Friday night’s game at Docklands was the first of the round where we were told who the umpires were on the AFL website.
They were Justin Power, Rob O’Gorman and Ray Chamberlain.
Justin Power is not yet a top 100 umpire, but Rob O’Gorman game took him past the wonderfully named Ivo Crapp.
It was the first senior coaching stint for Collingwood’s Craig McRae and his Magpies showed that they will be competitive this year.
According to their dad, it was the first time that Josh and Nick Daicos had played together and Collingwood fans would be hoping for another 200-plus games from them both.
Apart from Nick Daicos, the other new player for the Magpies was ex-Bulldog Patrick Lipinski. Lipinski – who wears the number one jumper – was among the main possession getters in the game and should be a handy addition to the young Magpie side.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The Saints also had two new additions to their team: Jack Hayes, who stood out as a great prospect, kicking three goals, and Mitch Owens.
Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera spent the night on the bench as an unused medical sub.
Jade Gresham kicked two goals for St Kilda, and became the 58th centurion in the club’s long history. Tim Membrey kicked three goals.
At Magpie land, the Daicos star may have risen, but the Shaw star slipped slightly. Jamie Elliott’s one goal took his tally to 200, the same achieved by former Magpie captain Ray Shaw. Jordan de Goey kicked two to draw level with former Magpies captain Tony Shaw.
Brody Mihocek kicked three to draw level with former Magpies favourite Ron Wearmouth.
Among the game players, Steele Sidebottom slipped past Scott Burns to be outright sixth on Collingwood’s greatest game players list, Brodie Grundy drew level with Peter Moore, father of current day star Darcy Moore, and Jack Crisp continued his incredible record of 158 consecutive games at Collingwood to equal the career games totals of Barry Price and Shane Wakelin.
The Saturday afternoon game broke the trend of the competing clubs both having surges where they dominated play and the scoreboard.
Geelong took a shell-shocked and undermanned Essendon out of the picture very early on and piled on goals virtually at will.
Tom Hawkins kicked four goals, but that was not enough to change his status as either an AFL top 100 goal scorer or a Geelong top 100 goal scorer.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
On the other hand, Patrick Dangerfield’s one outstanding game and goal not only lifted him into the top 100 game players at Geelong, but saw him pass former captain and gridiron kicker Ben Graham and equal Jack Evans on the Cats’ top 100 goal kickers.
“Copper” Evans, who came from Minyip, started at Geelong in 1929 and played in the 1931 and 1937 premierships and was the leading goal kicker at Geelong in 1935.
The trend that did continue was the outstanding debut by a player either new to AFL or new to the club after being picked up in the off season.
For Geelong, it was Tyson Stengle, whose ability has never been doubted with four quality goals, and for Essendon it was the exciting newbie Nic Martin who went one better with five goals.
Martin – like Saint Jack Hayes – was a mystery man in that he was not profiled in the AFL Record Season Guide.
Apart from Martin, Essendon did not have much to celebrate as their only three current top 100 goal kickers were not playing.
As game players, Dyson Heppell moved pass the ‘Gentle Giant’ ruckman Geoff Leek and Zach Merrett equalled the game tally of Les Gardiner, who played in three premierships for the Dons in 1946, 1949 and 1950.
Stephen Shortis
Roar Guru
Good work, Chris M. Parker is already Top 100 at the Swans. I think your Coleman trifecta is spot on, but there will be surprises! Rankine is already there as well due to the low "bar" at his young club.
Chris M
Guest
Heading the goal kicking list after one round are three smaller players, Luke Parker, Josh Rachele and Nic Martin with 5 goals. Tom Hawkins, Aaron Naughton and Joe Daniher are the best of the key forwards with 4 goals along with smalls, Tyson Stengle and Izak Rankine. If they stay fit, Hawkins, Naughton and Daniher will be featuring in your future changes to your top 100 list and will be in the top 10 in the race for the Coleman Medal at year’s end. Rachele and Rankine, and possibly Stengle, will be featuring in the top 100 goal kickers for their clubs in future years, and if not in goals, Luke Parker will be in top 100 games for Sydney by his contract’s end. Great start for Nic Martin. He may also feature in the top 100 eventually but in comparison to what he has achieved in lower tiers of competition, he likely has overachieved the level that we can come to expect in his first game. Buddy should add another 40 goals or at least 2 goals per game to his tally in 2022, even if he doesn’t quite manage his 2.8 average. We may have to wait till round 3 or 4 for his 1000th, particularly if we have wet weather as predicted next Friday in Sydney. If he stays fit, Buddy will be looking to pass Gary Ablett Snr’s career total by season’s end. He will also be looking to lift his career games total within the top 100.