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Opinion
Round 1, 2021, started the season in typical fashion, with some results as expected, some major upsets, some blowout games, some close games, some tribunal appearances, some injury blows, some players with a new lease on life at a new ‘home’ and some new recruits bursting on to the scene.
Life started out as normal, with the rampant Tigers easily (in the end) accounting for an improving Carlton. This was Richmond’s 11th win in a row against the Blues, and the club now shares the longest current winning sequence against another club.
This tie will be resolved in Round 14 when Port Adelaide, who led the competition for every week during the home-and-away season in 2020, attempt to beat Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium. This won’t be as easy, as in every year since 2012 as the Suns started the season with a spirited loss to West Coast Eagles in the west.
It was also the round in which the league’s two new coaches, Ben Rutten (Essendon) and David Noble (North Melbourne), learned the harsh realities of AFL football: a performance where your team shows enough ability to match it with the opposition for some of the game means nothing unless you are ahead at the final siren.
A comparison of the playing careers of these two coaches proves the point that coaching ability has little to do with playing ability. Rutten was a former star at Adelaide, where he played over 220 games for the Crows, while Noble managed a league career of two games at Fitzroy in 1991.
A similar scenario exists for the two coaches who this round made it into the top 100 coaches of all time. Simon Goodwin also had a stellar career at Adelaide where he played 275 games over 15 years, including two premierships. Chris Fagan, who turns 50 this year, never played league football but has proved to be an outstanding coach in his time at the Lions.
Both coaches were at the coaching helm for the 88th time this weekend and joined a crowded ‘hot seat’ of seven former coaches who mostly lost their jobs after four 22 game unsuccessful seasons of no finals. The two coaches will move up the list in tandem during the home-and-away season.
In total 48 players ran out on the ground for their first game at a new club. For 22 it was their first game at any league club, while another 26 had already tasted league football and were lining up for a second or third attempt at a new club.
There were a number of notable efforts. For Sydney both Errol Gulden and Logan McDonald kicked three goals in the Swans’ upset victory over last year’s final-eight contender Brisbane in their first AFL game. When Port Adelaide finally broke loose of North Melbourne, ex-Bomber Orazio Fantasia showed his wares with four goals.
The best goal-kicking effort of Round 1 was that of former Adelaide captain Taylor Walker, who bagged five goals in the major upset of the round, the Crows winning over last year’s grand final runner-up, Geelong. Walker, already an AFL top 100 goal kicker, took his goal tally to 446 and leapt nine positions up the top 100 goal scorers list, passing Dick Reynolds, Alan Ruthven, Jim Freake, Gary Ablett, Jack Dyer, Drew Petrie, Alex Jesaulenko, Robert Walls and Malcolm Blight.
Jack Riewoldt kicked four on Thursday night, but his position did not change, while Lance Franklin, Eddie Betts, Jack Gunston and Jeremy Cameron did not play.
The scene is set for an exciting 2021 AFL season, with the gap between Richmond and the pursuing herd getting smaller as the young guns mature into quality players at an ever-faster rate.
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