The Killing of Carlton
Lest there be any doubt about the severity of Carlton’s current predicament, the axe has swung again this week (or is it a dartboard system?) with all of Matthew Watson, Matthew Dick, Kristian Jaksch and David Ellard omitted from the side that was steamrolled by the now far-superior GWS squad. The Blues sit stone motherless last with only one win and the worst defensive record in the league. That’s before mentioning a forward line so impotent that Liam Jones – who threatens to usurp Murray Vance, Shaun Hampson, Geoffrey Edelsten and maybe even Captain Carlton in the annals of Carlton’s great whipping boys - will slot straight back in at full-forward after being banished to the VFL himself only a week back.
All of which is to say that this Carlton side is so bad that Geelong supporters are probably a little fearful that something will eventually go right for the Blues. It has to at some point, right? Still, the Cats’ ‘ins’ this week (James Kelly, Andrew Mackie and Tom Hawkins) are a pretty hardy bunch to call upon and the situation appears even more bleak for Carlton when you consider how few of their selected players (Judd? Carrazzo?) are likely to get the better of their direct opponents.
It’s grislier than Scandinavian noir for the Blues now and the fascination within this clash is likely to be of a similarly morbid brand. On that note, please make sure you join us on the Guardian goal-by-goal live blog for this game, perhaps emailing in to let us know which Carlton player most resembles a character from The Killing.
All aboard the Giants bandwagon
When GWS take on Adelaide at home tomorrow, we might have ourselves a genuine first because the Giants haven’t yet beaten the Crows in a league match and enter this one with a pair of rousing victories behind them. Last week they kicked Carlton while they were down and the week before knocked off a an undermanned version of Premiership-fancies Hawthorn. What is the ceiling for GWS this year?
The all-Sydney Grand Final chatter seems a bit extreme but this winnable game is followed by others against the Bulldogs, Brisbane (at home), Collingwood, North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda and Gold Coast. Say they drop two of those. After Round 16 they could conceivably find themselves 11-4 and starting as clear favourites in roughly half of their remaining games. Not too shabby.
To pour some icy cold water on that optimism, they’ve lost their last four games against the Crows by an average of 97 points and tonight Tex Walker might be pacing around his hotel room like a kid whose Under-14s team is playing against that opposition side where half the players wear Blundstones and the rest don’t turn up. The tables could finally turn though and this game pits two evenly-matched, high-scoring and solidly-defending sides against each other. It should be a belter.
The match of the round
For those needing an excuse not to head down to the local multiplex to see Mad Max: Fury Road on Saturday night, a limb-slashing epic of similar proportions might well play out between Hawthorn and Sydney at the MCG, possibly minus the desert sand and flame-throwing guitars. But you never can tell how far the AFL will take their efforts in fan engagement.
The Hawks welcome back Brian Lake, Isaac Smith and Jordan Lewis as they look to regain some of the consistency that’s gone missing so far in 2015. For all the topsy-turviness of the past months, the Hawks still sit head and shoulders above their next challengers for scoring potency but that will face a stern test against the second-stingiest defence in the league. Fittingly for a Grand Final re-match, it will feature a host of fascinating one-on-one duels; Lake vs Tippett, Frawley vs Franklin, Richards vs Roughead, young blokes with 4-year members scarves vs old blokes with South Melbourne beanies…
Hawthorn should probably win this. They’ve had Sydney’s measure for a few years now and if it’s a bit silly to be calling a Round 8 clash a ‘statement game’ then it’s whatever sits just below that. A polite reminder game? A firm but fair suggestion game? Whatever it is, Hawthorn need to do it.
The curtain raiser returns
So far this season Melbourne fans – surely the most battered and bruised of all sporting fan bases in Australia – have watched on either forlornly or with a little bit of hope in their heart about the transformative experience the Bulldogs have undergone from listless laggards to a kind of glamour side of the competition. There’s nothing so fashionable about the Dees at the moment and the gulf between these two sides is best indicated by the ability of the Dogs to push ladder-leading Fremantle all the way last week.
Of great interest before this game even gets under way is that the curtain-raiser will be the second clash between the two clubs’ respective women’s sides, which both comprise the cream of talent Australia-wide. All bar six returning players on each side have been allocated to their sides through a pre-season draft. A return game is also scheduled when the two clubs meet again later in the year and hopes remain high that the game produces moments as spectacular as Queenslander Tayla Harris’ high-flying mark in 2014. For those who aren’t attending, the AFL will run a live stream service. For those who are, 12:20pm is the start time for the women’s game.
The best and worst of the rest
The rest of the round is the usual mixed bag, kicking off with St Kilda continuing their season-long turn as the league’s own banana skin and hoping West Coast slip up. Don’t say it too loudly but if they avoid calamity here and hold their nerve in the coming months, the Eagles could quite conceivably find themselves 10-2. That just feels a little strange, doesn’t it?
The downward-trending Suns are almost unlovable at the moment and find themselves in the dire situation of being rank outsiders even at home against the Pies, a side they’ve beaten in both of the past two seasons. There’s no such thing as a certainty in football but you’d have to say that there is at least a reasonably high probability that Fremantle will dismantle North Melbourne at Domain Stadium on Saturday night.
A week ago you would have said Essendon would do the same to Brisbane but the Lions really dished it out to Port last week, so what do any of us really know anymore? The bad news for Tigers fans is that Ken Hinkley’s side might unleash a vengeful fury on them as a result and the game will be laced with even more emotion being the 300th and final appearance for Kane Cornes.
