Friday night football
Following a not-unlikely series of events this weekend – a win for themselves and Adelaide falling short against West Coast on Sunday – Geelong can stay in the hunt for a finals berth by knocking off Collingwood tonight. That would set up a sudden death clash the following week against the Crows at Simmonds Stadium. It shouldn’t have come to this of course, but it would have been worse still if the Cats had failed to secure the consolation of a draw last weekend against St Kilda. All that could lead a cynic to believe that Chris Scott’s side will only be making up the numbers in any event but we’re not cynics, are we?
It’s worth mentioning that a Geelong finals appearance this year would be their ninth consecutive one but this campaign has shades of Hawthorn’s mid-90s sides; tired veterans nearing the end and a host of kids not yet fully capable of picking up the slack. On the topic of slack, Collingwood’s thumping at the hands of Richmond last year continued their horror movie slide down the pecking order over the last few months – a truly dismal eight losses in 10 games - and there’s little left in the way of consolation as the season winds up. Conceding unanswered bursts of four and seven goals in the early stages against the Tigers and then trounced nine goals to one in the final term, they were just insipid last week. Geelong couldn’t possibly find them in a more vulnerable and listless state.
A game that genuinely is worth watching
Let’s be honest, this round is mostly the football equivalent of elevator music but on Saturday afternoon at Etihad Stadium, two buoyant and threatening finals sides – North Melbourne and the Bulldogs - will square off in a game that won’t necessarily affect their finals destination as much as better establish their place among the next-best. The Bulldogs have barely played a decent, in-form side since the first two months of the season and last week against the Eagles got a firm reminder of the gulf between being a contender and being merely very good. Statistically the 77-point loss appeared a mauling but throughout they at least showed how dangerous their counter-attacking game could be if wedded to sterner defensive efforts.
North did pretty much the opposite, upsetting ladder-leading Fremantle to extend their winning streak to seven and going a little of the way to rubbishing the argument that they’ve only capable of beating up on inferior sides. The elephant in the room, both literally and figuratively, is Roos ruckman and Brownlow medal contender Todd Goldstein, who probably took one look at Nic Naitanui and Callum Sinclair demoralising a succession of makeshift Buldogs ruckmen last week and penciled himself in for another three-voter here. Poor Lin Jong, he never really stood a chance.
Bonus: this game will be coming to you live via the Guardian goal-by-goal live blog.
The Crows a chance to lock down a finals spot against West Coast
Adelaide’s aforementioned crunch game at home against West Coast presents them with a simple equation: win and they’ll be playing their first final since that 2012 Preliminary Final heartbreaker against Hawthorn. What heady days they were; Taylor Walker and Kurt Tippett combining for bags of goals; Jason Porplyzia running amok; Ben Rutten still trucking along. This blog can confirm it was a truly bleak atmosphere sitting among Adelaide supporters in the moments after the siren sounded that day but who would have predicted they’d fade so badly from contention in the two years following?
This weekend one thing’s for certain: Josh Kennedy, Callum Sinclair and Mark LeCras won’t have the picnic they enjoyed last week against the Bulldogs. Daniel Talia will reengage battle with Kennedy but at the other end the Eagles welcome back Jeremy McGovern, a pillar of their defence and likely to get the job done on either of Josh Jenkins or Taylor Walker. Both of these sides score heavily and the midfield shoot-out between the likes of Dangerfield, Sloane and Thompson for the Crows and Priddis, Shuey and Gaff for the visitors should provide some slashing football. It’s just a shame this game is at midday on Sunday and not in the marquee Saturday night slot afforded to a pair of truly uninspiring contests elsewhere. Crows fans won’t care one bit if they leave with four points.
Melbourne might be in for some pain
Having stumbled to losses in the previous two weeks and with ignoramus AFL bloggers (ahem) writing them off as Premiership pretenders, the Dockers will probably return to rollicking form this weekend against Melbourne, the latter venturing west like doomed gunslingers who know they’re one inevitable fumble from a bullet. The Dees have lost their last five clashes with the Dockers by an average of 75 points in fact, never kicking more than six goals and not so much misfiring as never reaching the trigger at all.
Crucially in the context of Fremantle’s finals campaign, Nat Fyfe takes a spell last week, something that might have happened a little earlier under different regimes, but Ross Lyon likes his ideal line-up out there every week, linking together seamlessly and finishing each other’s sentences. Back for this one are Matthew Pavlich, Paul Duffield, Clancee Pearce and Matt Taberner, a foursome slightly more imposing than Melbourne’s promotion of the likes of Matt Jones, Jake Spencer and Rohan Bail.
Unfortunately for the Dees, it’s easy to imagine this ending up a little like their Perth trip to play the Eagles in 2012 when Mitch Clark kicked five of their paltry six-goal score and they were smashed to smithereens. This weekend the role of Lone Ranger will be played by Jesse Hogan but if his teammates need any extra motivation for this one they could look no further than milestone man Nathan Jones, who brings up 200 games of hard-nosed service for his club.
The best and worst of the rest
The rest of Round 22 is a little like opening a fresh pack of Scanlens footy cards and discovering that not only is it missing the powdery stick of bubble gum but that you’ve copped two Austin McCrabb’s and a John Ironmonger. GWS meet Carlton in a game that I’ve already heard enthusiastically described as “on at 1:45pm on Saturday” and by the end of his side’s clash with Hawthorn down at Aurora Stadium the same afternoon, Brisbane coach Justin Leppitsch might just wander off into the Tasmanian wilderness in search of a dark and secluded cave.
There’s always a bit of spice in clashes between Essendon and Richmond and though their Saturday night MCG clash will draw certain default crowd numbers, it’s likely that after rallying slightly against the Suns last week, the Dons are vulnerable to the type of hammering Richmond gave the Pies last week. Often a human punching bag for unkind fans, Tyrone Vickery will play his 100th game in that one and fellow tall Dylan Grimes returns for the Tigers. While that’s in progress, Gold Coast and Port Adelaide meet in the clash of 2015’s underachievers and then on Sunday afternoon the Saints, with Jason Holmes’ spring in their step, aim to at least make life difficult for fourth-placed Sydney.
