Friday night football
Yes, yes, I know. Carlton on Friday night again. Fixturing napalm and all that. But the thing is, the Blues have actually been a drastically improved side in the last month, so much so that you’d assume caretaker coach John Barker will be right in the running for the job proper when the club sifts through the applications at the end of the year. They’ve lost three on the trot, sure, but fans are no longer threatening to microwave their membership cards. Last week, with 11 players under the 50-game mark, the Blues only trailed Freo by 21 points at the last change at Domain Stadium. That’s significant progress from their diabolical early-season form.
As expected, Carlton’s opponents Hawthorn have in recent weeks reaffirmed their status as the Maserati of football sides, toggling through the gears and preparing to blow past the traffic after spending the early season aimlessly lane-swerving as they set the GPS. They’re too slick, too organised and far too bloody good for anyone at the moment. Even if they had a really off day they’d still beat all bar a couple of sides in the competition. In the last fortnight they’ve blown out Fremantle and Sydney, two of only three sides you’d fancy as being capable of halting their march towards a three-peat. They might sit in 3rd place on the ladder and flags aren’t won in July, but the Hawks are football perfection right now.
Milestone alert: he still looks like a kid next door who knocks and asks if he can have his ball back, but Blues skipper Marc Murphy notches up game number 200 this week. I think I just aged another year.
Bonus: this game will be coming to you live via the Guardian goal-by-goal live blog.
Why? Because we’ve only done one Hawthorn game this year and they’re magnificent.
Adelaide’s road to September
There’s been some wonderful sights in AFL football this year; Patrick Cripps confirming he’s actually better than expected by torching veteran AFL midfielders; Lindsay Thomas planting himself on Adam Saad’s back for so long that he should have paid the Suns defender both a bond and full month’s rent in advance; West Coast proving that you can challenge the top sides in ways that are actually pleasing on the eye. But none of those pulled at the heartstrings like the sight of Adelaide grimly holding on to defeat Port Adelaide and honor their late coach Phil Walsh last week.
This week the Crows face Gold Coast. Who knows what state they’re in emotionally but they were brave and often brilliant last week. If they can hold on in games like that they should easily account for sides like the Suns. Adelaide’s run home afterwards is thus: Sydney at the SCG (hmm, tough one), Richmond at home (also tough), Essendon away (pencil in a win there), Brisbane at home (ditto), West Coast at home (yep, another tough one) and Geelong at Geelong, never a fun roadtrip. That’s a real ask if they’re to play finals football and the Patrick Dangerfield soap opera probably won’t help, but who’d bet against them after watching that magnificent win last week?
How far can Richmond really go this year?
[breathes in deeply] Mmmm, I love the smell of a boil-over in the morning. Well, Richmond actually play Fremantle at 4:35pm on Saturday, but you get my drift. They could beat the Dockers and did so less than two months back. Fremantle don’t really have forward targets, which isn’t the end of the world in this day and age but certainly limits your options as a side that wants to win a flag. Ross Lyon’s men are still a game clear at the top of the ladder at the moment but even given their coach’s general reluctance to tinker with his gameplan, I reckon they should actually use the next few games to throw a few left-field options around in their forward set-up; funky selections; funky positioning; Ross Lyon as George Clinton. They probably won’t though.
Richmond faded badly in last week’s final quarter against the Saints but what’s pleasing for Tiger fans right now is that they’ve won four on the bounce without ever really nailing a four-quarter performance. On account of the early-season win this home game holds no fear factor, but against one of the best clearance sides in the competition they’ll certainly be stretched all afternoon.
Not very long ago there were plenty of reasonable judges who thought that Tigers coach Damien Hardwick should be sacked but good on Richmond for sticking with him when everyone else poured on buckets of scorn. He seems to be flourishing now and none of his players demonstrably want to leave. That’s at least half the battle these days.
What are we to make of Sydney right now?
Saving what might be the best for last, the Sunday afternoon slot is a treat this week as West Coast take on the Swans at Domain Stadium. Eagles defender Jeremy McGovern has quickly evolved into a linchpin for his side – one of several players to take a giant leap this year – but he’ll miss this encounter with a hamstring complaint and thus slightly offset Sydney’s loss of talls Ted Richards (suspended) and Kurt Tippett (injured). At the time of writing young Eagle Tom Barrass is on track to make his league debut and based on his name alone, I can only assume that Adam Simpson has encouraged him to grow mutton chops, a handlebar moustache and arrive at games wearing wide-lapelled royal blue suits.
The home side should probably win this game because Sydney are undermanned and out of form, but a host of returning Swans – Jeremy Laidler, Isaac Heeney and Dean Towers among them - will arrive hungry to state their case for ongoing selection. Given they did the same to Fremantle a week earlier, it’s hard to know what to make of Hawthorn’s annihilation of the Swans last week but in the past few years this is not been a side that gets so badly embarrassed. The way they respond this week will say a little bit about whether they truly stand alongside Fremantle and the Eagles as a genuine hope of knocking off the Hawks in September.
The best and worst of the rest
As debate rages as to whether the Cats need to slash and burn their list and punt some sentimental favourites at season’s end, of more immediate concern is this Saturday’s trip to Canberra and a meeting with GWS. In the Giants’ 15-point win last week, brutish midfielder Devon Smith put on an exhibition, icing his 27 possessions with 4 goals and breaking the game wide open. The Cats will have their hands full containing him, Callan Ward, Toby Greene and Stephen Coniglio around the stoppages.
If Port Adelaide don’t beat Essendon on Saturday night at Etihad, they’ll have come full circle from ‘Premiership aspirant’ to ‘only a mathematical chance of playing finals’ in the space of 17 weeks, which is hardly ideal. Even if they did scrape through they’re not worrying the big boys, which is a sad fate for a side that promised so much. North Melbourne, on the other hand, always loom as a legitimate threat even at a lowly 10th position now. They’ve half-cheered champion Brent Harvey toward his 400th game milestone this week, simultaneously plastering his name on their jumper and refusing to publicly back him to continue on next year towards Michael Tuck’s 426-game landmark. Strange days indeed.
Better still will be Sunday’s clash between the 6th-placed Bulldogs and Collingwood, who are in 9th spot now and fading badly. Coach Nathan Buckley says it’s not just down to Jesse White to kick goals while Travis Cloke is sidelined, but you’d sense he’ll at least need to stand tall in marking contests and give their forward entries some cohesion. Rounding out proceedings are Melbourne and St Kilda, whose starkly-contrasting rebuilds this year have been wearying and surprising, respectively. A game for diehards only, that one.
Bonus feature: you mightn’t have even asked for it and it’s got nothing to do with this round of football, but why not prepare for the weekend by basking in the majesty of Bill Brownless kicking a T.W. Sherrin over a silo in Mirrool. To paraphrase Gareth Keenan, the man’s kicked a football over a silo, what have you done?
