Just three matches remain in the 2016 season as the best finals series in living memory hurtles towards its conclusion. Another engrossing weekend is in prospect with two contrasting match-ups showcasing the best this rollercoaster of a season has to offer.
The subplot to both matches is the impact of the pre-finals bye week, meaning Geelong and GWS have both played only once in three weeks. Will they be rested and cherry ripe, or underdone and cold?
Geelong vs Sydney
Nearing the end of an unpredictable year there’s something reassuring about knowing Geelong or Sydney will make the grand final. Both are blue chip stocks, the kind investors squirrel away and forget about, only to nod sagely when they’re reminded how they’ve increased in value, again, ahead of schedule.
It’s five years since Geelong’s last premiership, four for Sydney, and both line-ups reflect the hybrid nature of their list development. Eight Cats and seven Swans will bring flag-winning experience to bear on Friday night, while Sydney have named eight men and Geelong five with fewer than 50 games of league football under their belts.
With home state advantage, one match in the calendar month, and an almost entirely fit squad, the Cats will start nominal favourites. If there is a concern it could be the growing feeling among the league that the Cats’ defence is vulnerable at ground level, and Sydney have no shortage of small forwards to exploit this perceived weakness. At the other end the absence of Daniel Menzel with an adductor injury is both heartbreaking and significant. The intelligent mid-sized forward is a vital link in Geelong’s attacking chain and his composure and vision will be hard to replace.
John Longmire’s biggest distraction is the fitness of his troops after two gruelling finals and a succession of injuries. Coming off a six-day break there’s no doubt the Swans will be playing sore, but will it be an impediment significant enough to prevent them going toe to toe with the Cats for four quarters? Thursday’s team sheets revealed Jarrad McVeigh and Callum Mills have not been named but Kurt Tippett, Zak Jones and Gary Rohan all have. Expect the Cats to put plenty of bodywork into all three early on and attempt to emulate the success of GWS two weeks ago.
There’s not a wealth of incidental material to draw upon to help better predict this outcome. Sydney have won three of the last four between these teams, including their only meeting this season at Simonds Stadium. The MCG could be a factor. The Swans have only played there twice this season, and not since round nine. The Cats have played there five times, winning on four occasions, and this season moved into a new training facility at Deakin University fitted with an MCG-sized oval.
All indicators point to a cliffhanger. Only percentage separated the two sides on the ladder, and there’s little margin between them in most of the key statistical categories. One area that does stand out is Geelong’s comparative dominance of centre clearances. The Cats showed against Hawthorn that when Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood get on a centre clearance roll they can generate considerable momentum.
Talking Point: If you’re following Friday’s action somewhere other than the MCG and you’re looking for a drinking game guaranteed to make you wake up on Saturday cursing the world, try taking a sip every time you’re reminded of NIck Davis’ 2005 heroics, and Anthony Hudson’s despairing, “I see it, but I don’t believe it”.
Greater Western Sydney vs Western Bulldogs
Bolt vs Gatlin, Gilmore vs McGavin, POWs vs Nazis; sport is always more entertaining when there’s a clear good versus evil storyline. Not that it’s fair to say the Greater Western Sydney Giants are that monstrous quite yet, more that they’re a necessary evil in the AFL’s empire-building masterplan (although some reports would lead you to believe they’re jamming at the crossroads with Robert Johnson).
Fortunately our tale has a team of heroes primed to derail the expansionist juggernaut. Appropriately styled in red white and blue, and motivated by a scrappy backstory full of hard luck and pathos, the Western Bulldogs are becoming Australia’s most loved neutral’s choice since Shannon Noll.
But unlike the safe redemptive world of fiction, in real life the good guys don’t always finish first. And the Bulldogs will be hard pressed to overcome GWS at Spotless Stadium on Saturday evening. The Giants won six of eight at home in 2016, accounting for Hawthorn, Sydney and the Bulldogs along the way. That round nine defeat is the only time the Doggies have top-level experience at the Giants’ home.
The Victorians will be carrying plenty of historical baggage into the contest. A record of only one win in ten previous preliminary finals is a significant albatross around the club’s neck. Especially when that record, and the solitary premiership 62 years ago, could be matched in less than a fortnight by a club in only its fifth season.
The Giants, rested, confident, and with an enviable array of options, will start as favourites. Their midfield is one of the few that stacks up against the Dogs, and their mix of dangerous talls and smalls at both ends of the ground pose awkward questions for Luke Beveridge. Jeremy Cameron kicked five when these teams last met, and his combination with Jonathon Patton and Rory Lobb doesn’t look a natural fit for the Bulldogs defence, although Matt Suckling’s injury has opened the door for Fletcher Roberts to line up on one of those tall targets.
The Bulldogs showed their template for success against Hawthorn: bodies committed to every contest, clean hands, and waves of fast ball movement forward. If their combative midfield group can control the tempo, as they did in their previous two upset final wins, a third could be on the cards.
I hope they do it, but I can’t tip them to. The GWS kids were born for this stage. They have the skills and the swagger, and enough senior bodies to shepherd them through, even without the suspended Steve Johnson’s mongrel.
Talking Point: The venue for this preliminary final has been a hotly debated issue but ticket sales suggest the 24,000 capacity Spotless Stadium is spot on. It’s easy to wander into discussions about fairness when it comes to choices like this, but the reality is they’re always going to be business decisions - based around stadium contracts, best-fit, and maximising revenue for the AFL. That doesn’t mean they’re always right, of course, but any perceived interference should be presumed a commercial reality, not administrative favouritism.
Photograph of the week
The most emphatic moment of the Bulldogs’ victory over Hawthorn last week was Marcus Bontempelli shoving Luke Hodge to the ground in a second quarter marking contest. It was the catalyst for the comeback that stunned the triple-premiers and laid down a marker that the young pups were coming of age.
Quote of the week
People can walk around with negatives all of their lives, tell them to get a life. I had a person tell me the other day, ‘look, it’s very unfair for Melbourne clubs with the Giants making it’. I said ‘go back to Hawthorn 20 years ago when they nearly merged with Melbourne’. They didn’t sit there and sulk. They got out and worked their butts off and have what, three premierships, nearly four, and been in grand final after grand final. That’s what whingers and sooks should go and look at. The reconstruction of Hawthorn has been one of the best deals ever done and built in the AFL.
Inaugural Giants coach Kevin Sheedy has no time for critics of his former club.
Bits and Bobs
Focus on Footy, we hardly knew ye. Which is probably for the best.
