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Everything was progressing just about according to plan in Round 17 – until Sunday evening threw the whole finals race into chaos once again.
We’ve now got a clear top four, with Collingwood and Port Adelaide streaking clear, Brisbane nipping at their heels and Melbourne doing enough to stave off an injury-cursed St Kilda… but from fifth to 15th, it’s still as tight as ever.
Carlton might have sounded the death knell on Freo’s season to jump back to 11th with a huge win in Perth, Richmond did likewise to Sydney with a courageous comeback at the MCG, and the biggest winners of all were Essendon. More on them in a bit.
We’ve got seven rounds to go, and finals are still there for the taking for just about everyone! Let’s dive in.
If you were after a sign that you could take Essendon seriously as a finals contender, then that was it.
You’ve got to be a good team to look at Adelaide, see their power-packed forward line and electric game plan, and decide to try and take them on in a shootout. You’ve got to be even better to beat them anyway.
The Bombers took the Crows’ trademark and threw it back in their face. They were tougher around the ball, quicker in open space, more disciplined defensively and more dangerous in attack.
The result was a 17-goal masterpiece under the Marvel Stadium roof, five of them coming in a 12-minute burst of pure awesomeness to start the game that the Crows never truly recovered from.
I wrote last week that the Bombers had plenty to be proud of in defeat to Port Adelaide, and this was vindication.
More often than not this year they’ve been found narrowly wanting against the true best teams in the competition, twice losing narrowly to the Power, throwing away a famous Anzac Day win against Collingwood with a wretched final term and getting outlasted by Brisbane at the Gabba. This was the statement win over another strong team they needed to prove their legitimacy once and for all in 2023.
So impressive were they that I’m prepared to be bold and say this: Essendon can win the premiership this year.
Now, to be clear, that doesn’t mean that they will. They’re still vulnerable defensively against repeat entries, which the Crows proved by kicking 15 goals despite nearly 100 fewer disposals. If Jordan Ridley’s knee injury proves serious, that becomes even more of a problem.
Sam Weideman has now gone six weeks without a goal and his place in the team now probably depends on how long it takes Sam Draper’s hip to heal, given Brad Scott’s preference to pair him with Andrew Phillips in the ruck.
But that’s about every problem I can find with the Bombers: they are brilliant around the ball, tackling as ferociously as I’ve ever seen a red and black team, and are incredibly disciplined behind the ball, especially when defending kicks out of their attacking 50. There was a period late in the second quarter when the Crows, for a good five minutes, simply could not get out of their defensive half, time after time meeting a Bomber brick wall spearheaded by Ridley.
All I’m saying is this: the Bombers are fifth, have a very handy run home, and have proved three times this year to have the game and the stones to take it right up to the two premier teams in the competition.
We’d be talking about them very differently if it was Geelong or Richmond doing this, and not a team with 19 years since their last finals win. And they strike me as a team who, if they break that September hoodoo, could do just what Richmond did after their own finals drought ended in 2017 and go on for a deep, meaningful run.
Get excited, Bombers fans: you have my permission to start dreaming big.
Kyle Langford celebrates a goal. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
WRITING
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Hopefully I’ve written enough this year about the extraordinary talent Nick Daicos is after just one and a half seasons for the following point to receive a measured response.
Because while he was again fantastic on Friday night in Collingwood’s win over the Western Bulldogs, I thought him receiving the Bob Rose-Charlie Sutton Medal for best afield smacked of reputational advantage.
It’s long been a concern of mine regarding the Brownlow Medal in particular that the award’s heaviest favourites will often poll in games where their stats merit it, but their actual output doesn’t. I think a similar thing happened with Daicos on Friday night.
There were still highlights – that pick up and goal with the outside of the boot in the third quarter, my goodness – but on the whole, the younger Daicos’ performance was more workmanlike than the flashy, skillful, outside highlights that usually accompany his games.
Take the first half: while Daicos had had 13 disposals and a whopping six clearances – all in the first quarter alone – the Bulldogs did an exceptional job to limit his space and restrict his ability to win handball receives. As a result, while he was getting his hands to the ball plenty, just five of his touches were kicks, and his 160 metres gained was well below what you’d usually expect of the Magpies’ most effective ball-user.
In all honesty, if Tom Mitchell had had the exact game Daicos had – and he’s had plenty of them over the years – he might get a Brownlow vote for his troubles thanks to his two goals, but there’s next to no chance he’s winning any best afield honours.
The frustrating part for me is that it has overshadowed some truly remarkable performances from Magpies on Friday night that, as they have for much of this year, haven’t received the credit they’re due.
I wrote about Isaac Quaynor immediately after the match, and am still adamant that to have anyone else best afield after his eight intercept marks and constant polished ball use is a mistake.
Honestly, I had five Magpies (and two Bulldogs) ahead of Daicos straight after the match. Along with Quaynor, I thought the returning Jordan De Goey was tremendous, and the Dogs had no answer for his brute strength in exploding from stoppages and sending the Pies forward.
John Noble, too, was outstanding, with his raw pace and desire to take the game on from half-back suiting his team down to the ground. I hope he polls Brownlow votes in both the Pies’ last two games, because he’s one of their unsung heroes, and it would be a lot harder for them to slingshot with quite the same speed and menace without him.
The stats won’t show it, but I thought similarly of Jack Crisp’s game – I think it’s underrated just how fast he is. Craig McRae flirted with him as a pure inside mid during his first few games, but this season he has returned to his customary half-back role with a licence to thrill, and with 507 metres gained, no Pie gave his team more territory on Friday night.
Lastly, considering how the Pies struggled to hit the scoreboard with their usual regularity in the first half, with the Dogs’ defensive press holding up admirably given both the quality of their opponents and their own weakness in that regard, Jamie Elliott’s three first-half goals were priceless. With no Brody Mihocek or Daniel McStay in attack, someone needed to step up and be the spearhead: too good one-on-one for Taylor Duryea and too quick and smart in his leading patterns for anyone else, he was the reason the Magpies went into half time just one point in arrears having been largely outplayed.
None of this is a knock on Nick Daicos – if anything, his ability to go into the midfield and become an in-and-under distributor is just another string to his bow, and should nip any lingering criticism of his supposed cheap possessions in the bud.
But just as happened regularly with Dustin Martin at Richmond, continually focussing on one extraordinary young footballer is beginning to come at a detriment to appreciating and rewarding others at the ladder-leaders who are going just as well.
Nick Daicos of the Magpies celebrates a goal. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
I’ll come right out and say it: Fremantle’s loss to Carlton on Sunday evening was every bit as horrifying as many of West Coast’s performances this year.
Yes, the margin was about the third the size of the worst of their crosstown rivals’, and their list remains in inordinately better shape. But given the significance of the match, given the expectations on the Dockers heading into 2023, to be comprehensively monstered on their own turf by a team that headed into the match 15th on the lader is as dire as it gets.
Carlton, it must be said, were excellent, ratifying their recent form turnaround with a stunning dominance of the hard ball, more precise ball movement into attack, and with Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow looking every bit as lethal as they should have been all season long.
From nowhere, the Blues are just a game and percentage out of finals, and while the run home is perilous, with matches against Collingwood, Port Adelaide and Melbourne to come, suddenly all those games seem eminently winnable.
(Just as a reminder: I did warn everyone to not be too quick to write the Blues off midway through their awful losing streak. Vindication?)
But back to Freo. I don’t know what has happened to the team that won four games in a row a month ago to race back into the eight, but it’s gone now.
The Dockers are still playing the same handball-happy, daring brand that was behind their surge after a stodgy start to the year: but ever since GWS did a number on them, teams have been pretty quick to work them out.
The Blues swamped them with waves of pressure, denied them the easy corridor use they crave, and they were shown up badly at the contest.
No one really worked out Freo’s miserly defensive press last season – getting to the semi-finals with a still-young list and a dearth of quality key forwards was about as good as they could have hoped for. 12 months on, and instead of improvement, the Dockers have seen both Plans A and B thoroughly dissected and turned against them in 17 rounds.
Some serious soul-searching needs to be done in the off-season, and maybe a replenishing of off-field personnel for some fresh ideas. Justin Longmuir has proven himself a quality AFL coach in his four seasons at the helm – but for the sake of a club that has waited a long time to be competitive again, something needs to change.
(Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
I’ve been surprised to see Sam Mitchell find no room for Finn Maginness in his team for most of this season. Having risen to prominence as a tagger in 2022 and shutting down Nick Daicos in the pre-season, the father-son Hawk had played just five matches for the year before Saturday’s clash with GWS.
His sixth, though, was an all timer: few if any taggers have done their job any better than his total shutdown of Josh Kelly. And Maginness’ success is something every other coach should be looking closely at.
For starters, there are the obvious benefits of reducing the opposition’s prime mover to six disposals – the lowest of Kelly’s career when not involved in a substitution. He blew a knee 20 minutes into the 2018 elimination final and still got seven touches.
Kelly’s complete invisibility robbed the Giants of their usual spread and clean breakaway from stoppages, and it enabled Hawthorn to put their strength – their coalface muscle – to good effect.
That they had 41 clearances to 26 against one of the game’s most underrated midfields proves that it didn’t impact their structure around the ball, either – one of the long-held points against taggers has been the notion that it leaves teams a man down at stoppages. Clearly, with Jai Newcombe and James Worpel racking up clearances, that wasn’t a problem.
Maginness, for his part, ended with 15 disposals, and while he won’t get a Brownlow vote, I’d argue he should. Thanks in no small part to him, the Hawks got within 13 points of a clearly superior opponent in red-hot form, and restricted one of their biggest weapons into almost nonexistence.
It’s something Adelaide could have done with when allowing Zach Merrett to rack up 39 game-changing disposals on Sunday afternoon, or Sydney on Thursday night when Shai Bolton took the game by the scruff of the throat. There are some players in the league who it is worth shutting down even if it means some small sacrifice of your own, and Hawthorn and Maginness proved that on Saturday.
Even if it doesn’t change anything, though, a tip of the cap has to go to Maginness for a job well done, and a spot in the Hawks team now surely secure.
Up next for Hawthorn is a clash with North Melbourne under the Marvel Stadium roof. Look out, Luke Davies-Uniacke…
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Teams don’t often lose 14 games in a row – especially on the back of two-win, four-and-a-half-win and three-win seasons in the three years prior.
But while things have been bleak for a while and will continue to be for some time yet, and periods in their first half against Geelong on Sunday were as bad as it gets, it’s worth keeping this in mind: North Melbourne will be fine.
Yes, they are bad. Yes, the light at the end of the tunnel is still a long way away, especially when George Wardlaw is a late out. But the worm always turns in footy – it’s part of what makes being a supporter in this league far more worthwhile than in many other competitions around the world.
The Roos’ period at rock bottom is only into its fourth year: Carlton spent six years there after the salary cap fiasco of the mid-2000s, and even now have won just two finals since. Richmond and Essendon both went decades, the latter’s still ongoing, as a running joke. Most pertinently, Melbourne had perhaps one and a half decent seasons around a swathe of unimaginable misery between 2007 and 2014.
All of those above teams had periods where they were just as bad as North Melbourne are now: indeed, a 62-point loss to the Cats on their own turf seems positively tame compared to some of the hidings the Cats have dished out there over the years.
So no, this isn’t a team in crisis. No, this isn’t a club collapsing into ruin. Yes, the sun will shine again on North Melbourne.
Maybe not in a year, or two years. Maybe it’ll take ten, two more coaches, another restarted rebuild and 30 more shellackings like at GMHBA Stadium on Sunday.
But ask any Tigers fan in September 2017, or Melbourne supporter watching from home four years later, whether they ever thought they’d live to see their teams escape the mire. Ours is a game of patience – wait long enough, and the footy universe will bring good things.
Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is to know when to bite the bullet. Especially when that bullet is costing you $700,000 a year.
But for the Bulldogs, Rory Lobb’s performances are now the elephant in the room that can no longer be ignored. It’s now detrimental to the team for him to remain in the side.
It’s not wholly about the numbers, though averaging fewer than 10 disposals, slightly less than a goal a game and having taken just 39 marks in 15 games in red, white and blue, the stats are alarming for anyone, never mind a boom recruit with a hefty price tag.
It’s more that Lobb genuinely has no presence for a man who stands at 206 centimetres tall and weighs in at well over 100 kilograms. He’s even bigger than Tim English – the biggest bloke in the team, in fact – and yet he’s being constantly outpointed, outbodied and outclassed by opponents of all shapes and sizes.
The Magpies paid Lobb the ultimate disrespect by matching him up on Jeremy Howe, who’s a good six inches smaller at least, because they could safely bet that of the Bulldogs’ three talls in attack, he’s the one who’d provide the fewest problems. And sure enough, while Aaron Naughton kicked a bag and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan starred, the third link in the chain was almost nonexistent.
Rory Lobb of the Bulldogs wrestles with Fremantle players. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
The worst moment was in the third quarter, when, under a high ball on the wing, he allowed himself to be nudged under the ball by Howe for Isaac Quaynor to take the easiest intercept mark. It was honestly baffling in the moment to see a player with such an obvious size mismatch get treated like he was Cody Weightman, and not for a second think that maybe using that mismatch to jostle for position and make the contest a battle of strength was a good idea.
The Bulldogs have also lost trust – if indeed they had it to begin with – in him; it’s a common occurrence this year to see a red, white and blue jumper burst upfield, look inside 50, and with Lobb making a lead or calling for the ball, ignore him and try to hit up Naughton or Ugle-Hagan, often in a worse position.
Indeed, the best Lobb has looked was in the second half against North Melbourne when Naughton was deployed in defence, meaning the Dogs often had no choice but to kick to him.
The contrast was stark with Mason Cox up the other end, who might only have had four disposals of his own, but succeeded in his role of bringing the ball to ground in contests more often than not.
Clunking grabs and using his size to good advantage, three of those touches were behinds, with only that inaccurate kicking preventing a decent game at the office. If that is the game Lobb had, then even though the stats wouldn’t have been pretty again, at least there would be a clear purpose to his spot in the team.
This isn’t about replacing him in attack with Sam Darcy, who again excelled in the reserves but in my view isn’t quite ready yet for AFL level. It’s about recognising that the forward structure as it is doesn’t need a six-foot-ten monolith with all the goal nous of Stonehenge.
The Dogs have tried Lobb in a number of positions this year: on the wing, deep in attack, as a roaming centre-half forward, the second ruckman. It’s time to try one more: left right out.
Random thoughts
– Tom Stewart is great, but I’m fairly certain Luke Ryan has had a better season in an identical role.
– Zach Tuohy is just the best.
– This vision of Brad Scott holding up two phones simply must be memed.
– Nice to see Dustin Martin can still hit THAT level.
– If Christian Petracca is flushing set shots now, it’s game over for everyone else.
– Zac Bailey’s reaction to this utter cherry-pick from Eric Hipwood couldn’t have been funnier.
– Just in case the point wasn’t clear: Zach Tuohy is just the best.
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