Vale Phil Walsh
It’s safe to say that this is a rewrite. Normally Friday is a good day for football fans. If you’ve missed the team lists on Thursday night you grab the morning paper and look forward to the weekend with renewed hope – better players in, strugglers out, or so you tell yourself. But there can’t have been many worse Friday mornings in football than this one with news filtering through of the tragic death of Adelaide coach Phil Walsh, the dire predicament of his wife Meredith and sadness of his family. Elswhere, it’s just a feeling of shock and disbelief.
When previewing Adelaide’s fixture against Geelong that may or may not happen on Sunday afternoon – and his poor players deserve every bit of understanding we can manage – I’d originally remarked that Walsh had just last week described himself as a “glass half full guy” and thought that such optimism would be handy for his side. Last week he’d talked about football as art. I said that statements like that made him hard not to love and it was true, because Walsh made football seem so much more fun, so much less self-regarding and a place of far greater integrity, a place where people would smile and remember that it was just a game.
In a revealing interview with the Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson in April – perhaps the most heartening football story all year and the point at which many of us instantly warmed to Walsh – the coach outlined his philosophies, not just for football, but for life. What emerged was a driven, humble and kind man, a workaholic who loved his job. “The club is for the fans and we move on,” he said at one point. No individual was bigger than the team. Walsh was an “open-plan” coach who did away with offices and involved himself in his players’ lives. “I don’t do it to tick a box,” he said, “I do it because I care about [each player] as a person.”
Achingly poignant now is a passage in which Walsh described the impact that a single-minded approach to coaching work can have on families, a problem he seemed keenly aware of and so took steps to reconnect with his children. “A couple of months ago,” said Walsh, “we all went surfing together at Middleton and it was almost the best day I’ve had ... ever. We all got a wave, went to the bakery on the way home, we smiled, and laughed and there was none of this stuff, that I’ve got Melbourne, then the Bulldogs, then Port. Just none of that.’’
If any moment this season symbolised how Walsh should be remembered surely it’s his move to counter Fremantle midfield superstar Nat Fyfe not with a defensive, negating tagger like a less cerebral coach would, but with the best and most creative player at his disposal, Patrick Dangerfield. After that game, which Adelaide narrowly lost after Dangerfield and Fyfe had thrilled fans like no other pairing of players this season, Walsh had something to add. “Call me a weirdo,” he started in what was fast becoming a signature Walsh phrase - a warning that some pearl was to come – “but I think we have to protect the look of the game.”
Football is now a worse place without Phil Walsh and this round of games a sad, hollow prospect. What follows below are previews written before his death, written I hope with the same spirit of joy that Walsh seemed to feel whenever he was near a football ground. He will be missed.
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Your match of the round
When did Pies coach Nathan Buckley go and get so damned likable? That’s what I want to know. Half-way into a season in which nobody really expected his Collingwood squad to rise far above mediocrity, and not that far removed from that chest-puffing, chin-thrusting, taking-himself-a-bit-too-seriously career, Buckley’s somehow morphed into someone whose utterances on the game are must-listen material. He’s sensible. He’s humble. He changes your mind on things, showing you the light in a plain-speaking, world-weary manner. Sometimes he’s even funny. The guy they used to call FIGJAM? Remarkable stuff.
Anyway, Buckley’s side probably could have snatched an unlikely away win against the Dockers last week – failing only in the sense of not landing a knock-out blow in the final term – so you doubt they’ll approach Hawthorn this week with any fear. Aside from this being the marquee match-up of the round, happily this game will also provide us our first glimpse at league level of highly-rated Darcy Moore, son of Pies legend and Brownlow medalist Peter. He’ll debut for Collingwood alongside Brayden Maynard.
Godspeed also to Hawks ruckman Jarryd Roughead, who’ll miss at least a couple of weeks after the removal of a melanoma from his lip. With he and James Frawley the significant ‘outs’ for the Hawks Matt Spangher and Ryan Schoenmakers step in as very capable key position replacements. Modern marvel Cyril Rioli also returns to harass defenders into cold sweats.
The Tigers are red-hot favourites and that feels good
Having beaten Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Sydney away already this season, Richmond deserve to sit comfortably inside the top eight at the moment and I’d go as far as to say the finals will this season be much better for their presence. Their line-up is settled, they defend with intent, they get an even contribution from 1 to 22, they seem to believe in each other and every week you find yourself looking forward to watching them play. In front of a vocal crowd at the ‘G, they should comfortably account for GWS on Saturday.
The Giants must have been happy for the Bye last week, anything to give them some relaxation time and the breathing space to reboot the season because against North Melbourne a week before their midfield was thoroughly rinsed, losing the centre clearances by an alarming margin of 20-4. This is a promising side on the way up but they can’t surrender the battle in the middle so badly if they expect to get close to the Tigers. There’s a pleasing quota of mongrel in this game; Devon Smith, Dustin Martin, Dylan Shiel, Anthony Miles; Adam Treloar. Maybe the Tigers can really ramp it up and get Jake King back as runner. Poor discarded Steve Morris – this game is tailor-made for him.
Ablett is back! Look, Gary Ablett stuff! It’s him! It really is!
Like Neighbours without Harold Bishop or Van Halen without David Lee Roth, there’s been something seriously unsettling about this Gary Ablett-free AFL season but tomorrow night against North Melbourne, the sorely-missed football genius returns. That this event occurs in the shadow of an apparent recreational drug crisis at the club is not ideal and unless he gathers 60 possessions and breaks Fred Fanning’s goal-scoring record in the one game, Ablett can’t really be expected to divert attention from the Suns’ current dilemmas.
Joining him in the side after a long lay-off is fellow on-baller David Swallow, but they’re up against stiff odds to continue their club’s 2-game winning streak (is that even a streak? I guess I’m trying to be positive) against North, who haven’t won this fixture since 2012. And the Roos? They should be fine and let’s face it, if you can’t beat Gold Coast at the moment you certainly can’t call yourselves unlucky. At one point early this year a few of us attempted to discard the brake system from the Ben Brown bandwagon because it seemed surplus to requirements but his fortunes have dipped in recent weeks and he now finds himself omitted for Majak Daw. That hurts.
This week the Roos also unveiled a commemorative ‘Boomer’ guernsey to be worn when Brent Harvey reaches the rarified 400-game mark at some point in the next month, which is either an unconventional and harmless tribute to a club legend or a rather unfortunate visual representation of the club’s lack of team success in the last 15 years, depending on your mood.
The best and worst of the rest
If you thought last week’s fixturing was lacking inspiration, the off-Broadway clashes in Round 14 thankfully hold far more interest, with Fremantle’s likely demolition of the Lions on Sunday the only purely academic result. To put this in perspective, the last time Brisbane beat the Dockers you could still use the name “Albert Proud” and the words “AFL footballer” in the same sentence. I think a football somewhere just spontaneously deflated.
Likely to have too much class for a sneakily-resurgent Carlton, the Bulldogs this week engaged in one of the most unconventional damage limitation exercises in recent memory when they told injured on-baller Tom Liberatore that they’d feel more comfortable if he ditched an end-of-season trip to Europe in favour of a holiday in Thailand. I mean, what could possibly go wrong there for a young lad on the tear?
Melbourne again head off for a ‘home’ game in Darwin with minimal chance of victory against the second-placed Eagles and the main point of interest out of St Kilda’s clash with freefalling Essendon is what kind of damaging impact to the Bombers’ psyche it could have if they’re losing streak extends to five games. It’s a genuine possibility the way both sides are playing right now.
