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Opinion
I expressed my disappointment at last week’s capitulation by both North Melbourne and West Coast Eagles and hoped that Round 4 would produce some results that suggested the ladder was not already set in defining the 18 clubs into three groups of six – the top six sure to make the finals, the middle six in the mix for the final two spots in the eight, and the bottom six, who for whatever reason do not have the players to mount a challenge for a finals spot in 2022.
To their credit, both the Eagles and the Kangaroos bounced back, with the Eagles gaining the four points over the Magpies and the Kangaroos winning respect for their performance against the Swans but falling just short of victory.
Earlier in the round results went as expected, with the Melbourne juggernaut continuing to roll on and in the process making Port Adelaide’s repeat of a final-eight finish even less likely. The Friday night game confirmed the home-ground advantage that Fortress Kardinia Park provided to the Cats and underlined that they could win there against a quality team while still resting their captain.
There were then upsets galore, with two teams that I expected to win, Collingwood and Carlton, being defeated, two favoured teams, Sydney and Essendon, winning by less than two goals and two finalists from 2022 being thumped by six goals or more.
As a result, Melbourne sit supreme as the only undefeated team, but only one win separates the next ten teams, and another six teams are only one further win off the pace. The other bookend to Melbourne is the winless Port Adelaide, who – although it has been done before – face the unenviable task of climbing over ten teams to make the eight by the end of the year, so even now is dependent on other results going their way. They will be helped if the season continues its unpredictable and even start.
Individual highlights from the games included Jack Ziebell’s leadership qualities, as he showed the way in North Melbourne’s day of atonement for last week’s flogging. His five goals meant he moved from being the equal 30th leading goal kicker at the Kangaroos (with Craig Sholl and Donald McDonald) to outright 30th, but he is still a long way behind No. 29, the incredible Tom Fitzmaurice, who played his first game 60 days short of his 34th birthday, played for four years in the 1930s and kicked 196 goals.
In the Collingwood-West Coast game Tom Wilson (Collingwood), Luke Edwards (West Coast and son of Adelaide’s Tyson) and Patrick Naish (West Coast) all kicked their first AFL goal, and Steele Sidebottom joined former ruckman and 1972 Brownlow Medallist Len Thompson as Collingwood’s fifth-greatest game player.
In other games, Tim O’Brien (Western Bulldogs), Peter Ladhams (Sydney) and Trent Dumont (Port Adelaide) all restarted their AFL careers at their new club, and St Kilda’s Marcus Windhager started with his first AFL game.
Simon Goodwin matched the games coached record of the Geelong Flyer, Bob Davis, but with six fewer wins, and Michael Voss equalled the games coached record of former Collingwood captain Des Tuddenham. Umpire Rob Findlay equalled the games tally of Andrew Coates, while Andrew Stephens equalled Bob Scott.
In the AFL/VFL games played ranking, the elite David Mundy equalled Gary Ablett Junior, Lance Franklin equalled Nick Dal Santo and Simon Black, Jack Riewoldt equalled Tim Watson, Tom Hawkins joined seven others on 306 games, and Shannon Hurn equalled Jimmy Bartel and Shane Crawford. Jack Riewoldt, Jeremy Cameron and Jack Darling all moved up the AFL top 100 goal kickers list.
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