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What a round! After five of the six earlier games had produced margins of less than a goal, Sunday’s games were total blowouts that afforded three potential finalists an easy and percentage-boosting passage towards the finals.
However, finals positions are a long way from resolved.
The Tigers have the number on position and a grand final berth sewn up, but their opponents are still very much undecided, and next week’s games will clarify things a bit more and possibly eliminate the Crows, Bombers and Kangaroos from the mix.
However, it is likely that both Essendon and North Melbourne will win with sizeable margins and thus bring percentage back into play. Adelaide have a much harder task against Greater Western Sydney away from home. GWS is the only top-eight team apart from Richmond not concerned about winning or losing margins.
The Dons will know on Friday night if they need to watch the remaining games on the weekend with a calculator in hand or start planning for next year, but the most critical match of Round 21 will be Sunday’s clash between Melbourne and Sydney, the second last game of the weekend.
Collingwood faces a real danger game against Brisbane at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night. If their injured players don’t stack up, they too may be best off licking their wounds and aiming for a better season in 2019. They could be considered unlucky on Saturday night in their two-point loss to Sydney courtesy of a freak goal by Tom McCartin and the new hamstring injury to Darcy Moore that depleted their thin back ranks even further.
(Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
In fact the Magpies had very little to celebrate. Neither of their two star top-100 game-players, Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom, although playing good football, moved up the list, and the same two top-100 goal-scorers did not score a goal. Travis Varcoe did, and his four goals were a minor highlight for the club.
Collingwood’s Jack Madgen had a torrid debut, playing part of his first AFL game minding the greatest full forward this century, Lance Franklin. Buddy kicked six, hit the post twice and climbed above Peter Bedford into ninth position on the Swans top-100 goal-kickers list but still remains five goals behind Leigh Mathews on the AFL all-time top-100 list.
Sydney also celebrated their get-out-of-jail card, Kieran Jack, drawing level with Darryn Creswell on the games-played list. Luke Parker moved up the list to join Barry Mitchell and Craig Bolton. Harry Cunningham played his 100th game and Alex Johnson played his first game for nearly six years.
Josh Kennedy’s game took him to level with Jason Ackermanis and Mick Conlan (Fitzroy) as the eighth most prolific wearer of the number 12 jumper and his one goal took him to level with John Roberts on the Swans top-100 goal-kickers list.
Those two points, as well as meaning four premiership points, also meant a lot to the club with such an impressive record of final appearances.
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