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Another week, another terrible tipping score – and another compelling round of AFL action!
Carlton seem like they’re back, GWS had the win that should finally give them the respect they deserve after a great start to life under Adam Kingsley, and the Tigers went full Richmond to storm through St Kilda and give Trent Cotchin the 300th game he deserved.
Port Adelaide and Brisbane are just about top-four locks, Collingwood lost their grip on top spot (though they’re almost certain to be back there in a week’s time), and even with only six games, the quality of football was largely sublime – provided you can’t see the colour purple and missed Gold Coast’s second quarter.
There was another dose of MRO drama, more dangerous tackles, and plenty else to dissect! Let’s dive in.
It says something about the colossal, raging Hindenburg my tipping season has been that the week I finally gave up on Carlton, after months of convincing myself (and trying to convince you) that they’d come good, they went out onto the MCG and did… that.
No quarter for the season has been as spectacular to witness as the Blues’ nine-goal second term onslaught that smashed an in-form Gold Coast team, and its powerful midfield in particular, to smithereens. At least when Geelong did something similar to Hawthorn on Easter Monday, it was the reigning premiers on the then-favourites for the wooden spoon.
Six of those goals came directly from centre bounces – to put that in comparison, the AFL record for a full GAME was set by Adelaide last week, with eight from the middle against the woeful West Coast. Obscene.
Nine goals in a term, from a team that for their previous five games had kicked six, six, six, seven and eight. Also obscene.
Let’s get a few things out of the way first: Gold Coast were pathetic. With just nine tackles and 53 possessions in the second term in addition to getting utterly obliterated out of the centre, there was no plan and no desire to even stem the bleeding – made even worse by the fact that, in kicking the first two goals of the game, they were up and away from the outset.
It was a display that just about undid their superb pair of wins in Darwin over Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs, and pretty much confirms that they are once again a long way off being a consistent finals contender – it’s harsh, but such was the abysmal performance they put out on the MCG that it’s warranted.
Because of the paper-thin resistance the Suns offered, it’s important to take the Blues’ stunning display with a grain of salt. They’re not going to be able to kick six goals from centre bounces in 20 minutes on a regular basis – hell, it’s a given they won’t come close to that again for the rest of the year.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t compelling, nor that it sheds some light into just how irresistible the Blues can be. Their surge footy from the middle, running away from hapless Suns with power and explosive speed and either hitting up a leading Charlie Curnow or Harry McKay or driving the ball longer, bringing it to ground and then tackling with murderous intent, was worthy of a premiership contender, and would have been too much for just about every team going around anyway.
Just as impressive was their attacking ball movement from defence on the rare occasions the Suns got something going – on the front foot with aggressive kicks into the corridor and looking to catch their opposition out on the turnover, they’d have had almost as much success from this source were it not for a few set-shot shanks late in the term that prevented a double-figure goals tally.
This was a performance to epitomise all the Blues’ strengths. Their midfield, for the first time all year, looked as menacing as it did at their best in 2022.
The forward line, for the first time since probably the days of Eddie Betts, Jarrad Waite and Jeff Garlett, looked like more than a one-man band: just one major from Curnow of those nine, with seven different goalkickers, will have gladdened Voss’ heart as much as anything.
The Blues don’t need to be that good all the time to be a premiership force. That would be impossible. But for this to be their ceiling is utterly terrifying, for opposition supporters who have to put up with Blues fans at work tomorrow as much as for rival clubs.
Their next mission? Back it up after next week’s poorly timed bye against a dangerous foe in Hawthorn that can nevertheless concede goals in a flood.
Get it done there, and finals might just be on the cards once more – who would have thunk it?
Matthew Owies of the Blues celebrates a goal with teammates. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Slowly but surely, every week the AFL has formed a basic stance around both what constitutes a dangerous tackle, and the appropriate penalties for it.
We’ll get to the issues with those penalties in the next point, but I think Jarrod Berry escaping any suspension for his tackle on Will Hayward on Friday night was the most encouraging sign of all the league and Match Review Officer Michael Christian have got the parameters right.
Similarly, I think we’ve reached a point where we can broadly accept that Lachie Whitfield deserves a week for his tackle on Jordan Clark – he pins the arm, drags him to ground, and Clark’s head hits the ground.
It has naturally received a backlash on Twitter, but then so did the AFL straight out banning head-high bumps a decade ago (remember the ‘Bump is Dead’ headlines?) and we’ve all now adapted to the point where there is no doubt Sam Wicks deserves two weeks for elbowing Ryan Lester in the face, even if the Lion wasn’t knocked out by it.
And this clearing up of the debate comes just in the nick of time – because for the first half of this season, the AFL’s desperate attempt to crack down on any player being put in a concussion-risking situation, when confronted by the clubs and their lawyers’ bids to leave no stone unturned to free their suspended players, has been an utter shambles.
A month ago, before Rory Laird, Adam Cerra and Dan Butler all had dangerous tackle charges thrown out at the Tribunal, Berry may well have got a week for taking Hayward to ground as he did.
But it would have been wrong – Hayward’s desperate attempts to break clear of the tackle did far more in taking him to ground than the Lion did, and in keeping both arms free Berry did everything the AFL has instructed players to do. Had he indeed been handed a week, then no doubt he would have been cleared at the first appeal.
At the same time, I’m comfortable with it being a free kick on the field – this is probably where my take starts to become quite spicy, so bear with me.
The reason for this is simple: one of the biggest issues facing the game, and clogging it up to the extent it has in the last two decades, has been the greater emphasis on tackling.
For both reasons of it benefitting team defence, and also because modern players are more likely to be rewarded for tackling in the form of holding the ball decisions than ever before, it has become the centrepiece of how every team goes about its business, especially at stoppages.
Given the backwards step taken last year, where the ‘Ginnivan rule’ allowed players greater freedom to tackle high if the player being tackled lowered their body, I’m entirely fine with the onus now being on tacklers to execute perfectly or give away frees.
Berry’s is a harsh case, but while he did nothing wrong sufficient enough to deserve a suspension, I’d make the case that in order to avoid giving away a dangerous tackle free, it’s fine for him to be required to do everything in his power to arrest Hayward’s momentum and hold him to his feet to win a holding the ball free, rather than allowing himself to be dragged to ground.
I’d also suggest this is a reasonable thing to strive for given the spate of players throwing themselves to the ground to try and win dangerous tackle frees – if tacklers have it hard-wired into them that to go to ground risks giving away the ball, then surely they’ll be trying as hard as they can to keep their feet wherever possible.
It should, in principle at least, make spotting the fakers easier, because there will be no doubt who caused the forward momentum that saw them touch grass, so to speak.
Nathan O’Driscoll is tackled by Stephen Coniglio. (Photo by Matt King/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )
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It’s surely clear to just about everyone that the AFL has a problem when it comes to the length of suspensions they’re dishing out.
The issue is this: there is no room currently under Michael Christian’s Match Review Officer guidelines to distinguish between freak accidents in the heat of play, and deliberate, dirty acts that need to be stamped out of the game.
The perfect case is that Wicks received a two-match suspension for his ugly elbow to Lester’s head – The Roar’s video of the incident calls it a ‘dog shot’ and it’s hard to disagree – while both Rhyan Mansell and James Sicily are currently staring at three-match bans for incidents that are obviously both accidental.
I don’t like players getting heavier penalties for split-second misjudgements like Mansell’s – you’ll recall I recommended last week a two-match ban would be appropriate for his hit on James Aish – than acts like Wicks’, who lined Lester up from metres away, jumped at him with no thoughts other than to collect him, and struck him in the head.
My solution is simple: remove the ‘conduct’ part of the MRO guidelines. It’s useless, anyway – the only time Christian ever switches it from ‘careless’ to ‘intentional’ is for the really serious hits, like Andrew Gaff’s punch on Andrew Brayshaw in 2018. If Jordan De Goey’s bump on Elijah Hewett, or Kysaiah Pickett’s on Bailey Smith, or Wicks’ on Lester, are only deemed ‘careless’, then we have a problem.
Replacing it would then be a ‘contesting the footy’ parameter. This would determine whether the offending player infringed in the act of either contesting the ball or a player with it – bringing under its umbrella all dangerous tackles – or whether it was sufficiently late and unnecessary to fall outside it.
Acts deemed as ‘contesting the footy’ would automatically receive no more than two-match suspensions for all but the most serious cases – ‘severe’ impact or higher – and one for the majority.
The ones that aren’t? Three weeks flat out for cases of ‘medium’ impact and ‘high’ or ‘body’ contact, with anything even more serious – ‘high’ or ‘severe’ impact – to go straight to the Tribunal.
There would also be room for Christian, as there is now, to decide whether this criteria isn’t fitting for certain acts – so a particularly nasty dangerous tackle like Nathan Broad’s can still be sent to the Tribunal if a two-week sanction just doesn’t cut it.
Sicily? One week, two at most. Pickett and De Goey? A month, or three weeks if they’re lucky.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it would solve the issue of consistency between bans, and stop the constant and justified complaint that ‘Player X got fewer weeks for even worse’.
At the very least, it would create a distinction between the worst incidents we see and the unfortunate accidents, and stop players paying a greater penalty for the latter if the injury caused is high. At the moment, it’s all dreadfully unbalanced.
With Liam Jones and Tim O’Brien both injured before half time against North Melbourne – and Jones in particular looks done for a while to come – Luke Beveridge had no choice but to do what he has been resisting for four years, and throw Aaron Naughton back.
Did it work? Not in the least. The Dogs still leaked goals like a sieve out the back, with the ease of scoring keeping North in the game throughout the second and third terms. By three quarter time, they had 13 scores from 27 inside 50s – not the stat line of an AFL standard defence.
The last quarter featured some of the worst defending I’ve ever seen, even by the standards of the first quarter – and the wretched Naughton kick that gifted the Roos a goal is pretty much exactly why he went forward to begin with.
Aside from that, he equalised a few contests, though he was dragged up the ground too easily by Callum Coleman-Jones, leaving space out the back for Nick Larkey one out against Alex Keath.
But there was enough to suggest, in a post-Jones world, it’s worth persisting with, given the key back stocks in the VFL are Ryan Gardner and James O’Donnell.
The Dogs’ forward line didn’t suffer much from his absence, either, with space opening up for the dangerous Cody Weightman to kick six goals and break the game open in the third quarter.
With Rory Lobb and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan still options, the latter of who is an accurate kicking day away from a serious haul, the Dogs aren’t short for talks, pardon the pun.
I’ve been against the move for a while, but the Dogs won’t be winning a flag this year or any year without finding a way to patch up their defence, especially with Jones likely to be on the sidelines for a while.
Naughton has great hands, reads the play well, follows up at ground level, and could well be the long term key interceptor the Dogs have been crying out for since prime Easton Wood.
But it’s not a move the Dogs would need to make unless they were desperate, which they most assuredly do.
There are two ways to look at what played out at Giants Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The most common thus far has been to decry Fremantle’s performance as ghastly. Which is true. Their ball movement going forward was far sloppier than at any point in the four-match winning streak that revived their season up until last week; their defence was as disorganised as it was in the bad old days of the early rounds, and their midfield was handed a total and utter lesson, particularly at the coalface.
But somewhat lost in that, as it has been all year, was how good GWS were. Having flown under the radar with week after week of either narrow wins off Broadway or honourable losses against more respected opposition, this was a performance to confirm that the Giants under Adam Kingsley have a bright future ahead.
Defensively, they are mighty tough to score on, and a much-improved Freo forward set-up was reduced to aimless bombs long mopped up time and again by the Giants’ talented tall backs. Helped by pressure aplenty on the ball carrier and the Dockers’ largely sub-par skills, Sam Taylor, Jack Buckley, the re-reinvented Harry Himmelberg and Connor Idun feasted.
Up forward, not even the pre-game loss of Jesse Hogan could dampen their scoring power – indeed, it probably helped, with Alex Pearce and Brennan Cox simply not mobile enough to go with the lighter, lither Jake Riccardi. The result was five goals, most of them on the lead, to cement his name as a star on the rise.
Then, of course, there are the usual suspects – Toby Greene bagged another four goals and proved un-matchuppable, Lachie Whitfield provided his usual drive and defensive cover off a wing – his and Finn Callaghan’s work rate to clog up space in the backline and then slingshot forward into attack deserves more credit than it’s getting – and Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio and Tom Green perfectly complement each other as an on-ball trio with class, spread and grunt to spare.
Throw in the wildcard that is Kieren Briggs, whose bullocking strength and follow-up tackling pressure completely overpowered Luke Jackson in the ruck, and little wonder the Giants won the clearance count by 10, the tackle count by 13 and the contested possession count by 24.
It’s not quite the flashy, eye-catching footy of the ‘Orange Tsunami’ of old, but it’s a gamestyle compelling to watch all the same. The Giants are brutal in close, fierce defensively, and still retain enough of their old polish and silk to rip a team like the Dockers apart if they’re not switched on.
They’re not a team to fear just yet – though you certainly can’t play them expecting an easy win – but it’s impossible to not respect the Giants. They’ve lost a swathe of talent over the last few years, but where a similar exodus saw Gold Coast hit rock bottom in the late 2010s, GWS have found a way to succeed all the same.
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I reckon I’ve been to Marvel Stadium 500 times in 25 years as a footy fan, and this scene on Sunday night is without doubt the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen at the venue.
I don’t know whether cordoning off two thirds of the top deck is an AFL initiative or something pushed by North Melbourne, but whoever is responsible, this is just embarrassing.
The Kangaroos were never going to fill the stadium against the Bulldogs, but whatever the reason, be it saving on maintenance or security or just to make the crowd look bigger on TV, it’s absolutely ridiculous.
28,000 people came to the game in the end – the security guard we asked told us they had planned for 18,000.
Seriously.
Those in attendance were crammed onto one side like sardines – the TV side, because of course – with not just the opposite wing left free, but behind the goals at both ends too.
The fact that an equally sparsely attended game between the Bulldogs and Port Adelaide – a non-Victorian team – last Friday night just makes this call even more disrespectful.
Frankly one of the joys of supporting one of the non-powerhouse Victorian clubs is the ability to actually breathe at games – if you’re really lucky, you might even get half an aisle to yourself.
Losing that against the Kangaroos was infuriating. North fans have it tough enough without being subjected to this nonsense, too.
Random thoughts
– Parker Cotchin melted my heart.
– I think we all knew the missing link for the Blues all year was Lachie Fogarty, right?
– I hate Geelong naming Patrick Dangerfield in the back pocket on their Wednesday night team sheet. It’s a pretty pointless thing to be annoyed about, but I am.
– I just don’t get why Blues fans booed Levi Casboult. Your team kicked him out!
– I was convinced Jake Riccardi was going to be beaten by the siren here. He got it in my miles!
– YES.
– Harley Reid is going to be obscene.
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