Young Cats starting to deliver
Geelong coach Chris Scott has gone to painstaking lengths this year to repeatedly assure the footy world that he’s not interested in what the triple-premiership Cats team used to be, but rather what the next great Cats side will look like.
On Friday night’s national stage, we all got a glimpse into the future with the Cats’ hard-fought 23-point win over Port Adelaide. Few saw the win coming – Geelong had been particularly diabolical interstate this season (lucky to not lose its recent encounter with West Coast by a triple-figure margin) while the Power appeared to be slowly recapturing its mojo after a middling start to the season.
With prime movers Joel Selwood and Tom Hawkins relatively subdued all night, it was up to Geelong’s young midfielders to stand up. Josh Caddy and Cameron Guthrie, two players with between 65-75 games of experience, answered the call in emphatic style. The pair was simply sensational for four quarters against better-credentialed opponents like Travis Boak and Brad Ebert. Between them, Caddy and Guthrie chalked up 49 disposals (27 of them contested), laid 15 tackles and kicked three goals. In the absence of injured teammate Mitch Duncan, Caddy has had the most consistent month of his career and is growing his outside game to match the grunt he’s shown from his early days at Gold Coast. Guthrie has a fend-off to rival Dustin Martin and an explosive turn of pace which, coupled with his blond mop, occasionally recalls another guy who used to wear No.29 for Geelong (what was his name again?).
Geelong’s 2015 fortunes have ebbed and flowed with its young midfield brigade, and chances are there will be just as many downs as there will be ups to come. But on Friday night, Cats fans got a glimpse of what Scott’s next great side might look like, and they liked what they saw.
The curious case of Carlisle
Jake Carlisle has cut a frustrated and at times lonely figure up forward for the Bombers this season. The big man is playing in a struggling team, his body language analyzed and dissected on a weekly basis, and other clubs are circling the soon to be out of contract swingman. Essendon stubbornly insists he’s a key forward, but Carlisle’s stats don’t reflect it and his best patch of footy remains when he pushed for All-Australian selection as a defender in 2013. The problem for the Bombers is that they already have two A-grade key backs – Cale Hooker and Michael Hurley – and only the gangly Joe Daniher up forward.
Something’s gotta give. And this week it did, with Tom Bellchambers dropped and Carlisle thrown into unfamiliar territory as the club’s number one ruckman. Against Nic Naitanui. In Perth. When the team selection dropped on Thursday, it was hard to know if James Hird was a genius or had lost his marbles.
The result was entirely predictable – Naitanui had 43 hit outs to Carlisle’s 16, and spoon-fed the likes of Andrew Gaff and Matt Priddis all day. 16 to one centre hit-outs told the story, as West Coast romped to a 50-point win. The Bombers were also forced to use Dyson Heppell as a third man up around the ground, robbing them of valuable clearance power. At least this time, the questions weren’t about Carlisle’s endeavor but more so about a coaching move that was always doomed to backfire. The Bombers get next week off before tackling Hawthorn, and you can bet that either Bellchambers or former Giant Jonathan Giles will be in the side. If Carlisle’s manager’s phone has already been running hot with calls from other clubs, you sense he’ll take a few more this week.
One costly quarter kills the Kangaroos…. again
If you’re a glass half full person, you’ll recognize that North Melbourne’s effort and intensity against Sydney on Saturday night was worlds away from the way they were smacked off the park by Hawthorn and Fremantle. If you’re a glass half empty person, you’ll claim that it was still the same old Kangaroos, as a calamitous second quarter cost them any chance of a stirring victory.
The Swans kicked five goals to North’s one in the second stanza, but it was the manner of how the Kangaroos meekly surrendered that was most alarming. At one point the lopsided inside-50 count for the quarter was 16-2 Sydney’s way, and when North’s defenders weren’t letting Luke Parker dance around half a dozen of them before setting up an Adam Goodes goal, they were literally handing the Swans goals on a platter. One of the blunders of the night was Lindsay Thomas fumbling at half-forward on one of the Roos’ rare trips inside their half, allowing Sydney to swoop and set up a coast-to-coast goal to Kurt Tippett.
North regrouped at half time and matched Sydney for the rest of the game; both in the scoreboard and in general play. But the Kangaroos, only two weeks after surrendering nine goals in the third against Collingwood, can’t seem to shake these putrid quarters. All teams have down periods during games, but the elite sides find ways to restrict the scoreboard damage. Until North can do the same, they’re some distance between them and the best.
The Giants aren’t the only team with quality kids
If you’d told somebody back in the good old days of March 2015 that Collingwood v Greater Western Sydney would be a match-of-the-day type blockbuster, you’d be scoffed at. If you suggested that the Pies needed the win to take a big scalp, you’d be met with derision. But in mid-June, that’s where we found ourselves, the two teams evenly matched on 7-3 before playing out a game that was spirited for three quarters until Collingwood pulled away for an impressive seven-goal win.
For all the talk about the Giants’ youngsters and how good the likes of Dylan Shiel, Adam Treloar and Jeremy Cameron will be, Collingwood made a statement that some of their own kids are worthy of similar hype.
Taylor Adams, originally drafted by the Giants and traded for Heath Shaw at the end of 2013, was the team’s leading possession-winner with 36. His ball use occasionally lets him down, but he’s going a long way to fill the hard-as-a-cats-head role filled by the retired Luke Ball.
The unheralded Adam Oxley entered the season on just two games but has played all 11 so far, and continues to show poise and dash off halfback.
The classy, creative Tim Broomhead had a career-high disposal count (25) and looks a beauty, while Brisbane supporters must rue watching Jack Crisp in the black and white. The 21-year-old arrived at the club this year as part of the Dayne Beams trade, and has been one of the Magpies’ best all year. Pleasingly for the Pies, Dane Swan and Scott Pendlebury played bit part roles to the youngsters, and Travis Cloke didn’t cut loose until his four-goal final quarter.
The Pies will be tested after the bye with Fremantle (away), Hawthorn and Port Adelaide (away) in successive weeks, but 8-3 is an excellent launching pad to attack the second half of the season and barring a spate of injuries similar to last year, finals beckon.
The most exciting 90 seconds of football for the year
For more than 20 minutes, it looked like there wouldn’t be a goal scored in the final quarter of the pulsating St Kilda v Melbourne clash. This was a truly enjoyable game from start to finish, full of lead changes, momentum shifts and dominant performances by Nick Riewoldt (four goals) at one end and first-year man mountain Jesse Hogan (five goals) at the other.
With the scores level at the final break, St Kilda peppered the goals for more than 15 minutes but couldn’t deliver a major. When the Demons finally got an opportunity, Jesse Hogan missed a chance to land his sixth major and put his side in front. Seconds later, Jeremy Howe took a strong contested mark and, belying the goal-kicking nerves that had marred both sides, slotted an extremely tough shot. There were 45 seconds on the clock, the Dees were in front, and it seemed they were about to break their 20-game losing streak at Etihad Stadium and 10-game losing streak to the Saints.
Not quite. Jack Steven roved the centre bounce and was involved seconds later in belting the ball inside 50m, where it clean bowled several players and bounced up into the arms of Leigh Montagna, who banged it into the third tier.
You couldn’t script it if you tried: 24 minutes without a goal, and then two that led to two lead changes in the space of just 57 seconds. Ecstasy to agony for the Demons, no doubt, but enough to have any neutral supporter up off the couch. It was without a doubt the most exciting 90 seconds of any game this season, and a fitting end to an entertaining round.
