his goal average per game is nearly spot on two.
Jack Darling at West Coast also passed the 300 goal mark while Lachie Hunter (Western Bulldogs) kicked his 50th goal.
The big one on the weekend, however, was Buddy Franklin’s 900th (and 901st and 902nd) which now leaves him only 13 goals behind Leigh Matthews in the eighth spot on the AFL all-time goal kicking list, and a fair chance to catch him before the end of the season.
On the all-time top 100 game players list, injuries took their toll as three of the top four current players failed to take the field.
The exception was the number two current player Brendon Goddard (St Kilda/Essendon) who drew level with Carlton’s John Nicholls and Barry Round (Western Bulldogs and Sydney), joining the top 30 AFL game players of all time.
The injury to Jarrad McVeigh meant that he was joined in equal 46th position by Gary Ablett.
Eddie Betts made the AFL top 100 game players list for the first time, and next week – all things being equal – David Mundy (West Coast Eagles) should also join the list.
Excluding Buddy and the goalless Jarryd Roughead and Gary Ablett, all of the other top five 100 AFL goalkickers scored enough goals to improve their position on the list.
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