Opinion
The first round of football in 2022 produced its share of highlights and lowlights. It boosted a number of careers and put others under the spotlight immediately.
It all started with the rerun of last year’s grand final on Wednesday night in which nine of the possible 11 top-100 club players took part. The odd ones out were Bulldogs Mitch Wallis, whose star appears to be on the wane, and Jason Johannisen, who was a late withdrawal due to soreness.
Wallis played only six games last year for a return of four goals and appears likely to lose his ranking as the second highest current goal scorer at the Bulldogs over the next few weeks to Aaron Naughton, whose four goals brought up his century of majors for the club and moved him ahead of Richard Osborne, who spent three years at Footscray.
Marcus Bontempelli kicked one to extend his lead, and Bailey Dale got one also.
For the Demons, two of their top 100 goal scorers, Christian Petracca and Bayley Fritsch, kicked two goals each, while captain Max Gawn’s boomer at a critical time took him to within one goal of joining Melbourne’s elite top 100 goal scorers.
The bad news of the opening game was the injury to Christian Salem. In the grand final last year Salem climbed into the hot seat of Melbourne’s games-played list and rose this week to join Albie Rodda, who played in five grand finals for three wins and a draw, and Peter ‘Crackers’ Keenan, one of the colourful characters of the 1970s and 80s.
Salem’s injury means he may be stuck on 131 games for a while and may be swamped by Petracca, Clayton Oliver, James Harmes and Angus Brayshaw, who are all within striking distance.
As expected of the two 2021 grand finalists, there were no debutantes. Simon Goodwin coached his 113th game to draw level with Danny Frawley on the AFL top 100 coaches list.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
In the round’s second match, the now traditional first round encounter between Richmond and Carlton, the Blues were out to break the Tigers’ eight-year dominance, and they did it in style.
Their cause was helped by imports Adam Cerra and George Hewett, who were two of the five Blues players who led the possession count at the end of the game.
Near the other end of the disposals list was Richmond’s new recruit from North Melbourne, Robbie Tarrant, who achieved only 11 possessions but could rightly argue that this was more than Carlton’s Harry McKay, who also kicked only one goal.
The newbie in the game was Richmond’s Josh Gibcus, who no doubt will be claimed by Queensland, Western Australia and Ballarat.
Patrick Cripps starred for Carlton in a game in which he equalled the playing record of George Ferry, a solid, strong and determined fullback who developed a great understanding with his back-pocket teammate Bruce Comben. Ferry played for the Blues during another bleak era for the club, between 1952 and 1961.
At Richmond, their current five top top-100 players all played, with Shane Edwards matching the games played by former Tiger full-forward Matthew Richardson. Jack Riewoldt’s game moved him higher up the AFL games played list, but his one goal still leaves him two short of cousin Nick as a goal scorer. Tom Lynch kicked two goals for the Tigers to keep alive his chances of being an AFL top-100 goal kicker by year’s end.
New Carlton coach Michael Voss, who over his career has coached nearly as many games as Chris Fagan and Simon Goodwin, would no doubt consider Round 1, 2022, as one of his sweetest victories.
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The Blues have truly stood up and are a genuine flag threat in 2024 and they have their younger brigade of troops to thank for it.
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