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Sydney's experience comes to the fore

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Roar Guru
6th April, 2019
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Watching the Sydney-Carlton game on Saturday afternoon at Marvel Stadium, what struck me more than anything else was the difference between a veteran team and a young team. 

The first quarter looked great for both teams – 11 goals out of 16 shots, back-and-forth action.

But once the grunt action that Sydney loves took hold, gradually the veteran team began to dominate as the youngsters began to tire of the crunch work.

The notable exceptions were Carlton’s star of the present, Patrick Cripps, and their star of the future, Sam Walsh.

Patrick Cripps

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

Slowly, the blue jerseys started to fall away as the red jerseys held possession more and more often.

And then Mitch McGovern happened.

Somehow, in the pack of players amassed in one of Carlton’s rare inside-50s, McGovern managed to kick a goal-of-the-year candidate directly over his own head through the centre of the goal that brought the Blues back to life – and back to a 12-point margen, too.

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Harry McKay missed a goal a minute later that might have changed the course of the game, but what remained was the more open style of footy that the youngsters prefer to play.

From there, the second half played out the way one might expect.

The Swans controlled the play, the improving Blues never let them quite run away with the game, and a final goal by Isaac Heeney with under five minutes to play finally put the game to rest.

Jacob Weitering had several great moments.

Liam Jones played Lance Franklin as well as he can be played, but Franklin also had half a dozen moments of ‘man among boys’, as he often does when he’s healthy.

Jarrad McVeigh was tremendous until his hamstring wasn’t.

McKay and Ed Curnow were both superb up forward.

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Elsewhere on Saturday, congratulations to Sydney Stack, the debutant for Richmond whose first kick was average, his second kick was atrocious and out-of-bounds sideways, and his third kick was a beautiful goal from fifty metres.

Let’s talk about the first three goals in that Giants-Tigers game.

Goal one, less than a minute in: Free kick in barrel-shooting range for Jeremy Cameron after a free kick was paid for a hit off the ball to Lachie Whitfield. Gift.

Jeremy Cameron

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Goal two: the Stack goal that only moved within range because of a 50 paid against Harry Himmelberg for following his man and being led ostensibly into the restricted area. Gift.

Goal three: Daniel Rioli, given a free kick within ten metres of the goal that he deserved to receive but not exactly a blatant hold.

The other seven scores were all behinds during the course of play.

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So, if you want to score a goal, apparently you need to squeeze a penalty out of the system these days.

It took a brilliant left-footer by the underrated Cameron – nursing a bum shoulder at the time – to prove my theory wrong.

On another umpiring topic, is there ever going to be another re-bounce again?

It no longer seems to matter if the centre bounce lands inside the circle, outside the circle, outside the square, or outside the stadium!

Go get it, rucks!

Add that to the six-six-six and you can have some dominant scoring chances off the bounces.

At the Gabba, great job, Brisbane.

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They scored the last 27 points of the game over the final five minutes to overrun fellow undefeated side Port Adelaide 107-90.

This was the kind of game that Carlton loses this season, and the Lions would have lost last year.

Some readers may remember that I’ve talked about the No.1 predictor of a ladder jumper is an abnormally high percentage compared to the win-loss record.

Last year, Collingwood was the best candidate, although not an exceptional one, and they leapt from 13th to third and the grand final.

In 2018, Brisbane came within a hair of having a percentage of 90 with a 5-17 record, something no team has ever done in the 120 years of the VFL/AFL.

Over the first three weeks, we’ve seen the precise reason why: three wins that may well have been ‘honourable losses’ last year, especially Saturday’s game at the Gabba.

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It wouldn’t be hard to imagine them flipping the script, maintaining a percentage of 110 or so and a record more like 17-5.

It’s a team with mostly the same players as last year – though Lachie Neale has been a remarkable catalyst – but that extra year of experience, and experience with each other, has made all the difference.

Unlike Port.

For the Power, much of the improvement is from the improvement of young players and the introduction of new studs like Connor Rozee, who was phenomenal against Brisbane on Saturday night.

Sam Powell-Pepper showed his maturity by being around the ball all night, and Paddy Ryder reminded us how great he is in the forward 50 when he’s healthy.

Finally, here’s another indicator of just how unpredictable this season’s been.

As of Saturday night, there have been eight games (of 24 in total) where all 19 of our prediction sources agreed on which team should win that game, including Melbourne and the Giants this weekend.

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Those favored teams are only 4-4.

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