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The AAMI Community Series is done and dusted, with the final six teams duking it out to try and head into the proper stuff with renewed confidence.
As with every pre-season, there were plenty of highlights, the odd talking point, and the occasional goal – and you’d be mad to give most of it any meaning whatsoever.
Here’s what we learned from Saturday.
Trent Cotchin should get a week
Will Trent Cotchin cop a suspension for his clash with James Harmes, during which he appeared to drop an elbow into the Demons tagger?
Almost certainly not. And on face value, nothing he did was worth even a week.
But it’s also the kind of completely unnecessary, dirty play that the AFL has been far too lax in trying to stamp out in recent years. Even if he doesn’t get a suspension, what Cotchin did is at best an ordinary look for himself and the game as a whole.
I wrote last year after another incident in which Cotchin appeared to lash out with a boot at Taylor Walker’s leg that this sort of chief, faux-aggro stuff is beneath a guy who’s won three premierships and deserves to go down as a legend of the game.
It’s one thing to play on the edge, but it’s called tough but fair for a reason, and dropping a forearm into the neck of an already pinned bloke, no matter what he does to instigate it, frankly sucks.
Ultimately, like it is in the real world with fines and jail time, you punish things you want to stamp out. I’d rather see incidents like Cotchin’s cop a week than something like Braydon Preuss’ ugly tackle on Tom Berry during the GWS-Gold Coast game, where the big ruckman got his timing horribly wrong trying to impose himself on the young Sun, got him too low as he jumped, and ended with the sort of impact sure to be looked at by the MRO.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Cotchin gets off and Preuss cops a week for their incidents. But if the AFL are serious in stamping out unnecessary dog acts, they’ll at least be sending a fine the Tigers veteran’s way.
James Harmes of the Demons is chased by Trent Cotchin of the Tigers. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The Dogs can ride out losing Dunkley
Losing your reigning best and fairest winner to a rival club is never ideal, but if ever a team is capable of riding that out, it’s the Western Bulldogs this year.
This is where it helps to have more midfielders than you really know what to do with. Josh Dunkley was excellent on Friday night for Brisbane, and will be one of the recruits of this season; but the Dogs showed against North Melbourne they have enough cattle to cover the hole he leaves.
Jack Macrae returned to a full-time on-ball role, having spent stints on a wing last year, and was awesome. Tom Liberatore was on the bottom of every pack, winning eight clearances and even chipping in with a couple of goals. Marcus Bontempelli did Marcus Bontempelli things.
Importantly, all three are comfortably better kicks than Dunkley, and therefore safer with the ball when moving forward. Considering the talls the Dogs have at their disposal these days, that’s an important trait.
As for the next cabs off the rank, both Bailey Smith and Adam Treloar are more than capable of filling an on-ball brigade to give one of that trio a spell, and offer pace and game-breaking intent when they’re allowed to play more on the outside. Smith in particular was at his damaging best, and his kicking inside 50 was better against the Roos than it has been for a while. (Admittedly, that’s from a very low base.)
Yes, it was only North, but Jy Simpkin, Ben Cunnington and Luke Davies-Uniacke is a pretty reasonable midfield to come up against, and the Dogs brutalised them all afternoon. The defence remains a concern, but with that midfield kicking to a forward line that will be hard to contain, especially under the roof at Marvel Stadium, the 2016 premiers could kick a few cricket scores in 2023.
The Giants have a secret weapon
If you’re looking for a smoky for the Rising Star Award this season, then may I present Finn Callaghan.
After just five games in his first year in the big time in 2022, I couldn’t have been more impressed with the young Giant’s performance against Gold Coast. His impact was more than his 22 disposals, six marks or two goals really does justice: you just feel safer when the ball is in his hands.
Callaghan is as classy a midfielder as the Giants have had on those hands since that 2017-2020 period where Josh Kelly was the smoothest mover in the game. He never looks rushed, he kicks it beautifully, and he does stuff like this.
The loss of Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper will surely mean Adam Kingsley turns to youth to form the crux of his midfield in 2022: between Tom Green’s bullocking work at the coalface and Callaghan’s class on the outside – not to mention, Kelly, Stephen Coniglio and Lachie Whitfield, all of whom I’m told go alright – the new coach has plenty of toys to play with in his first season at the helm.
‘Gawndy’ is a go for launch
There are still a few bugs to iron out, but Brodie Grundy and Max Gawn proved against Richmond that their much-hyped combination has every chance of working.
It wasn’t so much their efforts in the ruck, where the Dees didn’t get their usual dominance at the coalface against a juiced-up Tigers midfield, that would have gladdened Simon Goodwin’s heart; rather, it was their impact up forward.
You might not have noticed, it’s a pretty obscure detail, but both Gawn and Grundy are relatively large men. And whenever the ball went their way inside 50, the Tigers backs got seriously nervous.
Both ended up with three goals, and if Grundy can keep getting away with some pretty blatant shoves in the back – yes, just like Tom Hawkins has been doing for years – then he could definitely kick 30-plus goals this year. If Gawn can do the same, that’s a huge boost for a team that struggled mightily to convert inside 50s in 2022.
It also has a tangible benefit on Tom McDonald, whose mix of height and mobility forced a number of mismatches from the Tigers. McDonald also bagged three in his first senior run since early last season – the Dees missed him tremendously late last year, and his presence alone today instantly made them look more threatening.
Is Dylan Grimes… cooked?
Footy tends to catch up with you fast, and it’s safe to say I’m concerned it’s done just that to Dylan Grimes.
The Tigers co-captain looked a long way off his best last year, and spent the last few weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury, and the same issues were apparent in his game as they leaked 121 points to a slick Melbourne.
At his best, Grimes’ closing speed was among the best in the business, and left him capable of zoning off direct opponents to position himself for intercept marks or as part of a zone defence, while also never letting the opposition’s guns drift far enough that he couldn’t do something about it.
It earned him an All-Australian blazer in 2019, when he was just about the best defender in the game, as well as a crucial role in three Richmond premierships. But as the Demons found acres of space inside 50 to take marks galore, he always seemed a step or even more out of sync with the play.
Grimes at his best could play on talls and smalls alike and was rarely beaten; the issue is now, if that closing speed is gone or at least hampered, he doesn’t really have another physical attribute to fall back on. He’s not overly tall, or powerful, and duking it out one-on-one hasn’t been a strength since 2020 at the most recent.
(Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
You can’t carry players to the finish line, especially in defence; for Grimes and the Tigers’ sake, I’m hoping it was just some standard pre-season rust and he’ll be better for the run.
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